Waiting for a tire repair

I went to Sears today to get a leaky tire repaired and the wait was going to be an hour or so.  To kill time I walked across the street to Rejuvenation Lighting, which is an old warehouse that has been converted to a lighting store.  It really is a great place to sketch...  I didn't have time to sketch the whole space which would be fun to do.  They did a good job in keeping the historic quality of the interiors.  I did capture a corner of the store.  There was an eye catching sign (the arrow) that drew me to the spot.  It reminded me of an old hardware  or antique store with all the items scattered around.

Friday Sketchers group

This morning I decided I would join the Friday Sketchers for an Adhoc sketchouting at St. Mark's Cathedral.  One of my favorite venues for sketching.  It had great light streaming in through the south windows which drew me to the light and shadow on the column and urn on the left side of the altar.  However by the time I finished by sketch the light had moved or a cloud diffused the strong light and shadows.  Take a picture first when you see something that draws you to a view or space.  That way if things change you can refer back to it.
Here is the sketch.

St. Mark's Cathedral Altar

Bottles and Jars

Did another sketch on my Stillman and Birns Alpha sketchbook.  Stillman and Birns sketchbooks have a very bright white page and I love how the color comes out in these.  If you do a lot of ink line sketches the Alpha series is just fine.  I like the Beta Series for watercolor,  it has the same great white page but is heavier than the Alpha series.  The "Hazelnut Bowl" sketch was done on the BETA and the sketch of "Bottles and Jars"  was done on the ALPHA.

Random Sketches

I find winter is a great time to practice watercolor indoors by painting objects at home. We just replace our dim CFL lights with new LED lights. They work great for light and shadows and provide a bright light similar to halogen lights. Just changing this light source encouraged me to start painting indoors again.

Bowl of hazelnuts

Christmas Nutcracker

Sketches from Souluminations Art Sale

Here are a couple of sketches done of the interior spaces at the Soulumination Sales.  I tried a looser watercolor style in these.

Just for practice

This was a quick sketch done this summer during one of our workshops.  I just got a quick line drawing done. The watercolor was done from memory this morning.

Pike Place Market