sketching and drawing

 Ok, its time for a little fun.   Doodling and drawing seems to be more fun for me right now than sitting down to try to paint a really nice painting.  These are all quick sketches that seemed fun to do at the time,  and looking at the result, I almost like them more than the more serious paintings I do.


This one is what it looks like.  The beer I had on Wednesday.  (yes, I know it was a work night.  I didn't over imbibe.)








Olivia carved her own pumpkin this year.  I don't remember what these holes were.  The eyes are kinda on the other side.  Well, it doesn't matter, and when it gets explained to you by a 4 year old, somehow it all makes sense (or not).

These are just two things I saw out the window and took a quick pencil to.  There is no real significance to them other than I am making an effort to draw a few things a day, even if they are mundane things like these, to keep in a little practice.

How Now Brown....Door?

Ive painted other doors before, and will paint plenty in the future, I am sure,  but this may be the one where I look back and say that I have kind of changed techniques.  I started by drawing a very (well, at least fairly) good representation of a wooden door in a stone wall.  I didn't draw any of the stones in the wall, but drew everything else.  I had plans to do what I always do, which is to paint this little bit, then move the paper, paint another little bit, then repeat, repeat, repeat until I have what I think is a finished painting.  Well, after I started the door that way, I took a little different turn.  Everything after the wood was done free form and in rapid succession.  While the coloring is a little less than imaginative, I think it made for some really nice bits to the painting.

Painting with the strict way I would have painted in the past, this painting would have taken me an hour or more,  but since I painted the brown of the door, this took me no more than 10 minutes.

For me, the stone really stands out,   I could have used a bit more color, but they really seem to stand out, and the door does look like it is set back just a bit in the jam.

Hope you like it.

Smoke Stacks

If you have not been to Morro Bay before, then you probably don't know that there are actually two different thing that dominate our skyline.  The first is, of course, Morro Rock.  The second, which most people think of as an eyesore, are the smoke stacks of the power plant.  Personally, I think that the stacks have been here long enough that if they ever were to go away, people would work hard to find a way to restore them.  I've been working on a way to include them in a painting for a while now.  Well, I finally found one.  I painted this very quickly and loosely.  I think rock came out pretty good, and I even like the bushes in front of it.  I couldn't help but paint someone walking down the road.  All in all, I think its a pretty good representation of what they both actually look like.  Hope you enjoy.

random weekend sketching

These are just some pictures that I painted over the weekend.  The top of a chair with a red box on it.





The lamp hanging in the corner of the living room.



These are some of the plants growing in my front yard.  Not sure what all of them are called.

 These are some of the plants growing in my front yard.  Not sure what all of them are called.







This is the tree from across the street.

This is the lamp from the dining room.

Anyone Recognize This House?

Yes it is the pride of west Michigan.  It is, of course, The Buckeye House.