Sketching Again

I haven't done nearly as much drawing as I would have liked to through the summer... Too many distractions... With the coming of September and return to regularly scheduled activities I've found myself with ample idle time (waiting for kids who are in said "regularly scheduled activities") and it's been beautifully warm enough to sit outside and draw. I've found time to draw every day this week so far. Here's a few of the not-so-bad doodles I did this week...

outside the Albert Community Centre where the kids both take a pottery class. It's not-so-much "pottery" as it is "clay hand building". Very few pots are manufactured. Many Frogs and dinosaurs are. 

Outside the University of Saskatchewan Physical Activity Complex.

I haven't been so bold as to bust out the watercolours just yet. But if this weather continues I just might!

I need to carry a cushion or something. After half an hour sitting on a park bench and mu butt is aching... 

Watercolour

I've started a new sketch book the past week. I am determined to fill at least one page per day with some sort of drawing (or painting!) So far I've missed one day....

I also recently picked up a portable watercolour set. I've painted a lot with acrylic. I've done a lot of drawing with pen and ink. but despite loving the look of some of the pen and ink drawings with watercolour I've been checking out over the last year or so (like stuff by Danny Gregory or all the fabulously talented people that post on the Everyday Matters Facebook Group...). It's taken me a long time to get around to having a go at it...

Here are a couple of the first two attempts...

Yesterday I took the kids over to my friend Simone's to play with her kids and while I was there I tried a drawing (painting?) of her kids little house and part of her beautiful garden. (I am so jealous of her garden...)

Then this afternoon I took the kids down to the spray park at River Landing. 

People are hard. Crowds of people are harder. Crowds of children in constant motion just about drove me to distraction. 

When I imagined all the difficulties and challenges that could arise from a trip to the spray park - I never imagined that getting the kids to stay a bit longer so I could finish my drawing would be one of them. They were very patient and waited... 

This if fun. But it takes me a long time. 

Saskatoon Drink and Draw Comic Jam #2

Again with the Comic Jam Shenanigans...

(click on the pic to see a bigger version):

Rapidographs

I just spent a good chunk of the afternoon cleaning out some old Rapidograph pens that have been soaking in some cleaning fluid for a couple years. I didn't really mean for them to soak that long...  maybe I should start a little earlier... I didn't mean for them to get that gunked up!?

I really like rapidographs. I've used them since the beginning of my comic drawing days and love using them for comics and drawing in sketchbooks. I just can't get behind these new-fangled "pigment liners"they just run out of juice too damn quick and then you have to pitch them out and buy another one... bah! Humbug!

So I sort of stopped drawing comics... or anything... for about a decade. And it wasn't a "hey I'm not going to draw comics anymore (so I should clean out my pens before this long hiatus so they don't get all gunked up)" sort of decision... I just sort of... didn't draw anything one day... and didn't draw anything the next day... or next week... or next month... you get the picture.

So the pens just got left, full of ink, which really isn't' a good idea for rapidographs. That ink will eventually gum up and seize up the works and render the pens pretty much useless.. But I wasn't really thinking about that at the time.

Now some years back, perhaps one day when I was thinking "hey, I should start drawing again some day..." I checked out the pens and found them to be pretty much wrecked. I did not then throw them out in my despair. Oh no, being the eternal pack rat that I am, I held onto them because I can't throw away something I spent so much money on, no matter how wrecked it may be.

Some months or years later, I happened to wander into an art supply store - because I still did that even when I wasn't painting or drawing for some reason - and happened to spot a jar or Rapid-o-ease - the cleaning fluid for rapidograph pens! So I picked up said jar and thought I'd have a go at cleaning them up. It didn't really seem to work much. My pens were REALLY gummed up. so I left the nibs in the fluid for a day or two and some of the not-so-gummed-up nibs cleaned up okay so I decided to leave a few more of them soaking for... well... a bit longer...

That "bit longer" turned into "several months, maybe a year"... but those thoroughly blocked up pens cleaned up pretty good! Some, maybe, didn't work quite as well as they did when they were brand new, but others were clean flowing and fine. That stuff is MAGICAL. so I dumped the rest of the nibs in - no matter how gunky then seemed.

That was a few years back. Today I cleaned out a bunch of them and salvaged five of them (FIVE!). Two were wrecked beyond repair - the little pin-bit that goes down the tube in the nib had actually broken, so... done.

I have two others soaking in some fresh cleaner now. I think they might have been the original not-so-gummed-up nibs that cleaned up pretty quickly and were refilled with ink and left ready with all sorts of good intentions of drawing... and then got all gummed up again. in the drawer with the jar of stuff being soaked.

I should go do some drawing.

Brown Family Jam Comic #1

Following hot on the heels of the Drink & Draw Jam Comic...

I'd floated the idea of a jam comic to the kids a while back which was met with mixed reaction. At first there was some interest, then at some point when explaining further they finally understood that they'd have no say in what happened next, per se, there was tears! So I was a little worried this may end in disaster as one kid or the other "ruined" the story the other had had in mind...

As it turned out there was smiles all 'round and an insistance that a #1 be put on the cover as they definitely wanted to do a #2!

Saskatoon Drink and Draw Comic Jam #1

I've been going to a drawing night hosted by Elaine Will for a year now... off and on... We mostly drink tea, actually... but they used to do it at a pub...

Anyway this week I brought along some paper and proposed a jam comic - here's what we came up with:

(click on the pic to see a bigger version):

















Also in attendance (and contributing to the jam) were Ed Wilson and Lloyd Mattson.

Richardson's Ground Squirrels Rule the Hardcourt

Back to painting Critters on Bikes…

(Remember: click on the pictures below to see a slightly larger version)

Richardson Ground Squirrels Rule the Hardcourt, May 2013, Acrylic on Plywood, 25cmx25cm

I never seem to be able to take pictures that are perfectly lined up square and always end up cropping a little bit... also the 2D digital image doesnt' really show you everything anyway as I paint around the edges of these boards - which you in internetland never get to see...

This was painted for the Wild in the City exhibition at Unreal City in Saskatoon from Saturday, 25 May 2013  to Saturday, 20 July 2013 which is part of the Nature City Festival.

There will be an opening reception on 25 May 2013 at 7:00 p.m-11:00 p.m. at Unreal City.

Coming soon on Tim’s Art Blog:

Um… I’m a little behind in posting other stuff… we’ve been busy…