All in a Day's Work

We just got back from San Francisco. Bob and I spent a week babysitting for our three grandsons, one 7-year-old, and twins, 2½ years old. Needless to say, there wasn't a lot of time to sketch and paint! In between naps (I use the term loosely,) laughter, tears, hugs, kisses, kites, and treats, I did manage a couple.

Déjà Vu! On the Road Again

We spent Thanksgiving in San Francisco and celebrated our twin grandsons' first birthdays. Not a lot of time to sketch but here are some quickies I managed to do.

Airports and airplanes are great for people watching and therefore always fodder for my sketchbook! The note in the corner is from Frances Belleville's new book 

Sketch!: The Non-Artist's Guide to Inspiration, Technique, and Drawing Daily Life - a good read.

There's nothing quite like walking along the Pacific coast – breathtaking both literally and figuratively!

I decided to number the pages in this travel sketchbook. I'm keeping  an index on the first page and will fill it in as I go along. HA! just noticed I didn't number these last two pages. That's next on today's "to do" list.

Thumbs Up

A quick thumbnail of the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco as seen from Starbucks in the Persidio. Actually, I scribbled a few lines while waiting for my Grande Skinny Vanilla Latte and splashed on the color later. This little doodle is also exercise #12 in One Watercolor a Day!

Every Cloud's Silver Lining

Heading to San Francisco – Rain delay at O'Hare

Heading home to Chicago – Delayed departure in San Francisco

Another delay in Phoenix!

Recently, I spent a week in San Francisco. Let's call it a "working vacation".  My six month old grandson had surgery (all is well!).  I went to help with caring for his twin and five year old brother. Needless to say there was no time to sketch while on duty but the weather delays to and from SF gave me time for a quick sketch or two.

Look What I Found!

In the spring we were in California for a wedding. We drove from Malibu, the site of the wedding, to San Francisco to visit family. We made many stops along the way to enjoy the sights.

While I was doing a little computer file maintenance I came across these sketches that I never posted. They're not all winners but the sights and the trip were!

At the Santa Monica Pier

The Page Museum, a.k.a. La Brea Tar Pits -The bird skeletons intrigued me, so elegant in a strange way

This looks like fall but it was spring and these were the colors I saw.

Vermeer is one of my favorites. I was delighted to catch this exhibit.
Like I said not every page is a winner! 

Hello Out There!

It has been a VERY long time since my last post. I don't know what happened but it did. The old creative block hit me - hard! All my creative energy was consumed by the computer and there was nothing left for sketchbooks and paper.

The muse didn't give up on me and a scheduled trip to San Francisco coincided with the World Wide Sketchcrawl for Japan on Saturday, April 16. I was able to take a couple of hours to sketch with the San Francisco group at Dolores Park. And what a group it was, my guess, there were at least fifty people sketching around the Mission. Thank you all for your hospitality! And thanks to my husband and family who encouraged "Nana" to go. I'm a little rusty but hope I'm getting back into the groove.






Here are two more from the week.

Serendipity

We'll be heading out to San Francisco for a few days in April. I've pulled out some old SF travel logs and sketch books to browse through and possibly post a few oldies. Lo and behold, Cathy (Kate) Johnson (AKA Kate the Great to me) posted a great sketch of flowering tea. You can see her sketch here. Serendipitous!

These are two sketches done in 2007 in a Moleskine City Notebook, San Francisco.