View allAll Photos Tagged pocketsized
Several weeks ago a car jumped the curb in a traffic accident in my neighborhood, plowing over a young pear tree planted on the boulevard. I took some of the dormant branches and brought them indoors, and put them in water to see if the tree would bloom one last time indoors. It did! Here the lead up quick sketch as lead up to a color work. February 20, 2016
Hydrangeas were blooming in everyone's yards in coastal and inland Maine. Blooms the size of a child's head and larger! A woman who lived down the lane from us offered to cut some from her garden. From the kitchen window, Hopkins Point Lobster (the curved dike of its lobster pound and its more distant dock and building) are seen. August 24, 2015
See more about drawings from this trip on the Urban Sketchers Blog www.urbansketchers.org/2015/09/discovering-bones-of-drawi...
I got my hands on a Zeiss Ikon Ikonta. It's a bit particular with the film loading, but on my third roll I seem to have got it right. I love this camera. It's a fold up, near pocketsize middle format with coupled rangefinder. What better thing to photograph than another fine piece of vintage German engineering. The car is of course a good decade younger than the camera and they're both older than me. A definite favourite.
Zeiss Ikon Super Ikonta 533/16 & Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 2,8 80mm
Kodak Portra 400
C41
I had spotted this antique motorcycle propped up against a white-washed fence in a back alley of my Cedar Falls, Iowa neighborhood this past winter. When I returned in Spring it wasn't there. Fortunately, the man next door knew the owner had moved it into his yard, leaning it against the detached garage, seen only from the front of the house. I asked the owner if I could come into his yard to sketch it. I never knew Harley's were once made in Italy. But then again, I'm no motorcycle buff. The neon signs in the garage windows were a bonus. This was the 2nd of 2 I did. I wanted to get the whole bike. May 19, 2015
First steps with my new Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ10.
A giant in pocketsize, bringing back good memories of my old FZ18.....
This is the first handheld shot in the twilight....
Only cropped and framed.
Have a great weekend my friends!
Washington Park is the largest green space walking distance from my house in Cedar Falls, Iowa. It's by the Cedar River. It used to be a golf course. Now that it's been made into a city park, I walk there often. May 28, 2017
I've been asked to do a commissioned drawing of this house in my Cedar Falls, Iowa neighborhood. This was my first look. I'll have to work on the composition more before I start in on the real McCoy. May 16, 2015
We took the train from Baltimore to New York City. While waiting for the train to board from Baltimore's Penn Station, I sketched this couple. May 13, 2022
On our return trip on the Yellow Line BART, these two were traveling together. They were absorbed in their individual devices for the whole ride. February 16, 2024
A landmark tree in Cedar Falls, Iowa. This was preparation for the wax pastel that follows. Last and end page in my latest take-everywhere pocket-size Moleskin, that I had started on January 1st of this year. July 15, 2015
Over Thanksgiving, we stayed in an apartment in Brookline, Massachusetts. This was the view out the front living room windows. It was the lead up sketch to the following Neocolor II wax pastel. November 26, 2014
Read more about my staying in this apartment on Urban Sketchers Midwest Blog urbansketchers-midwest.blogspot.com/2014/12/trying-to-be-...
Harting and Hunemuller Contractors is on an out-of-the-way, unpaved street close to downtown Cedar Falls, Iowa. The street is more like an alleyway. The business backs up on a woods. The train tracks that lead to the coal burning plant pass in front. I spotted this vintage Airstream with a decades old Iowa license plate in the lot next to their corrugated metal roofed building. The tires were inflated. The windows were grimy. The back bumper was partially detached. May 13, 2015
See more black & white sketches of my neighborhood in this blog post www.urbansketchers.org/2015/05/black-white-traveling-ligh...
If you are passing through any major station, glance towards the end of the platform and you will see a knot of men of indeterminate age armed with notebooks, camera bags and vacuum flasks. You may scoff, for trainspotters are much-maligned these days. But don’t. “Gricers”, as they are rightly known (not “anoraks”) are heirs to a proud tradition and the stars of a new BBC television show. This recognition, like many of the trains I spotted as a youth, is long overdue.
It may now seem the preserve of a few oddballs, but trainspotting was once a mass movement. In the postwar decade, with few other hobbies bar stamp collecting accessible to them, 250,000 schoolboys joined the Locospotters’ Club, gathering on platforms or at the lineside to cross off the numbers of passing steam engines in their ABC of British Railways Locomotives (one pocketsized volume for each of BR’s four regions).
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/23/todays-trainspotters-...
THE WEST SOMERSET RAILWAY
20 miles of heritage railway through stunning Somerset countryside and coast.
A few blocks from my house in Cedar Falls, Iowa, a tree laden with fruit is irresistible to draw. This was a preparatory sketch for a larger wax pastel drawing done, on-site, the same day. July 29, 2015. The finished wax pastel drawing flic.kr/p/wE91PC
This book is paperback sized (4-3/8" x 6-1/2") but with an inflexible board cover. As stated in the back cover blurb:
"Permabooks combine the virtues of handiness for the pocket and durability for the library shelf. They are selected with care to provide reliable books for education and recreation. Each has been printed from new plates and bound in boards with a special wear-resistant finish to add to its appearance and to prolong its life."
This hard cover format only lasted three years, with the publisher (Doubleday) switching to the standard paperback appearance in 1951.
Walter Gibson was an accomplished magician as well as an author. Under the Street & Smith house name of Maxwell Grant, he created and wrote 282 of the 325 novels about the most famous crimefighter to battle evil-doers in the pages of pulp magazines -- "The Shadow."
Winner of the 2013 Big Boar contest at the Iowa State Fair.
See more about my day at the Fair on the Urban Sketcher Midwest Blog urbansketchers-midwest.blogspot.com/2013/08/iowa-state-fa...
We stayed at the Knickerbocker Hotel on Times Square. This man sat in my sightline at breakfast, the morning of our departure May 14, 2022
After hiking along the mostly dry San Antonio Creek in Goleta, California (an in town green space), I stopped before the return trip to sketch this from the dam. April 26, 2013
LUI, Vanilla Ice-Cream Clown 5.5" OOAK Teddy Bear
From My CANDY SHOW Collection
Waiting for his new Mom!
Visit my ETSY shop:
www.etsy.com/listing/185172388/lui-vanilla-ice-cream-clou...
or my FACEBOOK page:
Near the Hunting Lodge on Little Saint Simons Island, a courting swing hangs from this draped with-Spanish-moss live oak. Shirley, another guest who has also visited the island many times, called her "Lady Hump Bottom"--a fitting name for such a beloved, elegant, knobby trunked tree. December 9, 2013
Another back alley treasure, found on my daily walks in my neighborhood in Cedar Falls, Iowa. I loved how this shiny object looked against the grove of dark tree trunks. April 14, 2015
I've posted 3 linked vignettes--pictures & words--about this drawing and others in my Cedar Falls, Iowa neighborhood. Check it out! www.urbansketchers.org/2015/04/a-vintage-airstream-hidden...
I stand corrected: this is a 1957 Lill' Abe Camper. images.yuku.com.s3.amazonaws.com/image/jpeg/b413656e40ab8...
Less than a minute after pulling my sketchbook out, I was called back to see the doctor. May 16, 2016
Seldom used tracks run through this quiet, shady neighborhood, near my house in Cedar Falls, Iowa. May 27, 2015
See other black & white sketches of my town in this blog post www.urbansketchers.org/2015/05/black-white-traveling-ligh...
William Combe’s “The Tour of Doctor Syntax: In Search of the Picturesque” was begun in 1809 and published in book form in 1812. Together with the accompanying aquatints by Thomas Rowlandson that inspired the poem, it satirizes the aesthetic ideals lying behind the picturesque and its frequently pompous followers. The poem tells how Dr Syntax, a curate, sets off in search of the ideal picturesque landscape only to be continually thwarted by bathetic and farcical inconveniences. During the course of the poem the unfortunate Dr Syntax stumbles into a lake while attempting to reach the perfect location from which to sketch a suitably ruined castle, is chased by a bull and driven to distraction by the incessant bleating of sheep. - See more at: www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-tour-of-doctor-syntax#stha...
This first tour of Dr. Syntax is accompanied by thirty colored illustrations by Thomas Rowlandson.
Only the guard and I in this gallery at San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art. A Brice Marden painting on the wall. December 12, 2023
Besides the pool of yellow leaves on the pavement, as seen from my 2nd floor bedroom window, I wanted to capture the undulating curve of the Norwegian maple and the conversation between the two tree trunks. November 7, 2013
The drawing that came from this flic.kr/p/hmvmnc
Cedar Rapids is an hour SE from where I live in Cedar Falls. An appointment brought us there. We ate a very good lunch at this Cuban restaurant beforehand. March 31, 2016
to me, fused plastic is recycling at its best - made from those ubiquitous plastic shopping bags. this journal's cover also uses a shipping bag with a funky geometric design.
The Iowa Democratic Caucus was February 3rd. Each candidate's supporters gathered in a section of the elementary school gym. By show of hands and a paper ballot, the number of delegates to the county convention were determined, In Ward 1 Precinct 3, Saunders received 7 delegates, Warren 4, Buttigieg 4.
Two white, one black huddle together in their pen in the Sheep Barn at the Iowa State Fair 2019.
August 16, 2019
www.urbansketchers.org/2019/09/prized-animals-at-iowa-sta...
This pocket-size Whole Book of Psalms is bound with white satin worked with polychrome silk threads to create a naturalistic representation of insects, with different flowers and fruit growing from the same miraculous tree (alluding to the Tree of Life). The same design appears on the back and the same fruit and flowers appear on the spine. Thick braid has been used to create a tree standing on a small grassy mound in raised relief, with six branches, with a different flower or fruit hanging from each one. At the top of the tree is a pink/red Honeysuckle , with a Butterfly to the right and a Bee to the left. Beneath, a pink Rose on the left, and possibly a pink/red pansy to the right. Below them, is possibly a Blue Borage flower or a Blue Starry Hyacinth, and what appears to be some kind of white Lily on the right. At the base there are five buds to the left, and a spray of Vine with a bunch of Grapes and a tendril to the right. There is evidence of the binding having been covered in numerous spangles: two remain on the front, and two on the back. The same flowers and fruit are depicted on the spine.
The embroidered (tight-back) binding is mounted on paste-board and sewn on three cords. The head and tail-end bands are intact, with evidence of there having been textile fore-edge ties. The fore-edge, top and bottom leaves have been gilded with blind tooled in a flower pattern.
I find that when I sketch and write down the recipe, I remember how to cook it next time.
watercolor sketch in a pocketsize Moleskine watercolor sketchbook.
This book is paperback sized (4-3/8" x 6-1/2") but with an inflexible board cover. As stated in the back cover blurb:
"Permabooks combine the virtues of handiness for the pocket and durability for the library shelf. They are selected with care to provide reliable books for education and recreation. Each has been printed from new plates and bound in boards with a special wear-resistant finish to add to its appearance and to prolong its life."
This hard cover format only lasted three years, with the publisher (Doubleday) switching to the standard paperback appearance in 1951.
There were mountains of snow on the tarmac at Boston's Logan Airport. More than 2 feet of snow had fallen in the days preceding. And a couple more feet fell in the days after my departure. As I write this, there is yet another blizzard gripping Boston. I arrived at the airport for my early morning flight hours before sunrise. February 3, 2015