California Coast in Pen and Ink

This is one of the last sketches I did on our trip to Yosemite in September. We were on our way home, driving along the northern California coast. The view was from a pull-off on route 1, north of Fort Bragg.

Stone House Cafe in Rainier Beach

This is from a USk meetup a couple of weeks ago at the stone house cafe in Rainier Beach, south of Seattle. Argh - my perspective is all wonky. But, when I went around to look at the building from the front, I realized that the porch roof is actually not level. It tilts from right to left for drainage. I probably got that right and then distorted everything under the porch trying to make it all line up. Trust your eyes!

Marker Sketch of Yosemite Sequoia

I also did some marker sketches in my Strathmore Toned Journal with the Faber Castell brush markers during our roadtrip. The markers work very well on this paper, although I am still working out the technique. It is quite different from sketching on white paper. I need to think about adding some white to each drawing, or they seem dull.

Sketches from Yosemite National Park

I could take a little more time with my sketches, once we reached Yosemite NP. Yosemite Falls - and all of the other waterfalls in the park - were dry. I am not sure how much this was due to California's drought, as many of the falls and rivers might have been dry in September anyway. They were all still fun to sketch, and I found myself carrying my black marker and pad everywhere.

Road Trip Sketching

Theses are a few sketches I did during a recent roadtrip from Seattle to Yosemite and back north along the coast of California and Oregon. Whew! These were all done from the passenger seat as the scenery whizzed by at 60mph or so (that is whizzing in an '85 VW Vanagon). Lots more on Flickr! I became a bit addicted to these fast and minimal sketches.

This drawing is done with Faber Castell Pitt Markers in a Strathmore Gray Toned hardbound journal. I have been using the markers for a while now, and I have used Strathmore Tan Toned journals before, too. I like both very much. But this is the first time using the two together, and I have found it quite a challenge to get a good scan of these drawings. The transparent marker colors look quite vibrant on the gray paper, but turn dull in the scanned images. I have resorted to tweaking the Contrast and Hue Saturation in paint.net to get them to appear anything like the original.

I have not gotten out much to sketch lately. Luckily, Plumpernickel is always willing to model.