Sketching Sculpture

To see my paintings visit my website www.janblencowe.com

 Trips to museums make great sketching days. At the Slater Museum they have life size plaster casts of  all the famous sculpture form antiquity. Pencil and gouache were used to capture the Hermes Belvedere and the Dying Gaul.

The next town over from where I live has a Sculpture Mile, a mile long section of the downtown that has a sculpture exhibit that changes every year. this privately funded effort brings art into the public spaces of the town. Pencil, watercolor and gouache capture two views of this figurative piece.

Spring Sketching, Lilacs and Trees

To see my paintings visit my website www.janblencowe.com

Every year I make sure that I do something with the lilacs when they bloom. Sometimes it's a full painting, sometimes just a watercolor or sketch. This year it was a sketch. These come from a large shrub in my mom's yard. I brought her a huge bouquet of them as she was in the hospital recovering from a hip replacement. The scent of lilacs is just intoxicating! Watercolor, pen, acrylic marker.

This quick watercolor was done just at the edge of our property looking up the road. It was very overcast and while I was working it started to mist creating beautiful star patterns in the paint similar to what you get when you drop salt on wet watercolor.

Working in a Stillman & Birn Beta Sketchbook

This is the cover page for my Stillman and Birn Beta Sketchbook.....

...and the first page. You can see by the dates that I am way behind in posting. In fact, this books is filled and I've moved on to a new one! I'm really going to try hard to get caught up and to post regularly, as I finish pages. For now if you want to keep up to date I post frequently in Cathy Johnson's Artist Journal Workshop Group on Facebook.

The SUN page above is done with pencil, watercolor, gouache and marker.

The Bird feeder page is one of my fav's. The very quick sketches (birds don't stay still very long!) were done with a blue/black Uniball Signo pen, and since the ink is not waterproof when touched with a waterbrush loaded with yellow ochre watercolor beautiful green, browns were created, perfect for depicting the green enamel of the feeder and the color of the seed inside.

Beautiful spring colors on Messerchmidt's Pond near my home, the top three are gouache and the bottom is a watercolor.  These small landscape studies are invaluable for preparing me for the plein air painting season.

One of the things I really love about the Stillman & Birn beta sketchbook is it's fabulous heavy weight, (180lb, unheard of in a sketchbook!) multimedia paper. This paper takes everything you can throw at it with no buckling or rippling, no bleed through, and the surface stays perfect even with repeated applications, even a fair amount of scrubbing. All of that is important to me because I know that I have the freedom to experiment and to keep working a sketch until I get it working to my satisfaction, even if I have to add several types of media to do it. I really feel fearless when using this sketchbook! And that is very, very good for unleashing creativity!

Zoo Sketches

To see my paintings visit my website www.janblencowe.com

 Sketching at the zoo is very challenging! Some of these are from on the spot observation, others developed and fleshed out from photos I took. I wish there was a zoo close to home so I could go frequently and become adept enough to capture the animals quickly and accurately while observing them.

The lions are done with 2B pencil and gouache, in a Stillman & Birn Beta Sketchbook.

The Baboons were very entertaining to watch especially the very young one, who persisted in pestering his elders even after getting a scolding. 2B pencil and gouache, in a Stillman & Birn Beta Sketchbook.

Wish I could have gotten the Bactrain Camels to turn around, but they were at the hay baskets munching the afternoon away. 2B pencil and gouache, in a Stillman & Birn Beta Sketchbook.

 This part of the zoo was fascinating. It's called the Deer Forest and a herd of 90 Fallow Deer roam free as you walk along the paths. The deer will come to you to eat if you buy corn from the little dispensers, they will follow you and walk freely in and out of groups of people. Here you see a chocolate variety, and a spotted. There is also a white coated variation. Watercolor, 2B pencil and gouache, in a Stillman & Birn Beta Sketchbook.

This was a spur of the moment visit on our way home from my daughter's college in Beverly, MA and I would have missed the opportunity to enjoy these beautiful animals if I didn't always keep at least one sketching kit in the car at all times!

Landscape Sketches

To see my paintings visit my website www.janblencowe.com

This old New England stone wall borders part of our property and seemed a suitable subject for this wonderful long format (6x9) Stillman & Birn Gamma series sketchbook, 100lb. ivory vellum paper which is quite lovely for pencil work.

I found some really neat pencils the other day at Jerry's in West Hartford. They are made by O'BON and instead of the 2B graphite being encased in wood the pencils are made from recycled newspaper using their patented Rolled On method. This method of construction protects the lead so it doesn't break easily and will last 2-3 times longer than an ordinary wood pencil. The pencils are non-toxic, easily sharpened and are also water resistant. The O'BON pencils support international recycling policies and are available in HB and 2B as well as colored pencils. The only downside is that they are made in China. China is the number one polluter in the world, and surprisingly, by a big lead. In 2010, China had a total CO2 emission of 8.2 million thousand metric tonnes, almost TWICE that of the USA. *Sigh*  I can only hope that by purchasing these I'm helping O'BON earn a profit and someday be able to  manufacture their pencils in the USA in a way that is environmentally friendly, and thus probably more expensive.We live in a complicated world.

 

Also in the S&B Gamma sketchbook a view of the Indian River as it empties into the Long Island Sound. This was done using a Caran d'Ache sepia, Supracolor watercolor pencil. 

Sketching at Salmagundi Club, NYC

To see my paintings visit my website www.janblencowe.com

Antique books from the Salmagundi Club Library. You may recognize the sketch of Rembrandt's Road to Emmaus,  in the open book. Pentalic Nature Sketch, 8.5 x 11, 130lb. 25% cotton paper,  various markers including Vision Uni-ball, Copic, Bic Mark-It, Prismacolor, Utrecht Design Markers.

A few months back I joined the Salmagundi Club Library Sketching Group, a newly formed group in an old organization.

Founded in 1871, the Salmagundi Club is one of the oldest art organizations in the United States. Housed in an historic brownstone mansion in Greenwich Village, New York City, its members have included important American artists such as Thomas Moran, William Merritt Chase, Louis Comfort Tiffany, N.C. Wyeth and Childe Hassam.

 Pentalic Nature Sketch, 8.5 x 11, 130lb. 25% cotton paper, Sepia, Caran d'Arche Supracolor II Soft pencil

Historic palettes on the walls in Salmagundi Club library, including Ralph Blakelock's, Ernest Lawson's, one of The Eight of the Ash Can School, Carl Brenner, William Henry Lippingcott 


The Salmagundi Club originated in 1871 as a sketch class in Johnathan Scott Hartley's studio and purchased this mid-nineteenth century brownstone house in 1917 as its second home.

Originally formed as the Salmagundi Sketch Club in 1871, the Club adopted its present name a hundred years ago after Washington Irving published his potpourri of wit and wisdom called "The Salmagundi Papers". The name also serves as the club dining room's famous "Salmagundi Stew".

Today, the club  is reviving the sketch class that began over 140 years ago.

Bust of Thomas Moran, Pentalic Nature Sketch, 8.5 x 11, 130lb. 25% cotton paper,Derwent, burnt sienna, watercolor pencil.

 Pentalic Nature Sketch, 8.5 x 11, 130lb. 25% cotton paper, 2b graphite pencil

This charming fellow sits atop the mantle in the library and I'm beginning to think of him as the group's mascot!

Salmagundi Club Library