The city workers were back yesterday to finish up putting in a new water line across the street, so I made a couple sketches of them as they broke for lunch. One group was playing poker, and another guy on his phone. I thought it was cute how one of the poker players set his sunglasses on the back of his head.

I’m using a dual brush Tombow ink marker here that is a range of grays, but I seem to prefer just using the lightest grey shade. It has an almost pencil like mark to it.

I stopped by the local library yesterday, and pulled out some drawing paper to sketch out a few pages. The guy was sitting in courtyard outside, playing his electric guitar without an amp which was interesting. The woman was sitting at a desk inside in front of her laptop. My drawing pen was a light grey Tombow marker. It makes marks like other layout markers where it will bleed a dot if you start or end your stroke resting on the paper, which you can see on the drawing of the guy. On the woman I drew marks in a more sweeping stroke to avoid that look.

Here are a few photos I shot at last night’s art show in the Cultural Activities Center in Temple, TX where my painting was entered. It was a small show, but drew a decent crowd of some 30 to 40 people. I’ve entered this annual local show several times in the past, and this is the first time they’ve had it in this gallery space which is a large community center. It’s a building more suited to displaying artwork, and I like it much better. Also, they were kind enough to award my painting a 2nd place award. Our specific show was held in a small room as you enter the building, but I took a few more pictures of the other galleries that had different work up. I highly recommend checking the space out. They have music, theatre performances, dance events, and classes.

This is a quick sketch I made based on a photo I found online of a bust by Lawrence Bradshaw of W.E.B. Du Bois.

Pulled a photo from my magazine references of this Greek bust of the God Pan to make into a drawing. I recently bought a set of markers from the Tombow company that were a range of grayscale values, and wanted to test them out.

A city crew has been working on a water line out front of my house for several days, and today I made some sketches while they were on their lunch break. 8.5×11″ with an ink pen.

Stopped by a local gathering yesterday to watch people at their Bar-B-Q, and made a few sketches. They were from some Real Estate business, and yes, there was a live bull. That’s Texas.

Well, I’ve got my initials on it so I guess that means I’m done. Will let it sit for a while and likely touch up a few spots later.

To make that texture in the top wall I found a piece of paper packing material that had a sponge like texture, so I used that to dab the paint on for the rough look, and then glazed over it to soften the values. The lettering was added by printing out the photo reference to size, rubbing pastel on the back and transferring it to the surface. I painted over the lines with medium to set it in place. I matched the wall color to the photos I had taken that was a bright blue, but I drove by the building yesterday and noticed that it was more of a moss green (chromium oxide) shade, so I had to repaint it, carefully painting around the lettering. That was a challenge.

I’ve been helping a friend finish up a digital project, so I can now finally get back to working the old fashioned way. The city where I live has held a competition that focuses on local architecture that I have entered a couple times in the past. This year’s entry is due in a few weeks, so hopefully I can get this one wrapped up in time. It’s based on a building where the local theatre group performs.

The piece is in acrylic on panel, 16×20″. I’ve been looking at online art of the Pont-Aven school Synthetists; Bernard, Gauguin, and Serusier, for inspiration. I love the way they use color with outlined shapes. I began with a light grey outline drawing, then colored in the base colors that I washed over with a thin layer of red oxide. So far I’ve got the sky and tree foliage painted in, and will move on the the building next.