Virtual Paint-Out: Packard Factory Detroit Michigan

I haven't submitted a sketch painting to Bill Guffey's Virtual Paintout for a full three years,...let alone done any drawings to write about in that time. Nonetheless, I have remained a fan of VPO (and other sketch sites), and have continually mused about doing some more drawing/painting again. (I don't know about you, but these drawing/paintings take a lot of time.  They don't come easily to me.)

Having grown up in the Rust Belt (northeastern Ohio), this month's choice of Detroit coincided nicely with my renewed interest in sketching/painting.  So...once again, I logged in and began to wander the streets.
I had remembered reading about the Packard factory on David Byrne's personal online journal (He has an excellent section with his impressions and thoughts about Detroit) and was surprised to discover that I could get up close enough to it on StreetView to get the kind of composition I was looking for.
It's a huge automotive plant-built in 1903-that was abandoned in the 1950's after the once fabled Packard luxury automobile lost its appeal through mis-guided mergers, economic conditions, and regrettable design and business decisions.  To me, it is the quintessential poster child for the decline of the northern industrial cities of America.

So...greetings to all of my fellow participants.  It's good to be back.
Google Maps reference location here

Virtual Paintout: Czech Republic

Here is yet another submission to the monthly challenge for The Virtual Paintout: a street scene in Prague. I picked this shot as an exercise to try and capture a sense of glass and reflection; but I am also drawn to the electric tram buses which typify the vibrancy of the European cityscape.
Reference here

EDM #100-Draw a Landscape (Canary Islands-VPO)

Well...missed the end of the month deadline for the VPO again. It isn't like I had started this and didn't finish, I just needed the weekend to work on it and the monthly cut-off fell on Friday. Anyway, since I spent a lot of time during the month wandering for a location, then thinking/planning about it, I wanted to 'do something' after all that; so I didn't let the momentum die but rather come to fruition irrespective of an arbitrary deadline...not to say I won't be trying to bring it in under the wire in the future!
Luckily, I can very easily catalog this piece as EDM Challenge #100: Draw a Landscape. (EDM is the first online challenge group that drew me out of a lifetime of not drawing/painting: thanks to everyone in EDM).

Google Map Street View reference here.

Virtual Paintout: Stavanger, Norway

This is a Stavanger, Norway sketch painting that didn't make the time cut-off for the Virtual Paintout. I still wanted to do it since the shapes and colors were so interesting, not to mention the towering perspective from the street. Reference here.
This is the first painting I've done using only watercolor tube paints instead of watercolor markers and pencils. I see the wisdom of mixing paint on a palette. The next evolution will be to use different brushes beyond the Niji waterbrush.

Virtual Paintout: San Francisco

Yet another quick, (not totally realized) last minute sketch for the Virtual Paintout. This is a drawing of a now closed, art deco ice palace in the heart of Berkeley, CA., recently designated an historical landmark-much to the chagrin of the owners who would rather keep their options open to the possibility of tearing it down. Efforts to save the structure are still in process. I was drawn to the elegant signage and rounded corners so beautifully typical of that era.
Reference here.

Virtual Paintout: Corsica, France

Like alot of other participants in the Virtual Paintout this month-I am also very impressed with the diversity of landscape on Corsica. Tooling around via Google Street View, one can go from mountainous snowscapes to quaint seaside enclaves, from blazing autumnal forests to rural, barren farmsteads...all beautiful, all beckoning to be visually captured.
Reference view here.

VP Challenge: Mexico City

Finally...a Virtual Paintout entry finished before the last day of the month. Having more time because of the Christmas holiday, I was able to work on this longer than usual; and I also was able to 'borrow' my wife's set of pastel, water-soluble pencils-which I really like-to compliment my watercolor pencils. They allow for a certain opacity that is hard to get from pencils alone.
Finding this hillside neighborhood makes me want to visit it in person.
Reference link here.
Happy Holidays and thanks to Bill Guffey for the interesting and challenging idea of The Virtual Paintout.

VP Location: Nova Scotia

Another quick last-minute sketch for the Virtual Paintout: Nova Scotia, Canada. A street view of the smoke stacks of a power plant outside Halifax...like a trio of coral snakes standing unnaturally in stiff vigilance. Reference link here.

Virtual Paintout Challenge: Belfast, Northern Ireland

Virtual Paintout challenge sketch: Kiln Rd. Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland. This was a last-minute (10pm) submission as the monthly challenge changes over on the last day of each month...just wanted to get in that VP archive! The actual Google Maps view that acted as the basis for this color sketch is here.

This is the skeleton of another, abandoned Belfast sketch started earlier in the month:

...maybe salvageable with the help of a calmer hand, a keener sense of perspective and relational proportion, and a big eraser.

Entrance Ramp to R. Infante Santo, Lisbon Portugal

Continuing with the Virtual Paintout monthly challenges, this stop Lisbon. I thought this unusual view might be interesting to draw since it would give me a chance to use a lot of the colors that I don't usually gravitate to. Even though I did do that, the internal jury is still out as to whether this piece is a success and/or finished.
Here is the link to the Google Map view, so you can see for yourself this colorful urban street canyon.
Where to next, Bill?

Crosswalk-Abbey Rd. London

Another sketched painting for The Virtual Paintout: London. In this view, the white building behind the trees on the left is 3 Abbey Road NW8-home of Apple Records and Abbey Rd. Studio: drawn in the fortieth year after that famous crossing. (BBC video story of the crosswalk today.)
Reference link here.

Barcelona: Scenic Vintage Monorail Ride...and a Miracle

This is a painted, 'street view' sketch of a vintage monorail ride at a turn-of-the-20th 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 and paint 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 obvious 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...here is the Google Maps image in which this 'miracle' has manifested itself and upon which my rendering is based:

If you would like to see this in Google Maps for yourself, the address is 48 Cami de Vallvidrera al Tibidabo, Barcelona, Espana. In the boundless realm of possibility, there is this one street, one spot, and one direction where this phenomenon exhibits itself and even though I suspect that any miracle begins and ends on this side of the boundless veil...what can I say: I was impressed.
Long live serendipity.

Everyday Matters Challenge #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.

Everyday Matters Challenge #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 #110: Something with flames

I remember very vividly when this exhibition hall burned-in 1976. Back before I really knew anything about Buckminster Fuller, I was genuinely impressed by this geodesic structure when I walked through it during Expo '67 in Montreal. So later, when I saw the footage of this archetypal form on fire, I was mesmerized. (What a visual!)
Just the other day, I happened to be looking through an old publication from the seventies when I came across this news photo from that time. Through the act of freehand drawing it from that historical photograph, I was mesmerized again...such is the power of art.
(Apologies to fellow EDM'rs: this is not really an 'everyday' fire!)

EDM #155 : Something with Steps

I really liked the look of this foyer and gently curving staircase in a home on the island of Nantucket in Massachusetts. (Inspired by a photo...not me: visiting, observing, and drawing in Nantucket itself...personally...which is a shame because...I like Nantucket.)

EDM Challenge #133: Peach

I wasn't even looking for it; but, this 'peach' stand fell in my lap when I was looking at a wonderful portfolio of photographs on Flickr by Stephanie Fysh (Lu) from Toronto. Being right up my alley and the perfect subject for this EDM challenge, I couldn't resist the attempt to draw it.

EDM Challenge #126: Sponge

All the sponges we have are predictable rectangles. So...I went to the source: sure to find some interest there.
The above drawing is the result of my little bit of research on 'sponges'. This is a "Barrel " sponge. I don't know if this type of sponge will end up helping me wash my car; but, I did learn that natural sponges-as we know them-are the 'skeletons' of the living variety...and fish love to go inside them because the water in there is always moving and rich with nutrients. (FYI: sponges don't eat fish!)
I also considered drawing a loofah...until I learned that a 'loofah sponge' isn't a 'sponge' at all, but rather, a gourd.

EDM Challenge #33: Eye

I drew this from a magazine. I was drawn into and drew out of the incredibly subtle variations of light, reflection, and shadow found within the iris itself.

EDM Challenge #30: Chair

This ladder-back chair reminds me of two such chairs that stood as sentinels behind the couch where my mother stationed herself. She also stood guard-in a way...over those two chairs. They were antiques and of such fragility, she forbad anyone from putting them to the use for which they were first created.