Thai statue

Inktense, about 6x8 inch in the sketchbook I now travel with:  Pentallic Leather Journal.  It's got thick watercolor paper but there's not much sizing on it;  I wasn't scrubbing but I was trying to blend the colors in the background and the paper started pilling so I switched to a softer brush.

Westlake (China) 2004

Micron pen in the 6x8-in drawing sketchbook.  I think I've drawn this before in another medium.  I know it didn't come out as well as this.

Had just one page left.  This was in my head.  Amazing what I'll find in there when I'm not overworked or under pressure.  That Inktense is really intense IRL.  So, YAY!!  Sketchbook #13 is finally done (#6 art goal in 2011).

Inktense Blocks & GIMP

My truck passed CA smog yesterday.  That's an enormous monkey off my back.  I celebrated with a drive to my "closest" brick 'n mortar art store (30 miles) and unintentionally came home with $100 of art supplies, including a set of Inktense blocks.  I really haven't been thrilled with the Inktense pencils I've had for quite a while. I find them clumsy to sketch with outside the house BUT I've really "clicked" with these sticks with & without wash.  Going down, they feel like I wanted the Prismacolor art stix to feel like.  Right before this sketch, I put down the first line with the art stix -- I got a clear wax line, bleh.  I'm seriously considering taking this set on my trip.

The sketch is Basilica di San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy.  I (finally) downloaded GIMP last week (been meaning to for 2 years).  I tried some smudging in the blue sky to get rid of strokes that the wash didn't smooth enough.

Buddha 2004

Charcoal in the 6x8 drawing sketchbook.  I took the reference photo in 2004 near Shanghai where monks have carved like a hundred Buddhas into the mountainside.  I didn't see the belly button in the reference but I thought he needed one.

Dang it, I'm actually doing better on the 2011 art goal (use up sketchbooks) than on the 2012 goal (use up acrylic paint.)

Stonehenge 1985

I got my first camera just before my first overseas business trip.  I had a long layover in London so I had time to take local tours before the tour of Western Europe.  I lost alot of pictures because I didn't load the camera properly and I didn't recognize the clues that it wasn't operating properly.  I learned all that in a photography class I took a year AFTER the trip.    Compared to today, I hardly took any pictures!  Just a couple at each site but I got the important tourist shots.  I lost the few pictures I took in Scotland, London, Holland, Germany, and Venice, though I did get to go back and retake my London pics. 

I got to see Stonehenge before they put an ugly fence around it.  That day, that grass was soggy from rain before we got there and the rain clouds weren't that far away.  This sketch is part oil pastel (the green) and part hard pastels.