Urban Sketching as Historical Record...

I drew this little building on one of our sketchcrawls a few years ago, and I'm glad I did...it's gone now, and new houses are in its place. 

All that was left standing of the old laundry in our town that employed a great number of people.  Now even that is gone.

And sometimes I sketch as a statement, or to express my disgust...Cooley Lake is one of my favorite places, a Missouri Department of Conservation wildlife preserve not far from Kansas City.  Even there, people leave their trash...and we pick up after them.

Saved, again!

This is the historic old Bennett Garage building that has survived who knows how many floods (at least 2 just this year actually got in the back of the building, the bridge to the right of the building being replaced, and now the highway bridge uncomfortably close on the left!  We were all concerned when they took down the old bridge that was hard by the old brick edifice...but they managed to drop it with no harm to Bennett's!

(Of course I had to note the young guy who walked by, ranting at the top of his voice...)

I sketched one of the basement windows years ago...loved the calligraphy of vines and textures...

From Minneapolis to  Excelsior Springs, Mo

On a trip to drop my son off with his grandparents in Arkansas I had a two day trip back to do as I pleased. I had always thought of stopping by Excelsior Springs to visit Cathy Johnson. Cathy is an artist I greatly admire and helped me with advice and encouragement and a great example of living by art.

These are roughly in the order I sketched them. 90% on site work.  The last 10% was line weight ramp up and some color touchup.  It was getting dark, and I will admit a little creepy being the only one walking around downtown once it got dark.

Cathy and her husband Joseph graciously welcomed me in.  I had no idea if they only had time for a quick visit but it turns out we all went to dinner together at a beautiful hotel downtown.  The restaurant at The Elms is quite beautiful and food was great.  As soon as the food was done the sketchbooks came out!

Neat little building corner.  I think it was the Mill Inn. I need to go back and put the lettering in.

It was starting to get dark and the color got away from me. This building isn't really green, but now that I have some distance on my frustration that it turned green I really like it. Always be careful with mixing yellow at night. You really can't see it so use about 1/3 as much yellow as you think. Or just go for it and have bright interesting colors the next day.  Either works!

This was just a neat building corner.

Such a wonderful evening.  After they left I had about 45 minutes to an hour of daylight and made a quick walking tour grabbing what sketches the light allowed.  I think I may have been one of 5 people out and about downtown.

The night before I loaded up two pages with color for some yet unknown project the next day.  Over breakfast I did these two drawings.  The family in front of me turned out to be an art teacher from Omaha that I wound up showing my sketches and paint kits to.  It is always fun to meet people.

Such a nice morning and beautiful patio to have breakfast at. I should have drawn the biscuits and gravy but they somehow went away to quickly!

James Nutt

www.nuttdraws.blogspot.com

Urban Sketchers Midwest at The Elms!

It was a chilly day, so we went upstairs to draw from the big sunny windows!

Work in progress...with the sun coming in the paints on my palette dried almost immediately!

Here's what I was looking at...I simplified madly...

Keith Cobb was able to join us after a long absence!

New member Cindy Winfrey drove over from the far side of the river--there are plenty of tables and comfy chairs to work from on cold days.

Christiana Farabbee sat back in the shade!

The room curves--here, you can see Christiana, Beth, and Carolyn Knutter, hard at work.

Youngest member Beth drew me, drawing!  Sorry you can't see it very well, it was terrific.

Christiana drew BOTH of us drawing!  WIP

Carolyn worked at the bar (which was closed when we were there!)

Don Gore posted his sketch the other day--this was one from his trip to Williamsburg, a whole other kind of early Urban Sketching!

It's been a music kind of weekend...

Friday Night was Art Crawl...

Our friend Shawna makes instruments out of the oddest things...cigar boxes, sure, but also cookie tins, ammo boxes, and whatever she can find with a hollow body!

Copper Creek Band was playing Friday night, and I sketched quickly with a bent-nib calligraphy pen...love the brushlike marks.

Switched to a Black Cherry Prismacolor pencil on CP watercolor paper for the closeup...

Saturday night we hit the big city to hear our godchild Molly Hammer play at the Broadway Jazz Club...

Back to that fun bent-nib pen!

Added color and a little collage the next day at home...

Love that jazz face on Brian Baggett, the guitarist...

Last sketch of the evening, quick pencil drawings...

Sketching Kansas City

Our May Sketchcrawl was on the grounds of the historic Elms Hotel in Excelsior Springs

The ladies in pink are bridesmaids, wrapped in towels by the pool!

As usual, I spend my time in the parking lot sketching while Joseph shops!

Nice lunch...

I'm not a shopper, so I always enjoy the chance to sketch, especially when I can find a great spot like the one in the Half Price bookstore in Kansas City.  Not only a chair to ssit in, but a table to use...

This was my bent-nib Hero pen, which makes wonderfully varied lines.

Virtual Sketchcrawl--Ray's Diner

It was all decked out for Christmas, but then it ALWAYS looks festive.

Anybody interested in a "scavenger hunt" virtual sketchcrawl?  We didn't get to meet up this month, so how about sketching your favorite diner/restaurant/cafe and sharing it here??

There's more on our parent blog about the why and how of this sketch, inspired by David Gentleman's new book, London, You're Beautiful!

Out and About, Home and Abroad

Sometimes I think I live in parking lots!

Trying out a new Pilot Penmanship pen from JetPens, in the neighborhood.  It came with water-soluble ink cartridges, so I went with that!

Fly-in at the Excelsior Springs Airport

Our August sketchcrawl and my finished sketch, once I'd added notes at home...

Cute little Piper Cub

Joseph and Malinda watch take-offs and landings

Malinda sketching

Airplanes...Malinda's dad used to own one, so she really understands how they're built.

The hangar just to the right of this one is where they had a huge BBQ spread.

Work in progress...

The Fokker triplane in the background was a magnet!

Chatting...

My quick sketch of the triplane...it was made from a kit, 3/4 size, with a VW engine!  The pilot says you have to fly it every minute...handles better on the ground than in the air...

The Red Baron takes off...

All in all, it was a great sketchcrawl, even though there were only a few of us.  The food was great, the pilots were terrific, the music was from the 40s and 50s--jitterbug, Sinatra--and we had a ball.

Fire in Town

We had a big storm system come through last night that toppled a tree on the community center and started a fire. The office is gutted, the windows blew out just as the firemen arrived...

I decided the ink and watercolor alone didn't capture the effect of the soot left by the smoke pouring out the window...I added black colored pencil and THAT is more like it.

I was on the parks board for many years, President for part of that time, and had a lot of  memories of this place--I had to go sit on the street and sketch it.

This is the office...all the records have to have been lost unless they're also online somewhere...

This is the amazing storm cloud that caused all the damage...behind these Thomas Hart Benton clouds was a huge, dark cup that clamped down on the region, scattering debris, raising dust in clouds, raining down leaves and branches and trees before it spit out a bit of rain.  The nightjar in the sketch above just body-surfed the wind...

We watched for a moment outside the restaurant and then ran for home.  Looking toward the east, we couldn't tell if it were raining tan, or raising a dust storm amongst the debris, and that's just what it was...the alley looked as if IT were on fire with the plume of limestone dust.  

A restaurant in the next town had flames shooting from the roof, and trees were down all over, along with a LOT of leaves and branches.

And only a half inch of rain, if that...

Hero bent-nib calligraphy pen and watercolor.