I'm Dave Worfel

I'm Dave Worfel, one of the Urban Sketchers Midwest blog correspondents and site co-administrators. I actively post here as-well-as to the Urban Sketchers Midwest Facebook and the Urban Sketchers (group) Facebook pages. I live in Rockford, Michigan which is on the west side of the state just north of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

My wife says I've achieved my life goals...I'm retired, and I've become a ski bum, boat bum, artist, and, oh yeah, still an electronics tech. In winter I'm a ski patroller, lead patrol hill trainer, and a professionally certified ski instructor. In the summer my wife and I sail, and live on, a 36 foot sailboat.This is our boat, Amadeus, when we were in Manistee, Michigan last summer.

 

I spent 20 years in the Air Force and Air Guard as an electronics tech and Squadron Commander. And I've been a ham radio operator for more years than I care to own up to. I also figure out how to create and install marine electronics system for our boat. That's me playing with my aging ham radio gear.

Art wise I'm pretty much self taught. I do photography...had several sailing magazine covers,  watercolors, and pen and pencil sketches. Subject wise I love doing marine related work, buildings, and most anything else that catches my interest. Below are some of the pieces I've done. 

  

So that's sorta me in a nut shell.I can be reached at dworfel@charter.net.

Introduction, sketching, and general silliness.

I've been asked to introduce myself to the group, and I'm relatively certain the folks doing the asking had no idea what they were getting themselves into. I'm a generally silly person, and when I dug around for a photograph of myself to include, the image below was the most serious image I could find.

My name is Mark Anderson and I've made my living as an artist, designer, and visual art educator for over thirty-five years. My students and patrons often ask me where ideas "come from." I can't speak for anyone else, but I like to believe I'm a student of the world around me; I unconsciously doodle on any scrap of paper that happens to be at hand and I seldom feel obliged to make a "photographic" representation; rather I enjoy trying to sketch the mood or quality of the moment. With few exceptions, I use a Lamy Safari medium nib pen loaded with Noodler's; I also carry a small travel kit of watercolors. In general, I will try to keep my sketches fresh by putting pen to paper without the "safety net" of a pencil sketch.

I'm also a lot more interested in the process of drawing than in the final "finished" product. Drawing is fun, thumbing through a sketchbook is interesting, but I don't choose to dwell on my finished work. I share it and move on to something new. Because I'm interested in the process, though, I'll often capture the stages of development as I've done in the illustration above.

I enjoy simplicity and I enjoy travel - seeing the world, meeting the people who populate the world. My journeys - and thus, my sketches - are often made while I'm walking or bicycling. I find that those folks who zoom by a place in their car, maybe hopping out occasionally to snap a photograph, are missing the essence of the place. Slow exploration often yields intriguing details lost to the traveler in a hurry. 

This past weekend, for instance, I decided to explore an often overlooked - or even avoided - part of Kansas City. I love areas like this, where the signage seems to date back decades.

I'll often draw buildings or trees, but people really interest me. I seldom miss an opportunity to create likenesses of those around me, and I often will simply fill page after page with ten to fifteen second gesture sketches of people, scurrying around in the everyday hustle and bustle. The sketch above was made yesterday at Ophelia's in Independence. Restaurants are a marvelous place to draw - your subject is often relatively stationary unlike people out on the street!

I've committed to contributing at least ten posts a year, and I appreciate being asked to do so. You may see a flurry of sketches from me at some point in the year, and then things on my end my go quiet for a while as life catches up. I'm pretty active on Flickr, and manage several blogs as well - of particular interest to this group might be Just Sketching. If you are a cycling enthusiast, you may also know me as The Early Morning Cyclist, where I frequently share the results of my bike sketch outings.

OK, enough about me. Let's get out there and draw!

Meet the Correspondent--Marcia Milner-Brage

This is me in my backyard. Cedar Falls, Iowa has been home for close to 30 years. My first memory was drawing my parents when I was five years old. I've been trying to figure out the world through drawing it ever since. I became hooked on urban sketching when I went to the 1st Urban Sketcher Symposium in Portland, Oregon, in 2010.

I like drawing landscapes. Many of my drawings are of my neighborhood--part of old town Cedar Falls. My favorite media is wax pastels on tinted paper. I spend about 2-1/2 hours on-site, doing one. The 3rd down I did yesterday afternoon. It's finally warm enough to get outside and draw!

2 Steeples Winter

School Bus in Vacant Lot

Backyard Shed on 13th

Since I retired from my wage earning job eight years ago, I draw more than ever. And I travel, drawing wherever I go. I carry a 5B pencil with a stick eraser and a pocket-size Moleskine everywhere. I try my hand at watercolor, too.

Moonrise from Lapa (Lisbon, Portugal)

Green House on Flower (Venice Beach, California)

Perio Point Dock sketch (Beals Island, Maine)

August 2014, I was asked to be a Correspondent on the Urban Sketchers international blog! Very exciting--a dream come true! I also write short personal essays; some have been published and many have been broadcast over Iowa Public Radio when I was a regular commentator in the 1990s. The Urban Sketcher blog is a wonderful format for telling a story with both drawings and words.  Here's one of my posts: Bringing the Garden Inside. 

I am also one of the seven volunteer editors for the Urban Sketchers Blog. We curate content for guest posts and interviews. I love doing this and am honored to be the conduit to feature other Urban Sketcher's work. Winter Hats on a Moscow Suburban Train is a guest post by Masha Kirikova. Reuven Dattner's Pattern Rich Israel is an interview. 

If you have a cluster of urban sketcher drawings and words to go with it that tell a story and would like to be considered for a Guest Post on the Urban Sketcher blog, send your proposal to editorial@urbansketchers.org. Likewise, if you think one of your posts to this Midwest blog should be reposted to the international blog, send us a link to be considered.

Soon, all Urban Sketcher regional correspondents will be invited to be listed on the Correspondents page of the international blog. If you're a Midwest Correspondent, get ready by posting your Meet the Correspondent here.