Norberto

This is Norberto. He's an urban sketching friend living in Buenos Aires, Argentina.This is another one of my "collaborative" portraits where the portrait is my sketch and the background is Norberto's work. I love his work. Loose but powerful linework and strong perspective combined with inks and watercolor washes that move your eyes to just the right places.

8x10.5 pencil and watercolor in my grand portrait sketchbook. #244

Ríona and Ciara

This is Ríona and her sister, Ciara. I met them the first night of a tour I took in India this past May. The whole group went out to dinner to get know one another and I sat across from Ríona and Ciara and their friend Aoife. They were all from Ireland. Ríona and Aoife had been travelling together for several months and Ciara joined them for the tour of India. Somewhere along the way the two sisters asked me to sketch their portrait. It took a few months, but here it is...

11x16 Pencil and watercolor in my large Moleskine sketchbook. #242 and 243.

Jigmet

This is Jigmet. This past May I went to India for a few weeks. The last 2 weeks I was on a photography tour with Nathan Horton and a small group of photographers. Jigmet was our knowledgeable, kind and patient guide to monasteries and over high mountain passes. I sketched this during a chai break at Thikse Monastery outside of Leh.

8x10.5 pencil and watercolor. #241

India 2015 Sketchbook - Jaipur

This was a quick 5 minute sketch from my seat on the bus on the way to Jaipur. The driver stopped to pay a road tax and I simply sketched the view out my window. He actually pulled over, got out of the bus and crossed about 6 lanes of high speed traffic, paid the tax, then ran back to the bus. By doing it this way he saved us an hour or so of waiting in much longer lanes of traffic. — in India.

This was a roadside stop we made on the way to Jaipur to have some Chai tea. — in India.

This was a nightime sketch of the rooftop where we had dinner our first night in Jaipur. I opted to sketch for desert. A couple of young boys sat with me and I showed them my sketching kit and brushes and let them paint with me. — in Jaipur, India.

India 2015 Sketchbook - Maine to Delhi

The sketch on the left page was done on the Cape Air flight from Rockland to Boston. The sketch on the right was done the next morning at JFK Airport. That's the plane I flew on to London where I then connected on to Delhi.

The sketch on the left page is Oscar Hernandez, an urban sketching friend whose portrait I painted (from a photo) the first evening I arrived in Delhi as part of The Portrait Project. The sketch on the right is a the largest Hanuman statue in the world. It is 108 feet tall. Here's a video taken from near where I was sitting:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LO7uOVSuxE - this is the sound of Delhi. It never stops.

The first morning in Delhi I had breakfast in the hotel restaurant and sat alone at a table near the window and sketched the view and the busy street outside. The window was actually two thick sheets of plate glass separated by about 3/4" and filled with bits of broken glass up to about 40" off the floor. That's what I was trying to indicate at the bottom of the sketch.

After breakfast on the first day I wanted to explore the area around my hotel. I walked a couple of miles from my hotel and found this Sikh temple and a semi-shady place to sit and sketch. I worked on this for a couple of hours until the sun became too unbearable. Several people came up to me as I sketched and either watched, chatted with me for awhile, or took their photo with me. That's how it was sketching in public in India.

Inside the temple I met this man who showed me the proper way to wash my feet and hands and what to wear on my head. I sat for awhile in the cool interior and then took some photos and walked back to my hotel where I met the group I was going to be travelling with over the next 2 weeks. — at Gurudwara Nanaksar Sahib.

Day 1 we toured Delhi. We traveled in tuk tuks, explored spice markets in Old Delhi, visited the Jama Masjid Mosque (the largest and best-known mosque in India) and found a Starbucks in Connaught Place to cool off in. Not much time to sketch but I took lots of photographs — at Jama Masjid, Delhi.