BARN SCENE

FROM MY SKETCHBOOK THROUGH JANUARY

Here are some of my sketches from my January sketchbook. I may have posted some on the previous posts.

DON'T ABANDON YOUR DRAWING MISTAKES

I just watched a video on Youtube by Shoo Rayner about practicing drawing people from photographs if you are uncomfortable about drawing in public (which I am). I get very nervous drawing in public and I tend to hurry my sketches the more people that are around. In fact I probably resemble one of those speed-drawing videos on Youtube  because I draw so fast. And that causes me to make lots of mistakes or get the perspective wrong.

Shoo said something in his video that I liked. "Don't abandon a drawing if you make a mistake - that can turn into a habit and you'll never finish anything. Often you can save a drawing or painting by just keeping on going!" That's pretty good advice, I think. 

This sketch is one that I abandoned but decided to finish it up just to get it finished. You cansee the unfinished version a couple of posts down.

This one still needs to be finished. But I am working on it. Since the last time I posted it a couple of weeks ago I've at least managed to ink some of it. 

This sketch and the one below are a couple that I've done from photographs on what I call attitude poses.  Obviously I still need a lot of work on drawing the human form.

This is a combination of drawing from photographs, creating my own characters and throwing them into an urban setting. This was inspired by passers-by watching me draw or stopping and asking to see what I'm drawing. I tried to capture their expressions and attitudes.

This is one I almost gave up on. It's a sketch of a building in Albany but I left out a window upstairs (it really has 4 tall windows, not three). But I decided to finish it anyhow. 

URBAN SKETCH — HIGH STREET IN SALEM

My lunchtime sketch of High Street at the corner of High and Court streets in Salem, Oregon. It was one of the sunniest, warmest days we've had in a long time. It felt good just to sit and soak up the sun.

I only take a half-hour lunch so in order to get this sketched I did lots of prep work like check it out on Streetview to look at all the angles. Also I did a couple of practice drawings of the corner building based off Streetview so I knew the basics so once I arrived, parked my car and found a place to sit I could get to work on it right away.

TRIAL AND LOTS OF ERRORS

I've been trying out watercolors and different paper types. It's a hard medium to learn and it reacts differently to different paper types. I've been painting from tutorials online — mostly from Peter Sheeler's YouTube channel. He keeps it pretty quick, simple and easy to follow along. Each painting only takes about 30 minutes to draw and paint so I like that

From Peter Sheeler's YouTube channel tutorial. The paper on this one is Arches cold press 140#.

Plus I like his style of drawing. His lines are quick and sketchy and just the right amount of detail.

From Peter Sheeler's YouTube channel tutorial. I painted this one in my sketch book which does not have watercolor paper.  I'm not sure of what weight of paper my sketchbook has.

From Peter Sheeler's YouTube channel tutorial using one color. This was also painted in sketchbook.

 The one below I couldn't get the sky to work at all. I think I painted it, then lifted the paint off and repainted it three times and redrew it twice. I first tried painting it on a cheap watercolor paper (not sure of the brand) but didn't like it at all so when I redrew it I used Arches cold press paper.

Also from Peter Sheeler's YouTube channel. Winsor & Newton watercolors on Arches cold press paper.

I really like Arches paper but it is pretty expensive compared to other brands. I happened to get this batch at 60 percent off at a local art supply store. I should of bought more.

A sketch from my own imagination on canvas.

By the way, I'm using my phone to take photos of these to post, so if some of them look distorted or out of whack, it may not just be my drawing abilities ... but then again, maybe it is my drawing. Oh and the color isn't close to accurate either.

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE

It's been a day of practicing. From sketching my desk to sketching basketball players as well as practicing "Landscape people."

Practicing basketball ... drawing, not playing.

My desk. Also practicing drawing faster for whatever reason.

Character interaction.

"Landscape people" in watercolor.

I did get a chance to work a little on live sketching a few blocks away at lunchtime. It's an apartment building with businesses on the ground floor.

My first sketch of the building s along Broadway and Market streets.

The drawing above was a very quick sketch just to get a feel for the perspective and scale. These buildings are actually a block down from the ones in the drawing below. The drawing below is/will be more detailed but I like the feeling and sense of urgency and spontaneity of the one above. 

I call this building the "Young at Art" building because it
houses that business and it has one of the most dominant
signs. This is my lunchtime project that will take me a few sessions
to complete.  I only get between 5-10 minutes at a time to work on
it at lunch, in between rain showers. This is the second day I've drawn.Because of all the straight lines and perspective,
I was tempted to use  a ruler but decided to freehand it. 

A NEW DIRECTION

Well, I've taken a turn, or maybe it's a U-turn. After 20-plus years since I put down my pencil, pen and ink (I used to cartoon for a hunting magazine and draw as a past-time.) I've decided to get back into drawing.

I've been drawing lots of stick figures

For now it's mostly just working on hand-eye coordination with lots of drawing exercises ... circles, circles, circles, lines, lines, lines, circles, circles and an occasional actual drawing. Oh, and eyes, noses, mouths and pages of stickmen and stickwomen, and mannequins in various poses and gestures.

I think I've gone through a half of ream of copy paper just drawing circles.

It really does help build my hand-eye coordination by drawing circles and lines and makes it a lot easier for my brain to tell the pen where to go. I think mostly it helps to learn to "feel" the objects I'm drawing. I think feel in drawing, at least for me is very important. If I can feel it on the paper, it becomes easier to draw.

And lots of poses. I've been watching lots of Youtube videos
Which is where I copied these from. You can learn a lot from Youtube

Sort of an urban sketch.
Rebecca bundled up while outside in the snow.
Watercolor.

I'm not sure what kind of art I'm leaning toward but it'll probably center around cartoons. However, I'm trying out urban sketching

and am liking it so far. Urban sketching is simply sketching your surroundings on location. Or as urbansketchers.org puts it: "all sketchers out there who love to draw the cities where they live and visit, from the window of their homes, from a cafe, at a park, standing by a street corner... always on location, not from photos or memory."

Besides urban sketching I'm delving into political cartoons, caricatures and watercolors. A whole new way of thinking about people and colors.

The Kona Life has undergone a lot of changes since I started it nearly 10 years ago (10-year anniversary is July 19. From ramblings to triathlon to adjusting to mainland life again to drawing.

Hopefully I'll begin posting drawings and watercolors — don't laugh at them. They are very, very elementary. Especially the watercolors. As with photography and writing it takes time and practice to find your voice/style and that's what I'm trying to do by experimenting with different genres.

It's just like taking photos to capture the flavor and atmosphere of your surroundings only it takes a lot longer ... and a lot more patience.

Trump portrait to caricature trial.
Still needs lots of work.

A house in Kona. OK, this one was drawn
from a photo rather than live. Watercolor.

At the mall food court. watercolor. 

cartoon characters.

More cartoon characters. Watercolor.

HAPPY 2017 -- MAKE IT COUNT

Have a great new year.

PAUL "ALWAYS QUOTABLE" WESTERBERG

"The best I can say is that it's better for me to write about despair and darkness than to be incapable of getting off the sofa. It's better to write about suicide than to contemplate it too heavily."

I knew this quote long before I knew who said it. I can honestly say I feel the same way. I write when I'm depressed not when I'm happy. It's my therapy, much like running.



Running clears my head. Writing clears my heart.

I finally looked up who said this and I was impressed with all the quotes attributed to Paul Westerberg

Who you ask? You know, he was the lead singer of The Replacements. No? The 1980s alternative rock band. Nothing yet? Well how about his solo work. Maybe that'll ring a bell. If you've seen "Singles," "Melrose Place," "Friends" or "Tank Girl" His song appear on each of those.

Here's his website: Paul Westerberg



Photo by Heather Douglass via Wikipedia


So here's a few quotes attributed to him and for some reason I connect with most of his quotes.

"I'm beyond caring what anyone expects of me anymore."

"A rock'n'roll band needs to be able to get under people's skin. You should be able to clear the room at the drop of a hat."

"I think it should be evident by now, but I'm as lost as anyone."

"I have my own language and it's high time I put a little of it out there."

"Reading music is like listening to flowers. I don't understand the concept."

"Stick with your heart and you'll be fine."

"Although, my experience when I've been depressed, not only am I too depressed to sit down and write a song, I'm too depressed to pick up my feet. So if you can at least write about it, you're halfway away from it."

And finally, to quote someone else, and I'm not sure who said it first ...
"THE END"

THE QUIET, FAT LIFE

I've been backing up my blog posts just in case Blogger dies. Reading some of my posts from my time in Hawaii makes me realize something.

Compared to where I was then I can't help but feel I now live a life of total obscurity.

I knew people back then.
People knew me.

I swam, biked and ran with some really awesome athletes, both famous and regular, everyday peeps. World-record holders and back-of-the-packers.

I haven't written on this blog for some time. Not that many people come here nowadays and if they do it's usually an errant search that brought them here. Even back in the day people mostly stopped by because they were doing a search on Hawaii and for some reason my blog showed up in their searches.

My "CHRISTMAS IN HAWAII" blog post from 2008 or 09 still get's lots of hits.  But when you put Christmas and Hawaii together search engines are bound to find it.

So these days I live in complete anonymity. No training partners. No group swims or runs or cycling. No training at all, actually. A little running now and then. Growing old and fat and slowly becoming that couch potato I once was.

I've thought about shutting down "The Kona Life" blog. Deleting it all. Erasing what seems like a dream now. Maybe someday. There's still a faint glimmer of hope that triathlete deep inside me will emerge once again.

But for now in these dreary days of winter here in Oregon I like re-reading my misadventures in paradise and dream of palm trees,  warm ocean swims, running along Alii and long, hot rides on Queen K.

A QUICK UPDATE 1/17/17
I haven't swam or biked since posting this. I have ran off and on though, but not much. I still miss Hawaii and all those wonderful people but I have lost weight. I weigh less now than I did when I weighed in for Ironman in 2009.  Probably less than I have in 20 years but it's from diet not training so not nearly as much muscle as I used to have. But maybe when the weather turns ...

REVISIONS

OK, I knew trying to reach 50k, or 31 miles, by the last Sunday of the year was really pushing it. Two weeks ago I got greedy and I ran 18 miles for my long run on Sunday. It should have been a 16-mile run that day but I wanted to push it to 18 so I could have a shot at 31 miles 6 weeks later. Big mistake. Combined with running in the much-more hilly Salem area verses the pancake-flat Woodburn area,  everything went wrong. I bonked plus I strained something in my lower right leg below my calf muscle and beside my achilles tendon.

My last two miles were close to 15 minutes each -- that's slower than walking speed. So I ended up taking the following week off just to recover from my stupidity. It took me until the following Wednesday to even start getting any energy back. Bonking really takes it out of you. Eight days later I tried an easy 2 mile run to test the calf muscle, which still hurt but I wrapped it up tight and it was manageable, I thought.

The next couple of days (Tuesday and Wednesday)  I ran an easy hour each day. By Saturday I felt back to normal so the plan was to do 10 miles that included the one little hill we have in Woodburn, which is three miles from my house. It was pretty cold out but I felt good. My leg felt strong so I didn't wrap it.

I was doing hill repeats in the cold sunshine and felt good. Then on the third trip up, just before reaching the top of the hill, SNAP! a sharp pain just beside my right calf muscle, right where it had hurt two weeks before. I could barely walk on it and I was 3 miles from home.

After a mile or so of limping I tried running and as long as I stayed on my heel I could jog, sort of and finally made it home. Now I'm trying to recover from a more severe injury and hoping I'll be over 10-mile long runs by the end of the year. So forget the 31 miles. But that's running or rather my stupidty or greediness or whatever you want to call it. We have to adapt as life, and age, gets in the way.

So while I am recovering I'm riding the bike trainer every day and after several years of playing around with trying the Pose method of running I finally bought the book  — The Running Revolution: How to Run Faster, Farther and Injury-Free for Life, by former Olympic coach Nicholas Romanov and sports writer Kurt Brungardt. I'm hoping it'll live up to its promise about injury free running. I actually bought the e-book deluxe addition ($11.95) that included a lot of videos. I figure if I can't run I might as well read about it.

I'll let you know if I can learn to run natural or not.

Oh, I'm also planning on entering the lottery for the Tahoe Rim Trail 50 miler that runs in mid-July. The lottery entry begins Dec. 7 and ends Dec. 21, 2014, and they draw the names Jan. 1, 2015. If I'm picked, this will be my first 50 miler. You can find out about the lottery for the TRT 50 miler, the 50k and the 100 miler at Ultra Signup.

I'm hoping to do a marathon or a 50k in the spring if I can find one close enough, whether it's an official race or me just going out on my own. It sounds funny talking about running 50 miles when right now I can't run a step and even healthy I bonked on 18 miles, but I learned from Ironman that good, solid training and a positive attitude can make the impossible possible.

Keep your fingers crossed.