A new day...

and today will be a LOT shorter.  Never fear.  But so far I have kept my promise...all two days.  Today I wandered out to the local coffee shop which was actually a lot busier than you'd think on a mid-morning weekday.  In and out in and out, with a few people to stop in with their laptops.  Which begs the question:  Why?  What does the coffee shop have (besides the obvious answer: coffee) that is missing at home?  I wonder this as I gaze around at insulated people, typing away in their little bubbles. 

(01-31-2011.  I hate baseball hats.  You'd think they'd be easy to draw, but for some reason they always look like they've been run over by a semi.  Ah well, that's why I practice.  This gent was in his bubble, always moving his head...look up, look around, stare at the laptop, stare at the paper.  Wearing that hat...)

In the Beginning...

There was a girl. Her name was Cyndi. She liked to draw. And so she did. And for untold reasons, in her twenties, she stopped. But for the VERY occasional drawing, there was...nothing...

 (self portrait, 1986 art class)

For more than a decade this continued. She grew up, she lived, she worked, she had fun. She supposed. But there was something missing. Like a Saturday without the Saturday Morning Cartoons and a bowl of cereal, life had become mundane.

 (Sharon Osborne pitching the first pitch at Wrigley in 2003)

One day this girl (who had now become a woman, but still considered herself a girl) changed. The reasons behind this are messy as all life can be, but the end result was that she remembered. Remembered how much she LIKED her Looney Tunes and Captain Crunch in her favorite P.J.'s. And she started collecting, gathering together her pencils and pens and bits and pieces and then... she started drawing. One thing led to another and she got a set of pastel pencils. Soon she was painting and drawing with her pastel pencils, DETERMINED to make up for all that time that she'd lost. Determined to make up for the practice that she'd missed out on. Determined to be perfect.  And she was doing pretty good on her own.  But she was alone.

 (the painting she painted for her friend Miriam of her dog Mimi about 2007ish which led to the gift certificate which led to the pastel pencils which led to the...well, you get the idea....)

This girl's niece introduced her to a popular online site and soon she was digging through the masses of forums and ran across a group called the World Artist Network (or WAN for short) where she got very excited to meet up with tons of artists from all over the world.  From "newbies" to seasoned vets of the artworld, all types of artwork were represented in all media. And they were totally irrepressible.  And she loved them all for their inspiration, their critiques, and their understanding.

(graduation portrait of a young lady, 2008)

And so, she carried on in a forward trajectory, now with a large supply of soft pastels and a never flagging supply of enthusiasm for learning. 

 ( January 2011 portrait of a dog "Adoration")

And learned to color inside the lines very well (if she might say so herself).  So much so that while she was experimenting with color and coloring inside the lines...she forgot how fun it was to color outSIDE the lines.  Or even draw the lines.

(sketch, 11-2011 "telescope")

So at the urging of her now familiar family of WANers, she decided to break out of the rut she had gotten into with her drawing from picture references, and start sketching from life.  To break away from that perfect, flat, two dimensional plane... and get sloppy, a bit messy, and learn to love the line again. 

It may be stepping backward.  But in doing so, I'm thinking that it's going to take me a huge step forward....

And you get to come along.  For better or worse, I'm posting it all... the good, the bad, and the downright ugly.  A challenge by a fellow WANer, Terry, to do a sketch a day, and post a blog about it.  The title:  Sketches From a Train.  why?  Because they're sketches from a train.  Specifically, the El, which I take everywhere, as I sold my car in 1996 and haven't looked back.  And if I DON'T ride the train?  Well, I'll come up with something....

So here's what I've come up with so far... a few previous sketches to show where I've come from, and a little trip of oh...the past week or so....

 Yeah..not the greatest.  I was informed by the peanut gallery that these were way too "sketchy" with tentative lines.  I could feel the stiffness. Not to mention that I'm still trying to make simple line drawings with too many lines and have them look exactly like the person that I was looking at.  And these were at the coffee shop that I frequent, so I don't even have the excuse of a moving train to mess up my lines.  The lines here are all just lines.  I'm being way too "grown up" here.  Trying to make the lines perfect.

 (09-03-2009... better, but still sketchy.  Still trying to be perfect.  I dropped some of the stiffness, but....)

And here, here is the beginning of the journey.  I started it off with three pens of varying width.

(01-22-2011, two self portraits.  The WANers had a good laugh at my horsey-face on the first one, but the second was a bit better received although it was still sketchy, and the pens that I used were one solid line.)

The problem with having a pen that is made to be a pen is that you lose any sensitivity in the line for the most part.

(01-23-2011.  I lost some of the sketchiness, simplified the lines, and added basic shadow.)

(01-25-2011.  Same thing here, but I've still got just one thickness of line.  I DO, however, like the way that the wrinkles and shading seem to be developing.  This gent was great, since he sat across the aisle from me the entire time looking at his iphone.  A 30 minute ride.  Ignoring the girl who, sitting less than ten feet away, had a monster hat and scarf on that is hard to ignore.  Must be a die-hard Chicagoan.



(monster hat and scarf...obvious plug for the artist Happycloud at Etsy under Happycloud Thunderhead)

At this point Tom, one of the veteran WANers and an excellent artist suggested getting a pen that worked like something of a brush.  Like any other pen, it has a regular barrel but the tip is like a marker that goes into a tight point.  It's very flexible, and can go from finer lines to thick lines at a bit more pressure.  Drawing a fine line is next to impossible with it without varying it a bit (well, at least to the newbie at it...)  ;-)



(01-26-2011.  I did another self portrait, since I'm such a cheap model... and had another fine time on the train from work.  The cool thing about doing this is aside from buffing up your skills, you also get to people watch.  Once you get out of your head and start observing others, it can be an amusing experience.  Not to mention learning.  The gent in the lower right hand corner got onto the train a few stops after I did.  He was a big guy.  And had a big bag.  He sat down on a seat, taking up the whole bench on the CTA, and pulled his rolling bag up onto his lap, gazed around with squinted eyes, and nodded off to the rocking of the train.  Then surprised everyone by bursting out into snores that could be heard the entire length of the car.)

The next suggestion was to sketch blind.  In other words, stare at the subject and not at the paper, to get more in tune with how your eyes, brain, and hand connect.  I've got to say that one's hard.  I'm working at it, but I keep cheating.  Hopefully this blog sees me getting it.




(01-27-2011.  On the train again.  The top one saw that poor guy falling asleep "at the wheel" so to speak.  He just couldn't keep awake.  The lady next to him...well...she didn't REALLY look like Chewbacca in real life.  The bottom was on the way home and was the first successful version where I had more time looking at the person(s) than I did at the paper.  Some day, maybe, when it gets warmer, I'll be able to draw necks instead of scarves and earmuffs...)


(01-28-2011.  I seem to be getting a bit better with practice at the hair and making changes when people decide to move)

Observation:  Taking the train, sketching these faces, seems a bit cathartic.  I'm getting more used to (even though it's only been about a week) not taking the exactness of the person's features too seriously.  And by doing that, they seem to look MORE like the person than they did when I was trying my hardest.  Not to mention the train rides seem to speed by...


(01-29-2011.  A bit more blind drawing.  I became somewhat enamored of this gent.  Besides the excellent beard he had going on, he was very aware of what was going on around him.  Looking around, then gazing back down at his book.  And another fabulous opportunity to look closely at the side of a mans head...)


(01-30-2011.  Not on the train, but at the coffee shop for a hot tea and a sketch.  I went back to looking a bit more than I should... but the cool thing that I learned today?  vary the pressure of the pen just a bit and suddenly a boring old stripe becomes an eye.)



So that brings us up to today.  And my statement.  I'll be posting a new sketch every day, along with any observations or outbursts I deem necessary or amusing.  Feel free to play along.  You're welcome to come in, grab my Tony the Tiger cereal bowl, pour out some Special K with chocolatey chips (hey, I've grown up, but that doesn't mean I have to be a grown up), and watch some cartoons with me.  Thanks.  :-)