Five Minute Sketches

Five minutes is not a lot - but sometimes you get two 5-minutes in a row - or even three - like I did while waiting for friends in San Francisco recently (I did black line of a super narrow building during the first 5 minutes, then added gray to the same sketch, and then added another tree on the opposite page). 

Waiting at the Hair Salon:

Little sketches of my glorious yellow chrysanthemum:

Drawing at a Rally in Support For Ukraine

Another protest, another rally for Ukraine. Drawing in San Francisco on Sunday, while a very one-sided 28-point plan for peace is hanging in the air. So-called peace plan demands Ukraine give up territory (including not currently occupied), limits the size of its army, and agrees not to pursue russia for the war crimes. Nobody wants this war to end as the Ukrainians do. But this has to be a lasting solution made with Ukraine and not dictated by anyone! 

Mary Cassatt as printmaking inspiration (and more!)

San Francisco Legion of Honor hosted a wonderful retrospective of Mary Cassatt "Mary Cassatt at Work" and it was a fantastic experience. I wanted to see in-person works that I knew from books and they as usual elevated my relationship with the art piece because of the level of details that one can see in person and by the experience of looking at an artwork on the wall, in space and imagining the process of making it. I specifically enjoyed looking at the brushstrokes and colors on the edges - away from the well-defined features. 

I did not know what to expect from an announced section of prints but was excited to learn more about printmaking recently and had a companion who was willing to explain and discuss all the intricate nuances of what is innovative in her work, how she did this or that and what we can deduct from these prints and what is still a mystery. Legion of Honor put together a comprehensive article about it with lots of visuals: How-To with the Conservators: Mary Cassatt’s Color Prints by By Christina Taylor, paper conservator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

And a great video about the process:  Demonstrating Mary Cassatt's Color Printmaking Techniques

It would be unfair not to mention some wonderfully colorful and free pastels. And a lot of information about Mary Cassatt: a woman impressionist, the only american in their circle, human, artist, feminist. 

It was so good that we did two takes!

Here are some of my notes from the show.

Sketching with Friends: San Francisco

This weekend I finally met one of my online friends in real life! Wonderful Marie-Hélène Brohan Delhaye and I connected through Instagram, then through Urban Sketching and Uma Kelkar, and then Ukraine, and then just through the sheer joy of sharing a journey of documenting our lives, experimenting, working with direct watercolor painting and the glory of using color.

Marie-Hélène traveled through California and we met on a glorious sunny day on the top of the hill in San Francisco. The four of us - Suhita Shirodkar, Uma Kelkar, Marie-Hélène, and myself were sketching, chatting about art supplies, catching up on world and family events, exchanging plans and hopes for the year, petting dogs, and swapping greetings with passers-by. The best thing? It felt like we do it all the time - this sketch and chat together - even though this was the first time we did it in real life with Marie-Hélène :) I enjoy having friends at all distances and making them in any way imaginable - but to see them in real life, hug them, and tell them in person that they make my world better is not always possible. When it is - I celebrate!

Photo of all of us - by Marie-Hélène.

Sketchbook #116: Annual Catching Up Post :)

I am slowly trying to catch up on my scanning and posting - which - I now realize - is something I do every year around this time :) Something about spring becoming summer slows my scanning and posting motivation (I draw about the same amount) and just in a few short months, I am over two sketchbooks behind. In addition to that, I work on various projects outside of my sketchbook and things get tangled and complicated because of that too. So I start asking myself why I post and who cares and all that self-talk. In the end, I try to remember that this blog is my vehicle at tracking how much I grow and change and it allows me to look at my work and not be discouraged by daily failures but to keep an eye on a general curve. So once again I am going to catch up my posts to my actual painting and I have a new strategy to try to do so and I have a new strategy to keep myself on track next time - let's see if it works :)

100 Views of Silicon Valley: Los Altos and San Francisco

Top: Chamber os Commerce, Los Altos.
I've learned about this super cool corner of Los Altos through instagram's comments and went to paint it as soon as I could - it's a really neat park tucked between two roads and a standalone mostly-glass building looks very cozy between large trees.

Bottom: San Francisco.
I did not paint enough of San Francisco for this project - but I will! This is a very colorful part close to the Bernal Heights Library.

Sketchbook #102: Field Trip - Night

Sketchbook #102: Field Trip - Day

Sketchbook #94: Reportage from a Museum Outing

Sketchbook #90 - Trip to Angel Island

Sketchbook #89: Sketching while flying around San Francisco

Another post form the March sketchbook. Small airplane was moving quite fast and it was hard to add colors so I abandoned the idea and tried to catch the shapes of the bridges around San Francisco.

One of the most vivid memories is different color patches in the bay waters!

April 2012: What we saw at the SF Zoo

April 2012: What we saw at the SF Zoo, a photo by apple-pine on Flickr.

Trip to Cal Academy of Sciences

March 2012: Cal Academy of Sciences, a photo by apple-pine on Flickr.

Wonderful, sunny day in San Francisco with amazing creatures we met in the aquarium section of the Cal Academy!

Ballpoint pen is winning race in this sketchbook again :)
Overall I have to admit that sketching on a work day in Cal Academy is much simpler as not that many people stick their fingers in my paints or grab my pencils or push me away from my subject :)