A local group, Plein Air Ventura County, is having weekly meet-ups at the Buenaventura Art Association’s gallery during the month of August. Located in the local marina on the second floor, with galleries all around, there are views of the boats and the ocean and buildings. It’s a rather nice place to be and I have spent a lot of time there when I lived a few miles away. A friend and I packed up our supplies and trekked across the county. Traffic was a bit awful as everyone was leaving Los Angeles, but we drove on and arrived to a beautiful day at the beach.
This was my first sketch and it took the longest. Normally with ink pen I like to just get to work without an underlying pencil drawing. Here, I decided to just go ahead and do a pencil sketch as I am no expert at boats or proportions. I am glad I did as I spent a lot of time erasing before I was happy with the results to begin the inking. I spent about 90 minutes on this.
Next came this little weird succulent. It was on the gallery overlooking the marina, so I sat down and sketched it directly in ink. Plants don’t open you up to complaints about proportion (too often, anyway!), so off I went. I also wanted to see how the paper in this sketchbook would hold up to watercolor and I didn’t want to risk my boat to a poor water-paper combination. Luckily, it worked out quite well. I spent about 45 minutes on this drawing because I had to think about my colors and how thin I wanted the washes to be. In truth, this succulent was basically a silvery grey with a touch of subtle rust and green, but I needed to brighten it up.
This was my final drawing, done in about 15 minutes. It was getting into the third hour and I was getting pretty tired. So was my friend. Here, I focused on the cypress trees and a single palm, the dunes beyond the road, and the Pacific beyond the dunes. The little sail boat really was there – it was the boat or flying pelicans, and the boat was the easier choice!
It was a cool, breezy, bright day at the beach. Salty wind. I got sunburned, something I didn’t think about as I don’t hang out in the sun like I used to! It was worth it, though, as I had a good time and came home pleased with my forays, especially into the boat drawing. The succulent was easy and fun – nothing I took too seriously. On the other hand, the cypress trees always throw me a bit because of the way the foliage seems to lie flat across a tree with a few branches – simply put, a complicated flat texture is the only way to describe it.
In between each sketch, a bit of wandering around and socializing before getting back into the sketching.
Ink, watercolor, Pentalic 6×12 sketchbook.
Ink, Yarn & Beer 