Greetings from San Antonio!

Hi all!  As the San Antonio representative of Urban Sketchers Texas, I thought I'd finally introduce myself.  I was born and raised here in South Texas, but discovered my passion for urban sketching after spending a semester in Italy while attending grad school in Montana.  After returning to Montana and drawing just about everything in the town of Bozeman (not hard to do, believe me) I decided to come back home to a city with a lot more opportunities to sketch.  

I thought I'd start with some sketches I've done recently of the J. Bedell Moore Building while working on a concept for a commission.  The Moore Building is one of my favorites in downtown SA, and it lies on Houston Street, arguably San Antonio's best street for urban sketching.  Ultimately these sketches will be the basis for a woodcut.

I've thoroughly enjoyed the blog posts so far, and look forward to seeing more fantastic urban (and not-so-urban) sketching from every corner of this wonderful state.  Happy sketching!

Paul Heaston

West Texas Fall

Every September, all across Texas, thousands of hunters head to the field for the opening of dove season.  It's an annual tradition passed from father to son.  In west Texas, it signals the end of another long, hot summer and ushers in the season of hunting, friday night football and cotton harvest.  The evening air is cooler, the days are becoming shorter and the scent of gunpowder and cigar smoke drifts on the breeze.   In the midst of the evening hunt, fathers teach sons about life and manhood...and the tradition goes on. Cotten Cordell once said, "First, teach a boy to love God.  Second, teach a boy to love his family.  Third, teach him to hunt and fish and by the time he reaches his teens no dope peddler under the sun will have a chance to teach him anything."

This sketch was done in pen and ink(Namiki Falcon fountain pen w/black Carbon Ink)...watercolor wash added later at home.  Moleskine watercolor sketchbook.  Apologies...not exactly urban!

Public Art in Fort Worth

Richard Serra's "Vortex" is a fantastic icon and sentinal for Fort Worth's Cultural District, and complements the horizontal architecture of the Museum of Modern Art beautifully. Also great sound effects when you jump, clap or shout on the inside! This sketch was done pretty quickly in an 8x12in. Moleskine watercolor sketchbook with unipin fine line permanent ink pen, then washed over with watercolor. I threw a little table salt on the blue sky while still wet for some added interest. When I added the dark shadow I thought I'd ruined the drawing, but once dry it made a big difference in the liveliness of the sketch.

Introducing....Lubbock, Texas!

Lubbock, my home town, is located in northwest Texas...350 miles west of Dallas/Ft. Worth...120 mile south of Amarillo.  Our poulation is about 225,000.  We are the home of Texas Tech University, birthplace of Buddy Holly and right smack in the middle of the largest cotton producing region in the world!  We are known for big skies, beautiful sunsets, cold winters, hot summers and spring sandstorms.  Autumns are great!  This is a pen and ink/watercolor sketch of our skyline...If you're ever in the neighborhood, stop by!  I'll buy you cup of coffee.

Dads and sons fishing trip to the San Juan River near Aztec, New Mexico!  What a great opportunity to blend 3 of my favorite things...son, flyfishing and sketching!  It was really fun to try to capture the essence of the trip in on-location, streamside sketches.  Doesn't get any better than this! 
Pencil and watercolor.

Sweet Tea and Dust

My friend M and I drove out to Warrenton, TX for the big, antiques fair on Saturday afternoon. We left a little late, so it was only a half day adventure. On the way out we drove through a small section of the wildfire burn area, less than 20 miles from the house. It was pretty scary looking. Everything along the drive was parched dry. So many brown trees, a lot dead, hopefully many have gone dormant until it rains.

The antique fair is just fields and fields of tents set up selling every kind of junk, trinket and treasure. All the fields were really just dusty baked dirt. And the sun shone down on us all. A giant glass of ice tea under a shady tree was in order. Slurp.

Welcome to Urban Sketchers Texas!