Drawing Lab: Pile of Books

This drawing lab took me FOREVER.  Which is why I haven't posted a drawing lab in so long.  The instructions were to go to the library and grab a pile of books and spend some time there flipping through them and drawing whatever caught your fancy.  Now every time I go to the library I always have a 3 year old with me, so I do not have the luxury of sitting around for an hour or so flipping quietly through books, so I checked a pile out and took them home - and spent WAY more than an hour on it.  I spent several nights on this - mostly because I grabbed books that were actually interesting to me, so I couldn't just flip - I had to stop and read and scan and absorb the juicy tidbits - I wish I had time to actually read the whole books - but I've had the pile now so long that they are officially overdue and unrenewable.  oops.  So back they go tomorrow.  I didn't even get to sketching on some of them - but here are the ones I did.

I love those bears.

In a nice moment of synchronicity, when I began this project I was also reading The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp - and I'd just read her description of "scratching" which is a very similar process she uses when she is looking for ideas - except instead of sketching things in a book, she puts objects, notes, cuttings etc into boxes, a separate box for each project she's working on.  That really appeals to my disorderly-yet-ordered packrat nature :)  I will resist though.  i could quickly fill all available storage space that way.

Adding some color

Some of these I added color onsite - some I tried to rescue an unfinished or unfortunate drawing with some color - I think I'm going to try to go back in on unsuccessful drawings with watercolor more often.  Because, yunno, paint is fun.  ;)

Loose Park - during soccer practice

The trees in my neighborhood get hacked at mercilessly to make way for power-lines.  I want to draw them and draw them.  I added color later with this one, only had a few moments to sketch some quick lines while the kiddos piddled around on the sidewalk with something during a walk.

One of the Fric N Frac drawings that I didn't consider a success.  I'm not sure the color helped much though :)

Antioch Park, walls and trees.

Loose Park for soccer practice again.  I drew this little tree in pencil and the little sister of one of the soccer players said, "that's a pretty good tree." And I said, "thanks, what would you do to make it better?" And she gave the question some serious thought and said, "I would color it green" and then she produced a green colored pencil for me, so I colored it green :)

Found!

Huge thanks to Gram and Dun for calling me when they found my sketchbook!  I'm super happy to have it back.  It's funny though - while it was gone, in my memory the book was filled with nothing but the most amazing drawings I've ever done. Once I got it back I realized that, actually, they weren't as fabulous as my memory led me to believe.  But there were still some gems that I'm happy to have back. :)

one of my favorites - Playing Plants vs Zombies on the iPod kept him still long enough that I could really get into those curls

Near Loose Rose Gardens - combined thick and thin sharpie markers.

Jonas in the sand box

Jonas at Fric N Frac

Other people enjoying tacos out the window at Fric N Frac

Another Fric N Frac patron - drawn through the window.  I like drawing people out the window - if they were sitting inside the same distance away I wouldn't feel comfortable staring at them enough to draw them, but the pane of glass creates a soothing barrier.  :)

In which I mourn my lost sketch book

I keep thinking it will pop up - I'll look in the same place I've looked four times already and there it will be.  But I'm beginning to realize that it's really, actually gone.

The little sketch book I carry around in my purse is missing missing missing.  And I was just thinking that it was past time to photograph the good bits and update here.  boo.

The most annoying part is - my name and email and phone number is right in the front!  Call me!!  Surely somebody would open such a thing before they toss it into the trash.  Surely somebody would realize that this is the equivalent of a found camera and, crappy though those drawings may be they are my little memories that I wanted to keep of the last month.  Right?  Call me!  Give it back!

Grumble pout crank.

And I wasn't planning on loosing it, so I don't have a back-up of the right size.  So now I need to hit the art store.

Grumble.

So updates this month will be thin.  While I recreate all the lovely wheels that I lost.

Boo.