Urban sketching in St Helen's - part 3

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This week we visited City Hall in St. Helen's.  I've learned through experience to do two things.  First set my alarm on my phone so I don't lose track of time.  Second, take a picture before beginning to draw in case something happened and I needed a reference picture to fall back on.  I no more than got the upper half of the drawing penciled in and a food truck parked in front of the building obscuring the bottom half.  I finished drawing what I could and then head home when there was nothing more I could do without working from the photo I had taken.  I'm not sure I'm done with it so I'll ponder it a bit.  I badly want to add color but I'm sticking to the line work for the project.  

Urban Sketching in St Helens - part 2

The next one in the series, the theatre in downtown St Helens.  I took the liberty of anticipating the upcoming celebration of Halloweentown, a movie Disney filmed in St Helens in 1998.  Last year they organized an event and were overwhelmed with the (unexpected) numbers of people that came from far and wide.  This year a lot more pre-planning is taking place so it should go more smoothly.  

Best in Show

The public were asked to cast their votes for their favorite piece in the August Arts Fair held in Scappoose.  My piece, "Sunworshippers", won the honors.  

Urban Sketching in St Helens - part 1

First up is the Chamber of Commerce.  We sat across the street in front of Emmert and drew for about an hour and a half.  I didn't add any color on purpose because folks have been talking about developing coloring postcards for the area so I stopped at the line work.  The building was originally the local train station.  The drawings we did that morning are hanging in the back room.  More will be added as we continue our Thursday morning sessions.  

Urban Sketching in St Helens

We'll go through the end of September.  Each week we choose a different location and draw for a couple of hours.  If you haven't drawn buildings before, this is a good chance to learn how.  The drawings are hung in the Chamber of Commerce so stop by to see the fun we've been having.  

A new (really fun!!) project

I began this project on Mother's Day.  Well, the idea for the project began then.  I had been busy drawing rough drafts for a series of drawings of Timberline I have wanted to do for a while.  My grandson was looking at some of them and asked if he could help me color them in.  In their rough draft form they resemble a pages from a coloring book so I decided to make a set for him to color in.  That way he could enjoy some of the fun I was having and feel like he was part of the project. As I was working on them I showed some artist friends the collection I was developing.  They suggested I publish a coloring book.  I admit at first I was polite and replied sure, sounds like a good idea (all the while thinking it was a silly notion - I mean who makes coloring books, really?).  I did a bit of research and to my surprise found coloring books are in Amazon's top ten selling categories.  Apparently adult coloring book took off in popularity in recent years and reportedly publishers are having a hard time keeping up with demand.  Of course that doesn't guarantee instant success but a coloring book could very well be a viable project.  The only way I will know is to complete a set of drawings and see where it goes.   

It's been a LOT of work but I've enjoyed every minute of it. I've gone back up to Timberline to check some of the details I didn't take pictures of the previous trip so I could make corrections before beginning to ink my drawings. I'm not trying to make them exact or precise but I don't want glaring errors because once this is published, it's permanent. I was concerned my preference for detail might not work for a coloring book but after doing some research, detail works in the adult coloring book range. I am hoping to have the inked version finished by the end of August and soon after the printed version will be done - just in time for the holidays. What I do know for sure is there isn't anything like this on the market. Could be a good thing, could be a bad thing. We'll see.  

A dandy dandelion.

Playing around with Strathmore's Artagan coal black paper.  

I had a perfect model until my grandson blew on it.