Hi everyone.  It’s been a while and my only excuse is that I’ve been too tired to do much of anything.  The positive news is that I just heard that this is due to something more than my fight with my new overload, my knee.  Seems I’m anemic, probably the result of all the drugs I’m taking, some of which can induce anemia.  New round of doctor appts coming up.

Today, however, I thought I’d show you examples of some of the little sketching “exercises” I’ve been doing.  No claims here of anything significant but it’s been my attempt to keep my hand in the game.

One thing I’ve been doing is playing with how one does nature with watercolor.  This includes color and brushstrokes, just some of my weaknesses when it comes to watercolor.  Here are a couple examples.

Here I was trying to keep things very simple and yet create some texture in rocks, foliage and sky.

Below are more doodles than anything, but they followed a series of paint blobs that covered several sheets of paper, all with the thoughts of understanding paint thickness, mixing on paper, etc.  I’ve got years to go in coming to understanding of this mysterious world.  Many more pages of paint blobs ahead.

At one point I started drawing single rocks and mushrooms.  Not sure why but I thought I’d throw one of those in just for spice.  My mushrooms are clearly influenced by cartoon mushrooms, probably because that’s the way I see them.

I can’t doodle very long without drawing a structure.  Recent doodles have emphasized attempts to be more loose and free with my line work, foresaking precision.  My brain has a hard time with that.

And then there is a pile of sheets like this.  No rhyme or reason to them at all.  Whatever I was thinking at the moment went into whatever blank space remained on the page.  I think as much as anything this was service to my visual and motor corteces that feel the need to make marks even if my body isn’t.

We just got back from a trip to Rimouski where I did get to do some honest-to-goodness urban sketching. I’ll post those in the next couple days, after I get them scanned.