Art & Story Blog

Pretty much all of the actual drawing and painting I managed to do while on vacation I did one morning in Holly Springs, Mississippi. My girlfriend and I stayed with friends in a beautiful house built in 1861. Here’s a sketch:

Tomorrow, another sketch and a watercolor from the yard.

I went out to the Angeles National Forest yesterday for a day-long landscape class with Karl Gnass. We moved very slowly along the Switzer Falls trail, with no intention of making it to the falls. Instead, we strolled along the trail that runs alongside and criss-crosses the creek, stopping about every quarter-mile or so.

I got a chance to break in my new Moleskine Watercolor Sketchbook, Japanese Water-Brush Pen, and Windsor & Newton Sketcher’s Pocket Box of Watercolors. It had been a while since I’d used any watercolors, and it was my first time using the Water-Brush Pen, so there was a little bit of a learning curve. Needless to say, there are a few that I won’t be posting on here. The above watercolor was my last of the day. I really took my time with it, and in fact, stayed after everyone had left, so I could finish it. I wanted at least one pretty picture out of this!

Below are some sketches from earlier in the day, before I broke out the paints. The sketch of the snake is the real deal. We were all sitting by the creek, when this snake slithered casually by the feet of one girl in the class. She was about 5 to 10 feet away from me when it happened. We thought maybe it was a rattlesnake without the rattle.

Jamie and I came across this handsome old car while out in Venice yesterday, and as we pulled into the spot kitty-corner to it in the parking lot, we couldn’t help but acknowledge its resemblance to a certain Paul Newman-voiced character. It even had a stunning dark-blue paint job. Jamie ran a quick errand while I hung out and did a quick sketch.

A couple minutes later, the owner showed up and we got to chatting. Turns out that he’s a retired technical illustrator. Primarily jets and cars, from what I recall. He also mentioned that he had a friend named Nicola Wood who does paintings of cars and with some pretty interesting techniques. He was very friendly and even invited me out to have breakfast with he and Nicola sometime this week!

Later, Jamie and I were watching The Fog of War on DVD and saw some old stock footage of what looked like this very car or perhaps the sedan model, rolling off of the assembly line.

Serendipity at work.

By the way, I also have some beach sketches from yesterday, which I will post later.