African Lions

Happy Sunday, these are sketches with sepia, umber, white chalk, blue/red/yellow colored pencils on tan toned paper.  I felt like doing something easy and relaxing to finish up this weekend.  These remind me of summer trips to the zoo and my time in Kenya.  So I have seen these magnificant cats in captivity and the wild.  The wild does add a little adrenaline to the experience.

Sailboat

TGIF, Friday night's post is a sailboat sketch from a magazine on a Trans-Atlantic flight in 2008.  Sketching makes the time go by and calms me down.  Which is perfect for the captive time in an airplane.  The nice thing is I can see the improvement over time, the hard part about art is being willing to critique yourself and then make the improvements.  I look at this and basically am satisfied but I can see my mistakes or areas needing improvement, but that is why like a musician an artist should practice everyday.

Orchids

Orchids in the Hotel room, bored and waiting for a flight home, a simple color experiment and contour sketch of the Orchids.  These sort of remind me of the Cherry Blossoms, which are an annual Springtime celebration in DC and in Japan.  The Japanese gifted the first Cherry trees to DC about 100 years ago.  The Cherry Blossom represent the beauty and fragility of life.  Beauty and sadness, to be notice and enjoyed before it fades away.

Grizzly Bear - Scratchboard

This is a scratchboard of a Grizzly Bear from a few years ago.  I have seen bears in the wild four times now.  Grizzlies - twice in Yellowstone NP, Alaska; and Black Bears - twice in Upstate New York, and near a dumpster in a campground in Colorado.  I have more Bear art I would like to do.  Some will be seen here on the Blog.

Farewells - Delicate Arch

I have a co-worker who is heading home to Utah to take a new job.  He likes to sketch some too, so his coworkers are sending him off with a new sketchbook and journal.  We were suppose to add a little sketch of our own as opposed to the good bye card.  I did a quick sketch with watercolor pencils of Delicate Arch, in Arches National Park, near Moab, Utah.

Africa - Masai Mara, kenya

This is a quick silhouette of an Acacia tree and Impala.  The sun is a little distorted but I really was concentrating on the tree and the different branch shapes.  I went to Kenya a few years ago and I can highly recommend it.

Horse Sketch

This is a quick sketch of a horse.  What I really liked was the bridle and the reins.  I love the detail and how they crossed over the horse's face and the variety of the shapes they make.  Hopefully, I got it right.  I am sure the Horse people will let me know where I erred.