If it’s Thursday, it must be Thoreau

Inspired by my sketch of David Bowie, I decided to practice drawing more faces in ink. It’s difficult to find modern professional photographs that haven’t been touched up, so I did a search for Daguerrotypes. And up popped everyone’s favorite civil disobedient, Henry David Thoreau.

He was fun to draw. Lots of wrinkles and ridiculous hair. And he was, quite possibly, the original neckbeard. It’s the complete opposite of today’s styles: a clean-shaven face with a big bushy beard on the neck. Ugh. Glad that went out of style.

Goddess of the Night

One of the cool things about Journal52 is that there are often little bonuses with the weekly prompts. Week 4 included a mini class (more like a paint-along) which was originally part of Effy‘s online class Moonshine 2014.

This is one of those pieces that I could spend a long time explaining what went wrong but honestly, I spent a random Wednesday evening making this instead of watching TV or reading Facebook, so I’ll call it a win. Really, any filled sketchbook page is an achievement, no matter how it turns out.

The idea here is that this is a stylized self-portrait as goddess of the night. It was an interesting exercise in (1) drawing using someone else’s techniques and (2) trying out all kinds of new materials together. For example, this was my first attempt at acrylics and wow did I ever make a mess (and that was before I knocked over my water glass). I also discovered that I really like opaque inks, like the gel pens, metallic markers, and white pigment marker.

All in all, I think I like her. It feels good to do something different from time to time.

Materials: Artist’s Loft acrylic paints, Windsor & Newton pigment markers, Prismacolor markers, Copic markers, assorted gel pens, pencil, American Crafts metallic markers, Stabilo point 88 pen.

Journal52 – Week 3

Though I first subscribed to the weekly prompts from Journal52 back at the beginning of 2014, this year I’ve actually started doing them.

You may have noticed this is week 3. That’s intentional. I’m only sharing the ones I’m particularly pleased with.

Anyway, this year there are two prompts each week, always related in some fashion, and week 3 was either your favorite David Bowie lyric (since he’d just passed away), or favorite song lyric in general. I don’t really have any favorite lyrics, Bowie or otherwise, but I’ve always liked the concept of serious moonlight, so this is what I came up with:

Portraiture is not my strong suit, and drawing in pen can feel a bit daring since you can’t erase any stray marks, but I enjoyed doing this one.

Materials: Staedtler triplus fineliner, Prismacolor markers.

Sketchbook Peek: Backpack Brigade

It was Friday morning and it was too early to leave for the gym yet, so I did a very quick sketch of all the bags I take with me that day: one for work, one for the gym, and one for my laptop to take to a write-in after work. Despite rushing through, and not coloring it until later that day, I was still late for the gym. Figures.

Sketchcrawl: Smithsonian

I met up with the DC Urban Sketchers group on the day after Christmas to do a little drawing at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. We met by the elephant in the foyer, drew that, then split up for an hour or so. I visited the T. Rex and the mammals hall briefly – an hour isn’t as much time to draw as I thought! Ordinarily I would have scanned in each page separately but I liked how this spread looked across both pages:

After lunch, I set off on my own to the National Gallery of Art to draw a few statues. This possibly Milanese helmet is the only drawing I care to share, though. The others turned out…not so great.

Cat Comic: Equality

Echo and I are quite egalitarian.

Cat Comics: Seasonal Ninja

Hat tip to Will for the idea.

Year-End Book Wrap-up 2015

Books Read in 2015:
1. Summer Knight by Jim Butcher
2. Twilight: The Graphic Novel, vol. 2 by Stephenie Meyer and Young Kim
3. The Fly by Elise Gravel
4. Death Masks by Jim Butcher
5. ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy by Gavin Edwards
6. The Lynne Truss Treasury by Lynne Truss
7. Everyday Matters by Danny Gregory
8. Bright Lights, Big Ass by Jen Lancaster
9. A History of PI by Petr Beckmann
10. The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke
11. Midnighters: Touching Darkness by Scott Westerfeld
12. Stimulated! by Andrew Pek and Jeannine McGlade
13. Farscape: Dark Side of the Sun by Andrew Dymond
14. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes by John H. Watson
15. Cosmos by Carl Sagan
16. Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman et al
17. Tolstoy’s Short Fiction by Leo Tolstoy
18. Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark by Ridley Pearson
19. The Stranger and the Statesman by Nina Burleigh
20. Krakatoa by Simon Winchester
21. Latitude Zero by Gianni Guadalupi and Antony Shugaar
22. Torchwood: Another Life by Peter Anghelides
23. The Tower Room by Dorothy Daniels
24. Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming by Roger Zelazny and Robert Sheckley (reread)
25. Art Before Breakfast by Danny Gregory
26. If You Want To Write by Brenda Ueland
27. The Art of Urban Sketching: Drawing On Location Around The World by Gabriel Campanario
28. If at Faust You Don’t Succeed by Roger Zelazny and Robert Sheckley
29. Urban Sketching Handbook: Architecture and Cityscapes by Gabriel Campanario
30. Nathaniel’s Nutmeg by Giles Milton
31. Night of the Avenging Blowfish by John Welter
32. Finder by Emma Bull

Books Listened to in 2015:
1. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
2. Blade Runner by Philip K. Dick
3. The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean
4. The Silence of Murder by Dandi Daley Mackall
5. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
6. The Scavengers by Michael Perry
7. NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
8. Stories edited by Nail Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio
9. My Fair Lazy by Jen Lancaster
10. Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman
11. Barrel Fever by David Sedaris
12. Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks
13. Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves
14. The Meaning of Everything by Simon Winchester
15. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
16. Birdseye by Mark Kurlansky
17. The Boys from Brazil by Ira Levin
18. Flight by Sherman Alexie
19. God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens
20. Once Upon a Time in the North by Philip Pullman
21. The Poisoner’s Handbook by Deborah Blum
22. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
23. How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown
24. The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor
25. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
26. The Bane Chronicles by Cassandra Clare
27. A Curious Man by Neal Thompson
28. Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen by Terrance Dicks
29. Hearts, Keys, and Puppetry by Neil Gaiman and the Twitterverse
30. Pebble in the Sky by Isaac Asimov
31. Seeing Redd by Frank Beddor
32. Street Gang by Michael Davis
33. The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons by Sam Kean
34. The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer
35. Little Bee by Chris Cleave
36. Fortunately, The Milk by Neil Gaiman
37. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
38. Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

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Cat Comic: CASA

Comic: Time

It wouldn’t bother me so much if I had the ability to set the time on anything. When’s that meeting, again?

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