inktober 2019, Day 22-31

Dark, coat, ride

I wanted to play with three values: dark, medium and light. For dark, I have Noodlers ink “Dark Matter”. The eggplant is often darkest in a still life, but this time it’s the middle value with the lemon being lighter.

Rolling on a second coat of paint.

Toys R Us used to carry this vintage wooden Radio Flyer Scooter but the lettering was more like children’s printing.

Injured, Catch, Ripe

I just had to draw one of the fishmongers at Pike Place Market catching a “flying” fish.

I don’t know about you but I have the hardest time judging the right time to open an avocado.

Yay! Finished!

My personal time has been very limited this month. Although I knew that I would probably have to play a game of catch up this time and post late for much of this year’s Inktober, I love the challenge of daily sketching and the way Inktober generates involvement around the world. How could I resist? So here I am posting my last six drawings with one page left at the back of my sketchbook.

Thanks again, Jake, for another set of inspirational prompts.

Inktober 2019, Day 21-25

Day 21-25
Treasure. Ghost, Ancient, Dizzy, Tasty

treasure, ancient, dizzy, tasty

Ancient Greek columns were made to flare out slightly at the top so that at human eye level they would appear straight as the receded upwards.

I love fresh strawberries. 🍓🍓🍓


So where’s the ghost, you may ask? I have something in mind but I’m waiting for delivery of some white ink that I ordered. 😁

Rita Sketching

I was tempted to do a contour drawing while Rita was focused on her nature journal at the top of the trail from Buster Brown Field.

I tucked this sketch into the fold over part of my handmade accordion sketchbook, ready to add watercolor washes later.

June 28, 2018 = 7:30pm Back in the studio on Thursday night, I did a live broadcast of some additions and corrections to my North Cascades nature journal. See the replay on periscope.tv/michelecoopart

Some souvenirs of our weekend in the North Cascades

My 19 minute demo on Periscope includes tips on making corrections and using watercolor, watercolor pencil and pen.

Rita sketching on a windy hilltop in the North Cascades.

Catching up with Posting Inktober, Days 10-14

Inktober Day 10-Gigantic (See my Instagram for caption)

Inktober Day 11-Run, that's what you do if you see this! My parents had a pair of geese that terrified our 4 year old son.

Day 12 - Shattered  (Condition of the cell phone and the owner who just realized the damage)
Day 13 - Teeming (The coral reef is teeming with life. May it ever be so.)
Day 14 - Fierce (Fang toothed Moray eels are truly fierce...the way they look, their fangs and the fact that they anchor themselves in the reef, latch on to their victim and don't let go!)

For high resolution photos of these and other work not shown here, please visit my Flickr photostream.

Urban Sketch Kit for Ink & Watercolor

Everything fits into a medium cross body bag or small backpack.

The new international series of urban sketchers workshops, Discovering Your City One Sketch at a Time, Seattle 10x10 is underway! I am looking forward to my turn to teach you how to combine your writing and drawing in Workshop #8: Visual Journaling.

Here's my pared down kit that I usually use when we have our monthly meetups in Seattle. That's my DIY Altoids mini tin open on top of the Prima Tropicals Watercolor Set.

For a written list of these items, please read here.

Extras: The small pink stylus/pen on the left is for taking notes on my smart phone. I usually stand and sketch or find a nearby bench, rock or restaurant if I need to sit down.

20 Drawings for Tuesday

On a cold, rainy day, I headed for the grocery store. Much to my surprise, the middle of my journey was occupied by road construction, causing us to line up single file and drive by in alternate queues. I started to draw while waiting, but the line started moving almost immediately, so I had to resort to a few quick snapshots with my smart phone and finish these first 6 people from photos.



I parked at Safeway and added color to the road workers, then went into the store to "buy bread for dinner" while stalking customers for my next 9 sketches. It seems my ninja sketching skills are waning and the most interesting profiles or face on people caught on to what I was doing. The one that gave me the most trouble was the lady in the lower right of the page who barely was able to hold onto her armload of groceries. I actually  tracked her all the way to the shopping carts, where she deposited her haul and promptly disappeared.

I realize that standing with your sketchbook in the grocery store might look like you have a very copious check list, but I really only had a package of dinner rolls in my cart. That florist was even faster than me and my grocery cart. She flitted like a bee all over the store and I felt I would look a bit suspicious hustling after her. Who knows what the security tapes already looked like during my 45 minutes in the store!

Lastly, I had 5 more people to draw for the day, so I went to the gas station, but there wasn't a good vantage point. Got gas. Then I thought there might be some people in the nearby Michael's hobby store on such a dreary day. Well, the customers were outnumbered by the clerks and here they all are. Well, 4 of them are customers and the lady with the strangely asymmetrical hair style was one of the clerks.

Tomorrow will be the last day that I can freely search for sketch models. I have to leave after dinner for my night watercolor class at Skagit Valley College. Then classes each day through Friday. If you come to class, I will sketch you!

21 Drawings for Monday

It's the first day of the One Week 100 People global drawing challenge. I decided to use a new black Pocket Brush Pen by Pentel on my second sketch below. The pen has cartridges that can be replaced and I figured it might be a good idea to have some backup this week. I imagine I will be using a lot more ink than usual!

It got pretty cold this afternoon when I was finally able to scout out one of our local Starbucks stores. I spent 30 minutes on 6 out of 7 sketches in my Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook. I haven't used the smooth paper from the Zeta series before. My usual Sharpie Stylo pen just glides over the surface!  I had to wait about 14 minutes to sketch the girl at the drive thru window because I only got glimpses between customers. By the time I left, it felt distinctly like snow was in the air! (It is snowing outside as I post this!)

These 7 sketches were done from life on location.

This morning, I caught a glimpse of a photo from Rome, which had a few urban sketchers in it. I liked the group shot, so used it to try out my new materials.

This one's from a photo, so doesn't really qualify as an urban sketch. It was not drawn on location- a weird dichotomy since I referred to a photo of 10 urban sketchers.

4 kids in a snow flurry

The last sketch brings the total up to 21, since I'm counting partial people. These kids arrived at the North Cascades Institute for Spring Mountain School amidst a thick flurry of snow. Three out of four were delighted and I wanted to see if I could capture the various reactions on their faces as they got off the bus.

I used a reference photo from the NCascades IG feed for reference.