Sketchbook

These are from last night. The first two are from a High School band concert, and the last is from a Home Owners' Association meeting I attended afterward.

Sur La Table Sketchcrawl

This is from last night's sketchcrawl in the kitchen at Sur La Table. Lately, I've been focusing on doing lettering, and I think I got the sign pretty close. The kitchen had a lot of things in it, and I also wanted to draw the mixer and neat scale that was out, but I ran out of time.

Kokoon Arts Club - Part 2

This is what I sketched during a recent excursion to the Kokoon Arts Club exhibit at the Cleveland Public Library which Cathy posted about below. It is a section of the 1926 invitation to the club's annual costume ball. The invitations were printed poster size and then folded and mailed to the recipients. You can see where the guest's name would have been written in by hand.

An invitation to the Bal Masque was highly coveted since it was considered to be the most popular, notorious, party of the year. Each Ball had a theme and party-goers were serious about creating elaborate, and often risque, costumes to represent the theme.




I was primarily interested in capturing the typography and wording on this beautiful art deco poster. The poster can be seen in it's entirety here.

There is an interesting article you can read about the Kokoon Arts Club here.

I used the facing page in my watercolor Moleskine to record the exhibit's description of the poster and to sketch part of the main figure again since I ran out of room on the first sketch.

Before last week I had never even heard of the Kokoon Arts Club. Learning new things about our fair city is one of my favorite parts of sketching.

Sketchcrawl Sur La Table Reminder

Hello! Just a reminder that our upcoming sketchcrawl is coming up on Monday, February, 27, 2012 from 6:30-8:30pm at Sur La Table. The address is 28819 Chagrin Blvd, Woodmere, OH 44112. It is in the Eton shopping center, located next to Trader Joe's. We will be sketching the kitchen in the culinary program. There is ample parking. When you enter the store, head straight to the back of the store and enter the kitchen.

There are plenty of chairs available that can be moved around. Any kitchen equipment can be pulled out to be sketched. There will not be a class going on while we are there.

A further reminder to join us at our Facebook group at "Urban Sketchers Cleveland" to get more, more, more updates on sketchcrawls!! We have many of them planned throughout the middle of summer!! :-)

Keis-Murfy House

This is a great house that I've past many times on Prospect. As you can see from the journaling, I'd always mistakenly believed that the YWCA used it. It took a little research to find the history of this building. Currently, it is the home to St. Luke's Foundation of Cleveland, but it's been many things in the past. Fortunately, it was restored about 10 years ago, and now it's a highlight of the restored homes on Prospect.

Kokoon Klub Exhibit

Kokoon Klub Exhibit, a photo by Maroonic on Flickr.

Another serendipitous moment: during our mini-sketchcrawl this weekend at the Cleveland Public Library, we stumbled across a fascinating exhibit that was coming down the next day. One case was already emptied but plenty of display pieces were left to dazzle us.

The exhibit “Out of the Kokoon: Cleveland’s Festival of Modern Art and Dance, 1911-1938” commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Kokoon Klub, formed by a group of well-known lithograph artists in Cleveland. I sketched one of the large posters produced by the Cleveland lithograph companies.

Who knew Cleveland was the hub of lithograph artists in the 30s? For more on the exhibit, click here.

Dexter Davis: Black Heads

Dexter Davis: Black Heads, a photo by Maroonic on Flickr.

Serendipity! We decided to do a min-sketchcrawl at the Cleveland Museum of Art at the end of January and ended up in the modern art section. I was intrigued by this mixed media work by Cleveland artist Dexter Davis. The piece is mostly black and white and shades of grey with just a touch of color.

While I was sketching, one of the museum guards stopped by occasionally to chat and revealed that this piece was cycling back to storage the next day. Works with paper are only allowed on display for short periods to delay deterioration.

One of the best things about sketching a work of art is a greater awareness of the details. I would love to deconstruct this piece and tidy it up ala Ursus Wehrli.

Trinity Sketchcrawl Canceled

Unfortunately, we have to cancel the sketchcrawl for tomorrow (Sat, Feb 11, 2012) due to impending heavy snow. Watch here for updates on more sketchcrawls. We'll also post when the Trinity Cathedral Sketchcrawl is rescheduled.

Thanks for your understanding.

Home and Garden Show at IX center

When you visit the Home and Garden show, don't forget to get couple of those flat pencil, this is my first experience using those flat pencil to do some sketch, kind of fun.

Denver

At the Hanna Theater ...

I added a few new pages from our visit to the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra concert last night in Cleveland. You can read more at my regular blog, though the images will be the same.

Sketchcrawl Trinity Cathedral

The Percolated Ink sketchcrawl will meet monthly with the February sketchcrawl taking place at Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland.

Trinity Cathedrawl was built (beginning) in 1890 and is listed in the National Historic Registry. The building was designed in the English Perpendicular Gothic style, in a cruciform layout, with a square central tower at the front of the building. The cathedral is the central home for the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio, which encompasses approximately 24,000 members across Northern Ohio, and it's also the seat of Ohio's Episcopal Bishop.

The building is absolutely gorgeous, and it has a lot of interesting features to draw.

We will be in the main space and will meet at the back of the church at 10am. We can split off to draw and then meet back up again at 11:45am to do a quick show and tell.

Next week there will be a phone number to call, in case you get there and can't immediately locate us. Please respond to this email if you will need the phone number. I'll be wearing a red turtlenec, so I can be easily spotted. The website is at http://percolatedink.livejournal.com/ .

The address for Trinity is 2230 Euclid Ave, Cleveland, OH 44115. There is free parking in the back of the building, or it can be reached via the RTA Healthline.

I look forward to seeing you there, and if you have any questions in the meantime, please email percolatedinkATgmailDOTcom (just like the domain name and typical google address)

Warehouse

I pass this building on my way to the highway, along with many other industrial-type warehouses and factories. Some have businesses and some do not. This loading dock was just very interesting to me, because of the textures and the different roofs. I usually block my drawings out very square, but I liked how I did the bottom of this using the natural rough slope of the ground to finish it off.