Formal Application

These drawings come with a little story. It's been a busy month and try as I might, the closest I've come to location sketching is my own backyard. There is a little black-and-white cat who was adopted by my neighbor but she spends most of her time in my yard. She naps on my porch and my deck and drives my indoor cats crazy. She also hunts in my garden. Lately I've been finding little gifts waiting for me on the doormat. Earlier this week it was a mouse. I decided that this offering was a little crispy and rank to bring inside for sketching. The Katydid and the Monarch carcass, however, were perfect. I've started to joke that she is "formally applying" to be my cat. I'm almost afraid to see what I come home to next and she ramps up her campaign.

Live - Dead Music Capital Band

A recent weekend trip to the live music capital of Texas, Austin, to visit Mini Maker Faire.  The Maker Faire is a gathering of makers, everything from weaving, robotics, hackers, crafts, soldering projects, basically anything that you might find someone tinkering with in their shop. I liked the   large, adult-size rocking horses, that were styled more like the 4 horses of the Apocolyps, made by a woman that one day decided she wanted her own rocking horse. Then she made another, and then started to sell them. Of course we had to climb up and have a ride. I don't know why I didn't sketch them. This band marched into the faire and played for a good long while, the Dead Music Capital Band. They were scrungy, pale, bloody with ratty clothes.

Museum Day. Museo Sorolla-Madrid-Spain

On the ocasion of the celebration of the Museum Day , a group of Urban Sketchers were invited to visit the Museo Sorolla, and drawing the inside and outside.
Surrounded by a secluded garden, like an oasis in the centre of Madrid, the Museum holds the greatest collection of works by the Valencian painter Joaquín Sorolla (1863-1923)
Sorolla is often called the "Master of Light" but as attractive as his pictures, his studio and house are more or less as he left them when he died en the 1920s.

some more sketches in my blog

Madrid from the Sky. Ok, almost !!

Another saturday morning, cool and with some ugly clouds on the horizon, we chose the comfort of a cafeteria installed in a ninth floor of a well-known departament store chain with a unbeatable views over Madrid.

Gran Vía from Callao, in the rear the Plaza de España-

Teatro Real in the center, Catedral de la Almudena to the left and Palacio de Oriente to the right

Palacio de la prensa

Update on my March 10th Post.....

I posted the sketch of Broadway Church of Christ on the left back in March( http://urbansketchers-texas.blogspot.com/2012/03/finding-right-view.html )...a quick sketch just to explore composition, value, etc. 

The sketch on the left was done in the studio from the study....I apologize for this one-time violation of  the first imperative of the USK Manifesto(We draw on location, indoors or out, capturing what we see from direct observation), but I thought it was interesting to see the difference.  I think I prefer the looser and free-er feel of the original study!  My work tends to "lose something" when I labor too hard over it!  

Back to pure location sketching!

The Texians

Here are some more Sketchcrawl pictures from the reenactment at San Jacinto. The Texians had a little camp set up at the far end of the "mall" from the monument in a spot just across the road from where the actual Texians camped. People who do these take them quite seriously and the costumes were impressive. The cannon in the vignette is one of the famous "twin sisters". Judith and I wandered around quite a while looking at the camps and the various activities people were engaged in for the amusement of visitors. In one spot the soldiers would lead a group of little boys marching them like soldiers to carry out the "execution" of a traitor. (only to reprieve him each time at the last minute) I was told that some of the group camped there the night before, which must have been very soggy with lots of mosquitoes. The only anachronism became apparent when you got onto the levee separating the park from the wildlife preserve: just over the heads of the Texians you could see the tops of the cargo ships as they glided up the Houston ship channel just behind the trees.

The Madrid Railway Museum

Is located in a former station, one of the finest and most representative examples old Spanish industrial architecture. The museum contains a selection of vehicles and other railway-related exhibits.
On a cold and rainy morning, with a group of Madrid Sketchers, spent a few hours, drawing and chatting.
Was fun.

Some more sketchs of this day in my blog.