Spring colors are splendid everywhere in my area and also at Aspen Dale Winery. The leaves are just coming out in this photograph from April 26, 2014. In the left of center is a redbud in bloom, and directly in the center is a Japanese specimen maple with unusually colored leaf sprouts. The grapevines are leafing up as well and we are off to the growing season.
I chose an early-20th-century look for my text page on the origin of Winding Road Cellars. I didn't want to put too much text in because "Under Vine" is intended to be a picture book mostly. Putting text into a non-rectangular area is a difficult job and needs a lot of fiddling. But now the hardest ones are done. Next is my little essay on "What Makes Virginia Wine Special."
Photoshop Composite, 8 1/2" x 11", April 2019.
I took my Honda Civic, nicknamed the "Electron," for regular maintenance on April 11. Honda is good to their customers. They have a pleasant waiting room for both parents and kids, including a glassed-in playpen and a snack bar selling sandwiches, chips, beverages, and as you see here, ice cream treats in a refrigerated bin. I didn't partake of any of these but I did draw them, as sketching always beats boredom. There are two images on this page, one being the table and chairs and the other is the ice cream bin. A large flat screen TV beams lurid politics from CNN. A Honda service person took a toy from the playpen and put it on one of the cafe chairs for me to draw. It took them two hours to refresh the Electron but now it's in fine shape after a year of city driving.
Sepia brown tech pen on sketchbook page, 5" x 8", April 11, 2019.
This is one of those things you do in art school. Instead of lines and shading, you are assigned to draw the model with solid areas of light and dark or in-between color. I used ink and brush to do this study of a model named "Gloria." I nicknamed her "Stately Gloria" (you can see it lightly scribbled in the lower left) possibly because of her well-built figure. The original drawing was in pencil and the inks went over it. Nowadays you could do this drawing with color brush markers which didn't exist back then.
Pencil and inks on sketchbook page, 8" x 5", 1972.
Springtime is warm enough here that you can sit outside at the cafe tables, and this gent was out there gabbing away with another gent. He looked Greek or Eastern European to me and was nicely dressed. My drawing is somewhat twisted about because he kept moving and squirming. This was at Peet's Coffee which attracts an interesting crowd. It is a great place to people-watch. I suppose someone else was watching me as well.
Sepia brown tech pen on sketchbook page with a bit of Photoshop touch-up, 3" x 5", April 9, 2019.
I have visited Southern California about four times, usually for a convention. This drawing is from my trip to Anaheim for the World Science Fiction in1996. In those days I was still very active in promoting and selling my art and I went to Worldcons regularly. These palms are in front of the Anaheim Convention Center where we had our show. I have friends in the area so I was able to stay a little longer to have fun after the convention. I visited Laguna Beach, UCLA, and some Zoroastrian and Persian folks. I haven't been to Southern California in a long time and no longer go to Worldcons, life is different now.
Black tech pen ink on sketchbook page, 7" x 5", August 29, 1996.
Back to 1972 and here's another art school drawing of the live model. I'm not sure where this session took place but it was probably among the members of my mother's life drawing group. A life drawing session starts with the model taking a series of quick poses for a minute or so, then longer ones of 10-15 minutes. The last hour of drawing is all one pose and this one was probably one of these because I could get a lot of detail and shading. Art modeling is an art unto itself and even back in 1972 models were paid well.
Pencil on sketchbook page, 5" x 8", 1972.
