From Café Ennui

But I was not at all bored. My friend Mike and I got together for coffee and sketching in this dear neighborhood joint. Not trendy or snazzy, it is more of a cheap student place, old-fashioned, a little dumpy and in need of fresh paint, but serving good coffee and free Internet.

From my street level window, looking up, I saw an abandoned patio, now empty and closed for the coming winter. The café is on a garden level, so I had to look up at chairs turned in and a convenience shop across the street. The day was gray and blustery, I was looking for shadows to draw, but there were none, because there was no sun. Winter is coming…

Mechanical pencil, micron pen, watercolor pencils in my Artist’s HandBook.

Artists-bloggers have been extremely kind to me. It deserves a separate post to express my gratitude. Pete Scully sent me a very useful tutorial and a title of a book that talks about sketching techniques. Christy DeKoning stopped by my blog and offered me useful advice and suggestions out of the kindness of her heart. Roz Stendahl answered my newbie questions. And finally Barbara Weeks of Drawing Breath, a fellow Chicagoan, a sketcher and a blogger, invited me to her sketch group. Thank you all!

On Monday I went to sketch with a new group. Chicago weather did not cooperate. It was blistering cold and windy, probably 20 degrees lower than it should have been this time of the year. But a group of women gathered to sketch in Mariano Park was undeterred. All 39-years-old and not a day more, we were sitting there – our noses red, pencils firmly clutched in our blue fingers – sketching, laughing and chatting. Barbara, it was a blast, even if it took several hours to regain my normal body temperature, – thank you so much!

This is what I produced on location.

Mariano Park 1

Well… When I showed it to my husband he asked which Chinese restaurant is this. I knew at that moment that I have to do the sketch again. The little building in my sketch is a coffee stand that was designed and built by Birch Burdette Long, a Frank Lloyd Wright student. I was blissfully ignorant of this fact until yesterday, when my fellow sketchers told me. Here’s my second attempt. I think this time it looks more Prairie School and less like a pagoda.

Mariano Park 2

Reading on it later I learned that Birch Long was the architect who brought Asian influences into Prairie style architecture, so my husband wasn’t that off the mark.

Gethsemane on Clark St.

There is a giant pots sale in the Gethsemane Garden Center on Clark St. The pots are beautiful, they are tree size pots, substantial and heavy. Gethsemane is often on our trajectory as we walk in the neighborhood, we stop by and look at the flowers for sale, trees and bushes, and of course Christmas trees, depending on a season. “Pansies” gift shop there sparkles with beautiful and tempting curiosities from around the world, teapots, incense, porcelain, fabrics and art books. I warn you: it is wise to leave your wallet at home if you are planning to visit. Now that I think of it – they should pay me a percentage for all this advertisement I making for them in Blogosphere.

This sketch was giving me a run around, I attempted it 3 times. First I tried to do a true sketch with a quick gesture drawing. It was a complete failure. Note to self – need to practice gesture drawing. Then I tried to exercise more control, but it went nowhere as well, the shapes were not there, the line elegance and symmetry were lost. I didn’t want to give up this idea, so I doggedly set out to build my symmetries with a help of vertical center axis. Better. Perhaps I cannot call it a sketch anymore, but I got the image I had in mind on paper after all. Mechanical pencil, micron pen, watercolor pencils wash in my handbook.

Oh, my dad is sending me his watercolors, the true Russian ones, made in St. Petersburg. He says they have real “meat” in their colors, unlike anything else he tried. I am very excited to try real WC washes, although I will miss a variety of pre-made pigment mixes I have in WC pencils.

For my walk today I went to the post office. The PO is 1.7 miles from the house, that makes it almost 3.5 miles there and back, not a bad exercise. I always drive there, and as a result of driving the only thing I see is traffic. And that is usually depressing in Chicago.

Walking you see a lot of interesting things. Squirrels were screeching like mad, street were being cleaned and repaired, kitty cats were looking out of the window, kids running in the parks. I enjoyed near empty streets and some wonderful houses in the neighborhood. Here’s one of them – 6337 N. Hermitage, with a lovely round front porch. Micron pen and watercolor pencils.

6337 N. Hermitage St.

I was walking with my husband around the neighborhood, we came upon this quaint old street with colorful houses that looked like something out of a fairytale. I am still shy to sketch in public, but I had a little camera with me (thanks, Shelly!), so I took a snap shot. I didn’t think anything would come out of it, but the houses looked so vibrant and lively that I had to sketch them. This was a very quick one, maybe I’ll make a more detailed drawing from it later. Micron pen and watercolor pencils.

Houses on Wayne Street

I am working on a tonal graphite portrait at the moment, I have eyes down (most important, IMO) and general face tones, but it is not anywhere near posting yet. It will come… Unless I’ll mess it up!

And I found this interesting link: 100 Best Scholarly Art Blogs – interesting resource.