Small Sketches from an eventful week

Bits and pieces from last week. My very last school Halloween Parade (next year I have two middle schoolers, no more school parades…)

The usual share of Pikachus, pandas, dinosaurs, unicorns. The bawling baby (in a pull up) took the cake. My son was a barrel of toxic waste. 

Sketching samovars and coffee grinders at Heartbeat Cafe in San Jose. They have a fabulous collection that started with a samovar brought from Poland by the owners mother when she first came to America.

On Friday, Art Ark Gallery in San Jose held an opening reception for their new show, The More the Merrier. When you have 26 artists showing a few pieces each together, it’s fun to look around the room at everyone’s work.

Since all the work I showed is done in sketchbooks, these are framed archival prints of the pieces. And the sketch below is done sometime that evening, watching visitors and artists mingle and chat… In the background, the work of San Jose artist, Valerie Raps.

Some other pages from my book: A construction crew.

A page like lots of others in my book. Except, for the record, I now love Phthalo Green, a color I thought I’d never like.

If you’re wondering about this new, differently proportioned sketchbook, it’s one of my two Laloran Sketchbooks. I used these books recently in Portugal and loved them, and Laloran made these two with Indian fabric for me! The paper is new to me: it is Clairefontaine Dessin à Grain, 180gr. and it handles both pen and watercolor beautifully. Plus, I love that they’re handmade.