In Seville, we enjoyed a Flamenco performance and paella dinner. I found more Moorish architecture to draw. The building with a green-and-white striped tile dome is on the Avenida de la Constitucion.
In addition to the usual waterproof black pen and aquarelle colored pencils, I added some decorative scribbles with a white gel pen.
Continuing to catch up with sketches from Spain, the highlight of this town is the Cordoba Mosque. The breathtaking series of candy-striped arches is shown here, along with my attempt to capture it on paper.
I also had the opportunity to sketch a street scene, featuring this “Marrakesh” souvenir shop. While I was working, the owner of another shop, just out of frame, came to his doorway and offered me a chair. I was nearly finished, so I declined, but I crossed the street to show him the sketch. He immediately brought me next door to meet the owner of the Marrakesh shop. He took a photo of the page, and we agreed to Friend each other on FaceBook.
We begin to see more Moorish influence in architecture and ornament. I am delighted with the colorful tile patterns on walls and domes.
On our way down the coast of Spain, toward Valencia, we stopped at the little town of Peniscola, where a medieval castle was used in the filming of the 1960s epic “El Cid.” (remember Sophia Loren?). Climbing the steep and winding streets, I got a good view of this charming house overlooking the Mediterranean.
After three weeks of sketching in the Iberian Peninsula, I’m eager to catch up. Let’s begin with Barcelona, the only city on this trip that I had visited before—22 years ago. The moderniste architecture was even more amazing than I remembered. Variable thickness lines in the sketch above were done with a Sailor bent nib fountain pen. When the pen dried up, I searched for waterproof ink all over Barcelona, with my new friend…Maria Picasso, a fellow member of ISCA, the International Society of Caricature Artists.
This Barcelona skyline was improvised from the terrace at our hotel. The elements were all there, but I moved them around and changed their size. Notice the Sagrada Familia cathedral in the background…it’s still not finished! The playful forms at Parc Guell are some of Antonin Gaudi’s most delightful creations.
I spent three days on the Monterey peninsula, and I forgot to bring my sketching supplies along. That turned out to be a good thing, because I discovered a great resource—Imagine art supplies in Pacific Grove.
Here are stages in my sketch of
El Torito, a Mexican Restaurant in Cannery row.
My first strokes, in red aquarelle pencil, didn’t please me, so I used green to fix it. I used this very quick pencil layout to guide my ink drawing, using a Micron 08 for the thin lines and a Faber-Castell B (Brush) pen for the bold black accents. More color was applied.
The final sketch has water-brush effects and a few details
created with a uniball Signo opaque white pen.
The sketching workshop in San Rafael yesterday focussed on people. After a refresher on basic proportions of the human head and body, we warmed up by drawing from photos, then went to the Aroma Cafe for practice “in the wild.”
The blue and green couple, above, was created by a new student with no prior experience. I did add some finishing touches, using an indigo colored pencil.
That big guy with the beard and curly pony tail was an attractive subject for several of us. Here’s my version, in purple and gold.
Sketching people without their knowledge is a skill worth developing. Find an advantageous point of view at just the right distance. Work very fast to lay out the basic “line of action” of the pose (Thanks to Suhita Shrodkar for that term). People sitting by themselves are likely to move around less than folks who are sitting together. Hand gestures while talking are a challenge. You can choose one position and draw it from memory, or make the moving hand deliberately out of focus.
This fellow was waving his right hand around quite a bit as he talked. A collaboration between me and a student ended up with a closed hand held up to his face.
Another collaboration, below, shows a man with white hair seated against a black background. Using that dark area for contrast made the white hair stand out nicely.
