Scavenger Hunt from Life #143: Dec 29 - Jan 06

[Jo Castillo]

Fletch, good update on the avatar! Your sketch of the submarine art piece is so cool. Not a way I would like to travel, but love hearing your stories.

Vivien, awwww, love your puppy toys. Great job on the paper towel.

Joan, your travel sketch is so good. Happy the new mobile studio is working for you. Applause.

Hi there Ai.

Ned, I think of New York with snow in winter. Brrrrr. Don't know how Joan gets out all the time. You are definitely right about Ai's paintings. She and Joan show us the world. We had posole (hominy and pork soup??) with red NM chile for New Year's food. Tradition. About medium spicy this year. Weather has been sunny and cool but not cold. The bare tree sketch/painting is so good. Hope you can share some of your pin hole camera shots again. We have room for those!!

 

[Joan T]

Ned, thanks for your comments. We do have some trees that stay green, but the majority of them are bare. As a kid I never would have walked on a railing. I have no sense of balance and don't like to be on anything above ground without something to hold on to. Your tree sketch came out great. I like the addition of the green (moss? lichen? I never know what it is exactly. Your color is perfect for it. Hope the pinhole camera captured something interesting.

Jo, thanks. This mobile studio is a bit better. Things haven't been falling between the seats and the console like they always did in the Sentra.lol Everyone thinks of NY as being snowy, but we don't get much right here. A lot of the storms that come through may be snow a bit farther north, but we tend to get more rain. BUT we do get that occasional storm that dumps on us and then we're stuck with it forever.

 

[NedL]

#6 means of travel... for gravel barges... Could also be something I wanted to sketch because at least twice I've seen it docked and planned to sketch, only to be gone by the time I walked a couple miles to get to it.

ink, ink wash, and those dots of watercolor on palette paper

No photo, just my sketchbook in my pocket.
Those dots of watercolor on palette paper really are the most practical way to carry color. There's a little pocket in the sketchbook cover and it fits right inside, so it's always with the sketchbook... I need to remember to put dots of my new cobalt blue and white gouache on it!

And like Fletch said before... now that it's posted, I notice I forgot to make the openings in those tall exhaust pipes black like I meant to...

 

[Joan T]

Ned, you do travel light. Nice sketch of the whatchamacallit! Looks like the dots of color work perfectly for what you need. It is funny that we notice what we forgot after we've posted the sketch.

9 - bright hanging lights - watercolors and ink

 

[AiArts]

Ned:
Love the barge...the dot watercolors travel very well with you.

Joan: love cute hanging light front of cool structure...well-done.

 

[AiArts]

Tone and I went up what was supposed to be the highest natural highpoint in Bangkok, but more than hundred years...they have built the renown golden pagoda on its top and called it Golden Mountain. Recently they have been renovated and so many tourists get up there to see best sunset view of Bangkok. The Thais flock up there for Buddha blessings. I did not have full sketch gears yesterday just a ball point pen and a notebook.

#11 pile --> mound--> mountain--> Golden Mountain

And the view of Bangkok from its deck to see it's relative height.

 

[NedL]

Joan -- love the crab shack! Great contrast!

Ai -- that "Golden Mountain" is wild. Nothing like that around here Like how you sketch with what you have.

 

[jmfletch]

Vivien - The dog toys made me smile. Great shading on the paper towel.

Joan - Great job on people. Read an article recently about adding realistic people and thought of you.

Ned - The bare trees are well rendered and colored. Love the barge! Will always see those little things, that no-one else notices, after you post. Think it is one of those laws.

Joan - Neat looking little shop and lots of lights!\

Ai - View is great but you get extra points for sketching even without sketch kit!

For the record, the wall decoration i drew is a wood carving of the device you earn when you qualify in submarines. Colloquially the are called Dolphins but official name is Submarine Warfare Insignia. Enlisted wear silver and officers gold which is interesting as in the Navy the rank rule is “silver over gold” for example A Commander wears a silver oak leaf to indicate rank while a Lieutenant Commander, one rank junior, wears a gold oak leaf.

Keep sketching
Fletch

 

[NedL]

Here's the result from 6 months with that pinhole camera:

 

[Joan T]

Ai, that's quite a view from up there. Good use of the materials you did have with you!

Ned, that looks like a scene from a spooky movie...can't tell what will walk out of there. lol Great that you film these and you get to show us the interesting results.

10 - old gas pump - watercolors



11 - something sweet - Procreate

 

[jmfletch]

Ned - The arcs are sun paths over the months? It is cool and like Joan said a but spooky.

Joan - Your colors are so vivid. Is that from multiple layers or heavy paint? Am still working on thewarer part if watercolors

Keep sketching
Fletch

 

[NedL]

Fletch -- I've thought of your challenge every day. Now that you mention it, I've heard of dolphins before... not sure where, maybe from you!

Joan -- lol, you're right! They come out different every time, never know what it will look like. That's kinda the fun of it. That sort of brick red color that made nice contrast in the crab shack did it again in the old gas pump. And perfect with those greens! The sweet made me want dessert but I'm going to resist!

I'm going to build a new fishing rod soon and bought a few lures to go with it. This lure is too light to cast with my normal rod and I haven't used it yet. It came with 3 wicked treble hooks that I swapped out for two large single hooks. It might not be obvious, but large hooks are much easier on fish: small fish don't get hooked at all and large ones get hooked in the lip and don't swallow them. Before I fish with it, those barbs on the hooks will be removed too. I release most fish unharmed.

#7 new fishing lure ink, ink wash, inktense

 

[Jo Castillo]

Looks like some frigid temps in the northeast. Stay warm Joan. Our family in Kentucky is prepared for ice tomorrow.

Ned the barge is so cool and an unusual sight for us. Love the touches of color. Nice work with such a small sketch kit. I'm smiling. We do forget things until we post.

Joan the hanging lights are fun. Nice sketch of the building.

Ai, fun you found something to sketch with. Our daughter used to make all sorts of designs on graph paper like doodling or zentangles. Thanks for photos of the Golden Mountain. What a view!

Fletch, interesting the carving and gold and silver. Never knew that. Amazing what we learn in art!

Ned, fantastic pinhole camera photo. It does look a bit spooky and l the trees show up. Wow. Thanks. I'm sharing with my photographer son and daughters. Your fishing lure is cool. Our ponds are catch and release. The fish there are probably not good to eat especially now that the ponds are drying up. I would be tempted to eat yours if you caught a sea bass. Love that fish.

I sketched on my footstool in the new sketchbook with Micron 03. 2,3,4 rock, scissors, paper. A rock the great grands got for me to sketch. Dark on the inside where it broke and sort of off white on the outside. Scissors cut anything, got them to open plastic wrappers and to recycle stuff. Paper is the paper of the sketchbook I should have drawn the sketchbook first as my scissors don't go to the edge of the paper. Ha.

 

[AiArts]

Joan: Thanks wonderful...vintage old gas pump sketch... Its Tone's favorite thing.

Fletch: Thanks. Very interesting of silver over gold for US Navy.

Ned: Thanks. Lovely result of the pinhole camera... May be you could kindly sketch the camera for us to see some day. The effects seem special and unique... feel like I am seeing some interesting movie shot. Nice work on the new lure... have fun.

Jo: Thanks... Interesting rock, paper, scissors, esp. the form of the special scissors.

 

[NedL]

Fletch -- I didn't see your post... Maybe I didn't refresh the page for a long time... yes, each of the streaks / arcs behind the trees is one day of the sun going across the sky ( gaps for cloudy days ). High in summer, low in winter. The brighter ones on the bottom are the most recent winter days -- sometimes older streaks fade a little over the 6 months. You can see more of them here.

Jo -- I like all the rock, paper, scissors in this hunt! Nice neat hatching and good texture on that rock!

Ai -- I'll do it It's just a soda can with a piece of photographic printing paper inside. Not much to it. A needle pushed through the side makes the pinhole. The hard part is finding interesting places to put them where they won't get taken or opened...

 

[Jo Castillo]

Joan, I love the gas pump. There was an old station by the bank and they made a drive up window with ATM by the pump and call it a "Cash Station". The cookies sound so delicious and look like it too!

Ned, thanks for the camera link and info.

 

[AiArts]

Ned: Thanks...and how long you leave it to expose to the scene

Today I went to sketch the new Dior flagship store in downtown Bangkok with my sketch group ...

#13 gift -> item --> lux item --> Dior - wc+pencil+ ink

PS. I did not get to walk inside the shop today. Sometimes, to go inside, just to check it out required on-line pre-booking... eek.

 

[jmfletch]

Joan - Your colors are so vivid. Is that from multiple layers or heavy paint? Am still working on thewarer part if watercolors

Joan - Apologies. First off I wrote the above comment while looking at your earlier post of the people on the boardwalk. Second, it was suppose to say “Am still working on the water part of watercolors, “ not sure what happened to the comment I wrote on the gas pump or the cookie. The cookie may be digital but looks like your watercolor right down to the violet shadow.
Joe

 

[jmfletch]

Ned - Those pinhole photos are all gorgeous! Thanks for the link. The ink-tense on the lure looks more like watercolor than pencil. Nicely done

Jo - Beautiful hatching. Rock is suppose to break scissors but it would probably take a boulder to break those!

Ai - What size is that notebook? Makes a great panoramic view. And to capture your painting did not require on-line pre-booking. Nicely rendered.

Keep sketching
Fletch

Proof read this one twice.

 

[AiArts]

Fletch: Thanks. The sketchbook is Tarens Art Creation, panoramic format, about 5.25 x 8 inch. It is not the thick wc paper but rather thinner. However, I am OK with gliding my brush on top of a bit smooth surface. And the sketchbook seems to handle wc on both pages back-front without leaking in the back to ruin the backpage sketch.