three letter word for art

Yesterday I sketched this pano in Dazbog Coffee on 12th and Speer.  It was pretty quiet so I had an opportunity to work without creeping too many people out.  The frienly barista there, Ara (I think that was her name) loved the sketch and showed the employees at the adjoining tanning salon (the hallway of which can be seen on the far right.)  At the end of the hallway, if you look closely, you might notice a mirror with a tiny little sketcher in it.  That's right, this pano is my "Las Meninas," or perhaps "Arnolfini Wedding portrait."  Or something. Technical aside: I used a bigger pen on this one, a Staedtler .5, and I think I like the chunkier feel.

From 2 Starbucks and an Einstein Bros, I give you three panoramas on three (almost) consecutive mornings: Pano #1, Starbucks: #2, Einstein Bros: #3, different Starbucks: The first two are kind of straightforward panos with vertical verticals.  The third I was also experimenting with a vanishing point below the horizon.

I rarely take pictures of sketches as they're progressing, mostly because I can never remember to, but also because I don't like to stop working to take a photo.  However, long-term projects like the Main Street Bozeman sketchbook or the San Antonio panorama are easier to document as they progress, and I have scanned a few in progress before.  But I also recently documented the step-by-step process of a few drawings in the field for a project by a fellow sketcher that I'm contributing to. Here's a set of steps I think I can share: The location to be sketched. In this case, as with many other larger sketches, I used a pencil first before going in with a pen. I start with a few basic lines that establish the overall shape of the composition.  These lines will serve as a rough guide for the curved perspective I plan to use in the drawing. After that, basic shapes are blocked in, as well as the location of certain foreground elements, like trees. I ...

Apologies for the long absence.  Don't have a good reason, but I can make one up if requested. I have a few ideas that I'd like to try out in the next few weeks.  I recently did a trial run of an idea in my small Strathmore pad-- a square-ish panorama that I think might be really cool on a large scale.  There are a few iterations I'm working on in this direction, and I've also essentially finished my folding pano as well, but none of those images have been scanned yet.  Wait 'til next year folks.  Meanwhile, I have this: See y'all next year.

Stage three (Commerce Street) of the pano project is progressing much more more slowly than the first two, partly because my "shady" spot is really a blustery wind-tunnel of a site that makes for unpleasant sketching.  That and it's the most pedestrian-heavy area I've yet drawn, which means a lot of questions and curiosity from passers by, which, while well-meaning, make it hard to focus.  I have finished the Navarro Street pano, though, so here it is: details:

I finally started working in my limited edition USk folding Moleskine.  It took me a while to think of how I wanted to use it, but I decided I would do a series of street panoramas here in San Antonio, Texas.  The first of these, on Houston Street north of Alamo Plaza, is (almost) done, but I should have room for two more in the sketchbook.  I did part of it during the sketchcrawl, but I wasn't able to round up any other local crawlers this time around. The next street will be Navarro Street in front of the Nix Hospital, which I've already begun. The Federal Courthouse and Post Office More Courthouse The Express-News building is in the background left, Emily Morgan Hotel foreground right The Emily Morgan Hotel Starting the Navarro Street pano The whole shebang

I did another few sketches from the TOA the other day, one in a Moleskine, the other in my Strathmore pad, and realized that both were at almost the same scale as my first drawing from the tower back in February, and there was minimal overlap.  I plugged them into Photoshop and merged them into a little panorama of the city skyline.  There are still a few skyscrapers to the east I couldn't fit, including San Antonio's two tallest hotel, so perhaps another visit is in order. Here's the final panorama (click for a larger view):