Tag: Sketchbook

Stopped by the Plague

Winnedumah Hotel, Independence, CA

We had a 2 week vacation trip planned. And it ended on Day 3. I had thought my sinuses were acting up, but to be careful I decided to have a Covid-19 test. It was a 1-hour quickie. Negative. Okay! Let’s go!

Our first stop was in Independence, CA, along the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains, traveling on Hwy. 395. My husband had a cold, mild, some sniffles and a cough. On Day 3, we left Independence, and continued north. Next stop was to be Virginia City, NV. Well, as we moved further north, the air became cloudy and sooty. The smoke from the fires in NoCal was moving east, and I could smell it. So could Tom and Judy, Josh’s parents. Josh couldn’t. We had mints. We could all taste them – except Josh.

And so the decision was made: return home and have tests. It was the ethical thing to do. Josh’s test came back positive; mine was “presumed positive”, and the antigen tests Tom and Judy had came back negative. Ethical decision made, people and places were called, and now we are self-isolating until our next test on 9/13. Test results will be around 9/15.

So, stopped by the plague . . . and ethics. Neither Josh nor I felt sick other than a tad under the weather. Josh has is sense of taste and smell back about 95%.

We have plenty to do, despite being stuck at home. I have a sketchbook, planned to document the vacation, and so the first drawing is the Winnedumah Hotel, built in 1927 for the film industry back in the days when westerns were shot in the Owens Valley.

Mesa, Sunrise

For the next week, my schedule is a bit different.  I have to be in to work 30 minutes earlier than normal, so I did this quick sketch in my Stillman & Birn softcover book.  The ink is iron gall.  I tried to keep the lines minimal, enough to capture important elements of the landscape, but not so much that they become dominant or what will (eventually) hold the image together.  Hopefully I will be able to work on shadows and light, working to good contrast.  I seem to need lines – I am comfortable with them – that are clearly visible.  Interesting to find out how we all work, eh?

Neighborhood Tree

This is from my Stillman & Birn soft cover (blue) sketchbook with 180# paper. A part of me likes the thing, and another doesn’t. I’m not sure why.

Anyway, this shows what I am trying to do . . . establish shadow, play with color combos or swatches. I used all sorts of brushes on this. In general, it is overworked, and the trunk looks like some tree has landed on an octopus. (Poor octopus!)

This is the final product, with some work on it . . . The contrast is a bit better, but it still looks pretty much in the same key to me – in other words, the grey scale is pretty much the same to my eye when I see it in color. In B&W it is still not quite what I would like to see.