Sketching in Savannah

I had the privilege of a business trip to Savannah. Although packed with meetings I did bring my sketch kit and got a few sketches in.

My week started in Philly and I wound up in Savannah late that evening. Although tired, I knew this was my opportunity to roam by myself.

First night - Sketch one

 

This is a sketch of a cool underground restaurant. It was mostly dark and there was comedy going on with lots of back light.  I knew the first sketch is never great, but you have to start somewhere. Watercolor in dark seems to be a theme here lately. Maybe because I my free time is in the evening.

Sketch Two

 

I found a bar with a rooftop patio around 12:30 am.  I was very tired and the first drawing was too large to start with.  I enjoyed it, but was pretty unhappy with the outcome, but as I get more distance I like it more.  I may go back and selectively kick up some of the line work.  Almost all of these are painted in the relative dark meaning I am painting on memory of my palette. I have come to enjoy this because the next day you get to see what happens and it is a bit more spontaneous than if I had full control. Let that be a lesson on looseness!

 

 

 

I could stop on that one so I brought out my Pentel brush pen. I have recently "manually filled" the cartridge it came with using Noodler's Ink Lexington Grey. It hasn't yet overtaken the black, but I am patient.  I really enjoyed this painting and was even happier with the color the next day.  However, it was getting very late by now so I walked back to the hotel.

 

 

 

 

 

Second Night - two quick sketches while with clients. 

 

The meetings went very well and we all roamed the streets that evening. While we stopped I was able to get two sketches. The first is unfinished as we moved on faster than I thought we would and the second was during dinner waiting on the food.  Yet another watercolor at night exercise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day Three, for a while the last day, this was my office.

 

Great trip, great people, great food, I love travel.

 

Draw to remember, beauty will come

 

James Nutt

Sketching on Mother's Day

Sketching on Mother's Day with Marcy and Leo at Lake Silverwood.  Medium - moleskine watercolor paper, an old felt pen running out of juice, spilled coffee to keep the pen going, water from my travel brush, and a tiny bit of red and yellow watercolor.

This last one was very quick using a brush pen and a small amount of water color. Probably about 3" by 3"

Beautiful day and a long walk of stick sword fitting "bad guys" around the lake.

James Nutt

Twin cities Nicc Ave Urban Sketch

I haven't gotten the chance to do as much Urban Sketching lately. Today I had to wait to get an appointment and used some of the time (in between work phone calls and emails) to sketch from the great window of the Minneapolis downtown Barnes and Noble café.

 

This is an iPad sketch using the ArtStudio app.

 

 

 

As you can see, while springtime is here, so are the jackets, hoods and hats!

Minnesotans apparently aren't allowed eat the last of anything

I was told when I first moved to Minneapolis that natives can't eat the last of anything. Over time I have found this to be true and have started documenting it.

I will add photos as I get them.

You know it is a big deal when bacon is left. 

Hotwings

 Girl scout cookies

Even Irish Whiskey?  WOW

IPad Drawings

A couple of quick iPad drawings this morning before church. Both with ArtStudio and with a stylus. The shell took about 40 minutes and the skyline about 15 min.

Speaking at Open Book to the MCBA on the artistic medium of the iPad

I had the privilege of speaking to a great group of MCBA artist at Open Book in Downtown MPLS on Monday night.  I thought I would share the description below. I was surprised to see other people blog about the event afterward and have included those links and encourage you to look around their interesting sites. The http://www.orangespiralarts.com/my-blog/2013/03/mcba-visual-journal-collective-gets-digital.html has photos of the event.

 

"Urban Sketcher James Nutt is going to be speaking and demonstrating digital sketching on the iPad at the Monday meeting of the MCBA Visual Journal Collective on March 18th at 7:00 pm.

You can read the details at the link below.

The meeting is free and open to all adult journal artists. http://rozwoundup.typepad.com/roz_wound_up/2013/03/mcba-visual-journal-collective-march-18-2013-meeting-reminder.html"

The referenced blog is by the amazingly talented Roz Stendahl. Her blog is an amazing resource for art technique, book making, painting, paper, sketching, and so much more. We encourage you to look around and possibly learn a little more about the MCBA Visual Journal Collective.

The follow up blogs below -

 http://www.orangespiralarts.com/my-blog/2013/03/mcba-visual-journal-collective-gets-digital.html

http://rozwoundup.typepad.com/roz_wound_up/2013/03/report-on-the-march-2013-mcba-visual-journal-collective-meetingdigital-sketching-with-james-nutt.html

My High School Drawings!

I found my old folder of drawings. Anyone who sat next to me in any class probably saw something like this! What a blast to see these again. I can almost remember exactly what I was doing while drawing each of them. Perhaps this is why I didn't graduate higher in my class but did pretty well in Architecture school. My favorite themes were to take current cars and guess the future design, Dragons and the like, landscapes, etc.  Teenage boy stuff I guess... I wish I had dated all of these, but this is junior high and high school.