three letter word for art

More marker sketches from my Stillman & Birn sketchbook.  Can't get enough of either right now. Denver Public Library This building just demands to be drawn, what with looking like one of those cities you make from blocks as a child.  It's a Michael Graves, but it's not so much kitschy to me as it is just elegantly simple, but still with great details. Starbucks inside the REI flagship store in LoDo. Yeah, I didn't even go into the REI.  The building was built in 1901 and overlooks Confluence Park.  A cool space.

It's interesting to do these marker sketches, because I feel I can spend more time laying them out and less time hatching, as the markers take care of the value pretty quickly.  I've been using a Stillman & Birn sketchbook for the first time with these, and so far it's great with wet media like Tombow markers. Water tower in Federal Heights, Denver This was sketched from inside the car.  It's near a hospital, and apparently this street serves as overflow employee parking, as there were people in scrubs getting in and out of these cars all day.  When I arrived, the sun was out and casting the nice shadow on the base of the tower you see here.  As I began laying in values with the markers, it clouded up and rained, and just about all of the shadows disappeared.  Fortunately I had penciled in the location of the shadow early on, or this would be a pretty dull sketch. Wooden derrick in the rotunda of the Western History and Genealogy dept, Denver Public L...

It may seem hard to believe, but I don't share everything I draw or sketch.  In fact, I have tons of unposted and/or unscanned material.  Sketching takes time, and that's something I often run out of.  So making lots of sketches equals making lots of unfinished sketches. Here's a few unfinished sketches, most of which I haven't shared before.  You'll notice in the Moleskine sketches that the left sides are done but the right aren't.  In my other sketchbooks I often use pencil beforehand, so the sketch can develop a bit more organically, but Linda pointed out to me that I work from left to right pretty much without exception in Moleskines. Details from the Majestic Theater in San Antonio, TX Facade of the Express News Building, San Antonio, TX The Leaf and Bean coffee shop, Bozeman, MT The Gourmet Burger Grill, San Antonio, TX Biryani House, Berkeley, CA Crowd at Red Rocks, Denver, CO Counter at Magnolia Pancake House, San Antoni...

Winter in Denver is not quite what I expected. Yes, it will be very cold sometimes. It will snow. But then it will be sunny and 60 degrees. Montana had plenty of sunshine in the winter, but the temps still made it difficult to attempt an outdoor sketch. I've even been thwarted more than a few times in San Antonio on a blustery day.  Yet here in Denver I've had so many opportunities its ridiculous. Here's a few recent drawings of the non-moleskine variety. Broadway, near 'The Hornet,' a favorite restaurant of Linda's and mine. A neat white building near Union Station. A building I only recently noticed downtown.  It used to house cable cars, I surmise, but know it's home to 'The Old Spaghetti Factory.' This building is around the corner from where Linda works in the LoHi (Lower Highlands) neighborhood. I'll post more new stuff soon.

I haven't done as much sketching outside in the past month as I would have liked, even though the weather has been fantastic, but I did manage a few doodles here and there.  I humbly submit them here. though if you follow me on Flickr they are old news.  But I present them anyway out of a sense of duty. This first one was done from near the same spot as my other sketch of the Brown Palace Hotel, this time looking west down 17th behind it.  It's unfinished I suppose, but I like it. This one was done in Castle Rock, a southern suburb of Denver.  Linda was there for a book signing at Stash, a very cool yarn shop.  While she signed I sketched. A rare non-architectural sketch, in Cheesman Park in Denver.  I think our Grand Canyon trip may be having some effect on me. Bagged another great old building in Denver, the old Chamber of Commerce building, now residential.

From the past week.

A busy week for me, drawing-wise.  Did quite a few treks into downtown from LoHi with my sketching stool and supplies.  Here's what I got: City Hall, during a concert in the park. Chamberlin Observatory, near the University of Denver campus. The Brown Palace and environs.  Such a cool building. A view from 16th street mall of two beautiful Richardsonian Romanesque buildings.  Reminds me of San Antonio's Bexar County Courthouse . Just a moleskine sketch from the 16th street mall. A meh sketch of Union Station.  Will have to go back and give it the proper treatment.

Crockett St Bridge. A standing sketch. Immediately to the right, out of frame, was a Coca-Cola delivery truck, engine idling. I'd been sketching for a while before I realized two delivery guys were watching me from the cab. When I noticed them staring I thought they'd ask to see the sketch, but instead they turned away somewhat self-consciously and rather abruptly drove away. I kind of screwed up Linda's sketch, but I'm fond of the self-portrait. It's one of the few where I'm clean-shaven. Sheep skull. I find it difficult to elaborate on that description. La Tuna is an indoor/outdoor gathering spot/watering hole in San Antonio. The kitchen/indoor dining area burned down days after this sketch. That's I think four places I've sketched that were later destroyed, though I've heard it's already rebuilt. The beer is not mine, BTW. I'm not some kind of zealot or anything, just boring. I prefer Dr Pepper to Shiner Bock.

I finally used my new camping chair to do this sketch. I reconnoitered around the Riverwalk area for a while before finally coming up a flight of stairs and finding almost this exact view. I unfolded my chair, put in my headphones and went to work for about 2 1/2 hours. Only one person stopped to ask me a few questions, and she was quite nice-- I think her name was Cathy. Once I had established the location of everything and started most of the hatching, I left to go to work. I continued the hatching over my lunch break and finished everything after I got home.

Lotsa sketches.

the broadway , originally uploaded by paul heaston . The Broadway is a residential tower built, appropriately enough, on the corner of Broadway and Hildebrand. It sits on the former site of Earl Abel's Restaurant. The restaurant, under new ownership, really only moved down the road a ways, but that hasn't stopped many locals from complaining that the Broadway has displaced a beloved San Antonio landmark. The Broadway is one of a half-dozen or so highrise residential towers built in San Antonio in the last five years or so. I think it's an indicator that some San Antonians are finally moving back into town from the suburban wastelands of the surrounding hill country.

San Antonio is a large city, but it doesn't have much in the way of a central commercial business district. Downtown you'll find a lot of hotels, some historic buildings, and more hotels. The true office buildings are scattered about town, often in low-rise clusters and on large campuses, or strung out along the freeways. Linda and I live about 8 miles northwest of downtown, near the intersection of two very busy freeways, and there are quite a few of these odd, scattered midrise offices surrounded by strip centers and suburban subdivisions. Tall, but decidedly not urban.

Bozeman's coffee shops usually have good interiors to draw and, if they have seating near a window, are good places to draw from, especially in Bozeman's lingering winters.  The only bad thing about the omnipresence of Bozeman's java joints is I'm becoming a coffee drinker again. looking out the window at Rockford Coffee, my new favorite hangout Wild Joe's is in the middle of downtown, though window seats are usually taken our Borders cafe is a actually a pretty quiet place.

I just got back from the Bay Area, where I visited my friend Chris Turbuck and saw the sights (and drew them).  Chris is in the middle of an artist-in-residency program at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA so I thought I'd come out to see what he's been up to.  We went into San Fransisco, went to SFMOMA and saw a Bill Kentridge exhibit (and the man himself) and walked around.  We ate some great food, saw some cool stuff, walked through an empty mall, etc.  An all-around great time.   Here are some sketches I did during (and in preparation) for my little road trip. This is the waiting room where I sat while getting new tires for my truck. An MSU art history student recognized me here as "the guy who draws downtown Bozeman." at the Express Lube in Bozeman for an oil change the Orpheum Theater in downtown Twin Falls, Idaho. I like their downtown, but their traffic is out of control. My room at the Motel 6 in Twin Falls. some San Francisco street scenes on the BART s...