Biking in Kyoto

On our last day in Kyoto we rented bikes. We rode to Nijo Castle and walked around/sketched, went to a sword shop. Then we rode over to the International Manga Museum. I wish I had more time there. There were thousands of books spanning the past century and hundreds of people reading Manga books. It looked more like a library than a museum. There were some amazing figurines and drawings on display there.

Anyway, I did this sketch the other day from a photo I took on the bike ride that day. The photo was of a street scene and this sketch is a little scene way up high off the street. I didn't really notice it at the time, most people probably don't - it's just more visual noise in the city. But it grabbed my attention and now it has yours!

Pemaquid Lighthouse

 

The Tykona

This is one of those sketches that didn't quite turn out the way I hoped it would but I still like it for some reason. It's kind of hard to tell what it is unless you were there. This is a cruising boat at Migis Lodge on Sebago Lake - about an hour NW of Portland. It's a 1936 wooden Chris-Craft known as Tykona.

Anyway, I had this idea to fill some waterbrush pens with Doc Martins Ink and try painting with them so this was an experimental sketch with that technique. The inks are pretty intense and saturated so I found I had to water them down which I did by brushing some water, brushing with my ink brush, then mixing it with my plain water brush. I think I need to keep working on it...

New York City

I went to the US Open back in September. I got to see Roger Federer and Raphael Nadal play some amazing tennis (not against each other unfortunately, but in separate quarter final matches) I even ate breakfast at the table next to Roger Federers babies. They are very cute but wow, they can cry. I did this sketch the very first morning from Lenny's, a diner on the corner of 2nd and 77th.