Scenic Vintage Monorail Ride in Barcelona, Spain...and a Miracle

This is a painted, 'street view' sketch of a vintage monorail ride at a turn-of-the-19th century amusement park on top of Tibidabo Mountain overlooking Barcelona, Spain. I did this drawing as a submission to an on-going project called The Virtual Paintout: a monthly artistic challenge in which participants are given a city to explore using the incredibly cool street view feature of Google Maps.
After much searching and wandering, I honed in on this amusement park with its atypical structures and interesting views. With an artist's eye I circled, looking high and low and back and forth, for a suitable angle from which to base my composition. Little did I know that-through these actions-I was to be the recipient of a random glimpse of auspicious coincidence, revealed to me in the most capricious manner: a million to one chance discovery of a bonafide Christian 'miracle', more obviously real than twelve pizza Jesuses, IMHO and with all due respect.

Click on my drawing and you will 'see' what I am referring to:
the figure of Christ descending from the heavens!

Grant you, I have drawn this figure in the sky myself; but those that know me will tell you that I am not prone to chicanery or religious make-believe. When I do a drawing from a photograph, I usually go to great lengths to portray the scene with a modicum of accuracy-at least as much as my skill level will allow.
So, I-your humble brother-now offer you the Google Maps image in which this 'miracle' is publicly recorded and upon which my rendering is based.
Glitch? Sign? Manipulation? Bewitchment?
All of the above.
So...grasp for yourself the evident sense of synchronicity and sheer delight displayed herein:

If you would like to see this in Google Maps for yourself, the address is 48 Cami de Vallvidrera al Tibidabo, Barcelona, Espana. Once there you will have to poke around(!); or you can email me and I will give you the combination of moves necessary to reveal this abstruse vision. (In the boundless realm of possibility, there is but one spot, one direction, and one street where this phenomenon exhibits itself.)
Long live serendipity.

EDM #18: Draw the View from the Window of...

This drawing is inspired by a photograph I took out the window of our hotel room in Lucca, Italy when we traveled there in 2005. It continually seems like just yesterday.
Using a set of woodless graphite pencils which are smooth as silk, I transported myself back to that exquisite traveler's moment when one wakes up in yet another new place and gazes out at the crisp scene so full of promise, wondering what's down that path and around that far bend.

EDM #83: Draw a Nearby Body of Water-A Pond

This is a beautiful, intown neighborhood duck pond near a project I am currently working on in an area of town called Buckhead. I did the pencil sketch drawing half 'plein air' while waiting to meet with some clients/friends who want a couple of porches built on their house. I drove around for the best vantage point and with pad over steering wheel, I drew what I could in one hour.
I am starting to see the limitations of my beloved Tombow markers and may have to branch out and learn to use true watercolors...maybe. I am also grateful that the work in the renovation business-for me anyway-keeps coming in.

EDM #193: Draw a Close-up Part of Something (the inside of a TV)

Several months ago, my wife and I were sitting in the kitchen getting ready for dinner. It was raining pretty hard. A bolt of lightning hit something right outside our house. The bowl of peanuts I was so calmly eating flew into the air as I involuntarily catapulted out of my chair.
After we got over the shock (and relief that our house wasn't on fire), we assessed the actual damage. Among the casualties was this small TV.

I took the back of it off hoping to see something obvious to fix, but there was nothing. After it sat around for awhile, I got intrigued by all the spots of color and form, so...I 'pulled' one last picture out of this dead TV before it goes to the recycling center.

EDM #197: Draw a Remote

There has been some discussion about growing artistically through participation in the Everyday Matters Group. I can wholeheartedly attest to this phenomenon.
One of the latest challenge is to draw a remote. Just to illustrate the artistic progress that I personally see that I have made since joining in on the EDM challenges, I am posting this drawing of a TV remote that I did back in May 2007-the month and year I started this blog. (I didn't post it earlier because-in my naivete-I didn't think it was much of anything.)
It is one of the first drawings I did after reading Danny Gregory book: Creative License. Even though I had always thought of myself as a creative person, I hadn't really deliberately drawn much of anything prior to this. So, I guess I'm saying that-to me-there has been a rewarding progression in my own work-looking at this drawing and what I have drawn since, spurred on by my participation in EDM...so, thanks to all.

Now a year and a half later, however, I am in the equivalent of "writer's block". I look at the recent drawings I have completed (which I am very happy with) and I think to myself: "who did these?..."I don't have any recollection of doing any of these strokes or choosing those colors". It is an odd paradox to be experiencing, to be looking at my own drawings and feeling like they are the vestiges of some kind of 'creative wave' I caught at particular times but that-now-the 'wind' has subsided and the shoreline has receded...and how can one conjure or pursue something that seems to originate outside of oneself to begin with?
Don't get me wrong. I realize the potency of conundrums like this...and so be it if my drawing production level is on a slow burn. I know the key is to put oneself on the path through practice and to be willing to relearn everything with a beginner's mind...and to just outright claim one's talent; but...damn.
...just waxing about the artistic process, fellow artist.

Nonetheless, it hasn't been a total desert. I did do this 2 minute blind contour drawing of EDM #14: Draw the First Thing You See When You Wake Up in the Morning!
...yeah, right.

EDM #56: Self-Portrait and #216: Inner Critic

"This doesn't look like you...at all", he said.

"Yeah...well, whatever."

"How do you feel putting a drawing of yourself on the internet?", he chided.

"When I actually do that, I'll let you know."

EDM #69: Draw a Beverage

This is a drawing based on a photo that I took as we were waiting at this famous place in Venice, in a well worn leather upholstered booth, for this bartender to mix and the waiter to serve our anticipated famous beverage. It is one of those places whose history and legend far out-class its current state of overpriced drinks and tourist overrun-(all of whom are apparently seeking the same brush with the ghosts of bygone greatness as we are).
The whole bar area is paneled in a beautiful, deep orange-toned wood, including the art-deco clock. The single room is not very large and the low white-washed beamed ceiling adds to the period ambiance. Hemingway and others passed the time here in expatriate glory back in its heyday.
If you have had the good fortune of visiting the incredibly beautiful city in which this place resides, you might have stumbled across it like we did. The name of this bar is in the drawing itself.

EDM #187: Draw a Fan

This is a drawing of a fan we have in our attic loft, the proportions of which are so "off" that if someone had the ability to turn it on...they would mostly likely be maimed for life.

EDM Challenge #85: The Inside of a Store in Your Area

This is a favorite haunt. I managed to find one of the few remaining chairs. As the figures started to go down on the page, I felt like I recognized the guy on the left.
Sure enough, if you go back into my blog to EDM #133: Draw a Peach...I swear it's the same kid standing in line on the left.

EDM Challenge #9: Organized Chaos

This is my tool bag that I use to renovate houses, some of the contents of which change weekly. Its main function is to be a 'catch-all' for the tools, etc. that invariably 'float' around the shop and the job-site(s). I don't generally carry this around...and most of the time, it stays in my truck.

I decided to include the scan of the drawing before I colored it because, well, I liked it in its black and white state, too (and once it gets color, there is no going back!). In the finished, colored version, I used Tombow markers, Pitt pen (S, #175), graphite pencil-for the preliminary sketch, and some watercolor pencils (because I like the red better, for instance.)

EDM #167: Draw Something That Needs Fixing

...the building and zoning permit office, yes! And I know I'm not alone in this one: ask these two people depicted. I'm sure they have been here a lot longer than I have. Perfect subjects for a quick sketch in that-like me-they ain't movin'! Why do I know they aren't going to move? Because if their name is called and they aren't around, the plan reviewer will immediately skip to the next person. When they come back and realize that they missed their turn, they have to sign the call list again.
The potential for this happening is multiplied by the 5 different departments they are required to clear: plan intake, zoning, site development, arborist, and structural. But it doesn't end there, the permit typist and the cashier lines await. God forbid if you have to change something...or it's lunchtime.

EDM #165: The Front of My House

This is the front of my house from the one-lane street I live on. As you might be able to tell, it sits slightly down from the street. My wife and I designed and built it back in 2000, a life experience and result for which I am grateful on a daily basis.

I used Tombow markers, graphite pencils, and some watercolor pencils. I tried to use my trusty Pitt pens, but they wouldn't work because of the nature of the paper (architectural tissue paper) and the color pencil build-up. I think the disconcerting lack of dimension in the foliage is due to this. In hindsight, I would have done all the ink work and shadowing first, but I was experimenting with laying down colors first (after a pencil sketch). Two interesting things I learned tho' were 1) the Tombow 'blender' pen also blends the watercolor pencil marks, and 2) by using drawing tissue paper I was able to color some things (like the roof) on the backside of the paper. By doing this, the lines on the front side remained unclouded.

So...anyway, I am thinking that I might back off on the more concentrated pieces and try to just 'draw' a few of the EDM challenges without alot of complexity...and possibly more frequently. There are plenty of people whose work I admire doing exactly that...with great personal success.

EDM Challenge #141: Something with Bristles

It has been awhile since last I posted...continuing with the color exploration.
In Georgia, pine trees are ubiquitous; so, to draw pine bristles with a couple of pine cones amidst them is to capture the everyday of this part of the world.

EDM Challenge #153: Something in a Plastic Bag

Mark this day...something new is afoot: color...my first blog drawing in color. (...entering Oz.)