Sketches Hunt 349, Etc.

I sketched for Scavenger Hunt 349 yesterday morning in the living room, feet up of course.  I grabbed the large sketchbook and a pen then sat down to have my morning feast of rice cake (with peanut butter, cream cheese and raisins) and coffee and sketch.    As I started sketching I thought the lines were fatter than normal, maybe the pen was wearing out.  Ah-hemmm, I realized I had grabbed a Sharpie!  Works fine but you can see the shadow more through the paper when you use the other side.  I just finished and called it practice.  I didn't have to adjust the scan and make sharper and add contrast as I sometimes do with the finer lined pens.  The original sketchy lines show more of course.

Number 4, drink - coffee.  Number 5, cup - red one.  Number 6, snack - my rice cake on a blue plate.

Today I have worked a bit on my large pastel painting.  It is about done, just letting it set for the fine tuning and some sunshine to take the photos.  Which leads to the news that we are having a gloomy one day of winter here.  So far the high is 44 degrees F. (10:46 a.m., oops Gene says it is 41.5 now) I think it was about 69 degrees yesterday morning at 7:00 am.  It should be back in the high 60s tomorrow.

*Note added at 11:05 a.m.
We went to UT Baseball yesterday afternoon.  It was 70 when we left home and the weather guys said it would be about 60 by the end of the game.  Well by the time we got there the temp had dropped to 55 and stayed that way for a couple of innings and ended up about a breezy 51 degrees.  Very, very cold when you are just sitting in the wind.  Then to top it off, the Horns were behind 1 - 0 against UT Pan American from the second inning until the bottom of the 9th when they tied the score.  Horns won 2 - 1 in the bottom of the 11th.  Gene called it in about the 6th inning.  Joanna told him to bite his tongue!  Game from 4:30 - 8:30 p.m. or so.   We have thawed out!

If you haven't checked out Marc Hanson's fascinating journey of 4 plein air paintings a day for February in cold and windy Colorado, you should do so.  On February 22, he broke out his pastels and shows his setup. Amazing work.  He has a great eye and uses different media and equipment.  Mostly oils.  He is painting 8 x 10 paintings.  Some are done in 30 minutes or so.  Beautiful.  Here is a link to the pastel pair, my favorites of course, and you can look around from there.

http://marchanson.blogspot.com/2014/02/february-22-2014.html

Oops the pastels are February 23.

http://marchanson.blogspot.com/2014/02/february-23-2014.html


We hope to be in New Mexico this summer.  Maybe I could accomplish two paintings a day.  What do you think?