I'll be showing some paintings and sketches in Feb

I interrupt the retirement of this blog to say that I'll be showing some paintings and sketchbooks next month. I hope to see some blog followers there.

Last Post

I've decided to discontinue posting to this blog. I will continue to post to my original blog Bill Sharp Paintings.

This blog was an experiment in separating my sketches from my oil paintings but I find that I post to one and ignore the other for long periods and it hasn't really worked to try to keep both up to date with current work.

I don't have any plans to remove the content of this blog but I hope that if you've enjoyed what I've posted here, you'll continue to visit my wordpress blog.

Thanks so much for your encouragement and supportive comments.

SW Oak and 4th

7" x 10" gouache in sketchbook

Temporary Kitchen

For the past month, my studio has been our kitchen. This table is where we eat.

Bouquet of Flowers

Study for a painting I'm working on.

Bad Weekend

.

Thoracentesis is an invasive procedure to remove fluid or air from the pleural space for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes. A cannula, or hollow needle, is carefully introduced into the thorax, generally after administration of local anesthesia.

One can end up in the Emergency Room from side effects like a collapsed lung. 

An X-Ray and CAT scan indicated the lung was not collapsed and there was no mass in the abdomen. A new treatment will hopefully arrest the fluid accumulation.

She feels better now.

( I apologize if an earlier version of this post alarmed people. The initial crisis is behind us and we're trying to evaluate what is next. - Just like life )

Allen's Radiator Shop

I've neglected this blog lately, as I've focused on painting and work. I haven't made time to do much sketching.

 

This shop is on my way downtown and I always think to myself that I want to get down there and paint it, as I go by. 

Orcas Island

Rosario Harbor at twilight

I recently spent a week painting on Orcas Island, part of the San Juan Islands, off the coast of Washington state. Most of my time was spent oil painting but I had time for a few sketches here and there.

View near the village of Eastsound.

Small farm from Obstruction Pass Rd.

This was the view from the balcony of my room overlooking Rosario Harbor.

This small island is just off shore from the village park in Eastsound. You can walk out to it at low tide.

I'll post more on my oil painting blog soon.

Beautiful evening in the garden

Our garden is usually full of weeds and in need pruning. It still is but not as bad as usual and, with the help of one of my sketching friends who designed plantings for a neglected bed, it's been a very pleasant place to spend these warm evenings.

8" x 10" two page spread in sketchbook

The weather has been so gloomy until recently that I'm really soaking up the sun, now that it's here. I can hardly stop staring at the blue sky.

It is a challenge for me to make graphic sense out of all this foliage. I need a few man made objects to focus on.

Hayfield

I took a drive away from town today and found a spot to pull the truck off the road at this hayfield that had recently been cut. I had my oil painting gear with me but was too lazy to set it all up. I've not done any plein air oil painting this summer.

July 23 Sketchcrawl in North Portland

I joined a group of Portland Urban Sketches to take advantage of a rare sunny day and revisit the neighborhood near the White Eagle Saloon.



This neighborhood is sort of being gentrified but it's adjacent to freeway overpasses and rail yards that make it noisy and a brewery, which makes it smelly.





It was fun to see everyone and enjoy a day drawing in the sun.

Artichoke Cafe

Last night my wife and I enjoyed some really great local acoustic music at the Artichoke Cafe.

Four Singer Songwriters shared the stage and all were really terrific.
The proportions are a little wonky on this one but I enjoyed drawing it and listening to the tunes.

Sketching at Smith Rock State Park

7" x 10" Watercolor and Ink

On a trip to Central Oregon, I spent a day at Smith Rock State Park, which is very popular with rock climbers. These formations are fun to draw and there were several groups of climbers scaling them as I worked.


Along the trail I came across this incredible view of Mt Jefferson framed through the cliffs of Smith Rock. The boulder between the two cliffs is probably about three of four stories high.

7" x 10" Watercolor and Ink

May Flowers

Dog sketches - Miki

Over recent months, I've ended up with a collection of sketches of our new dog, Miki. Miki is a really interesting looking little guy that we think may be part Chihuahua and Shibu Inu. He's not as small as a Chihuahua but he has those buggy eyes. His ears are really large so that sometimes, he looks like an arctic fox. He's a rescue dog and was listed as an American Eskimo mix. We looked up Inuit words and decided to call him miki, which, according to the internet, means small ice flow.




When he's awake, he doesn't stay still for very long, so I have to have several sketches going at the same time, hoping that he'll return to a pose I've already started to sketch.

It's easier to draw him while he's sleeping, but, of course, he usually settles into the same sleeping pose, so I end up with a lot of very similar compositions.

Levitating in the studio again

Self at 58

It's that time of year again.

Every year, near my birthday, I try to do a self portrait based on one I did when I was in my early 20s. The original drawing was done as an assignment to learn how the face ages. We were to do a self portrait from the mirror and then, using information on how faces change over time, produce a second self portrait predicting how we would look at age 60.

The two drawings I did for the assignment are reproduced (badly) below.

.. ..

SE Portland

The back side of the German Deli and Edelweiss Cafe

Ringler's Annex

I met members of the Portland Urban Sketcher's group on West Burnside today for a morning of sketching. This is the McMenamin's Ringler's Annex Pub. It's actually more a dull yellow than green but it was a dull day, for the most part, but at least it didn't rain.

We met at Ringler's for lunch and compared drawings and tools and talked about the upcoming Urban Sketcher's Symposium in Lisbon.

North Oregon Coast

I've spent a few days recovering from a cold at a friend's house in Cannon Beach. These two sketches are the scene from the widow. In stormy weather, the scene changes so fast that it's difficult to capture. Looking up from the page before making my next mark, the light would have changes completely.

7" x 10" ink wash

The sketch above was when I was feeling pretty bad. I think it reflects how I was feeling.

11" x 14" watercolor

This one is from a bit later in my stay and I'm feeling more sunny. I'm not used to working this large and had trouble controlling these more extensive washes.

Thanks John and Jane for sharing this wonderful retreat!

Mongolian Boot

Ink wash 10" x 7"

Drinking and Drawing @ Laurelthirst Public House

The Laurelthirst Pub on NW Glisan in Portland is a place I like to go and draw while listening to some great local bands. The music starts at 6pm so I can go on a work night and not be too wrecked for work the next day. I like the Kung Pao Chickens. They're a kind of Gypsy Jazz band that used to play early on Mondays but they moved them to the late show so - too late for me now. I also like Lewi Longmire's country rock band. He reminds me a bit of the Jayhawks.

I get there early and draw before it gets too packed to see anything. I started this drawing at about 5PM and by the time the bands started, around 6:15, the place was filled.

They also serve vegetarian food.

Sketchcrawl in Old Town

Cold, soggy day for sketching. Sketchbook pages were damp and difficult to draw on. Hard to keep clean color. Most of the right hand page was done on location, most of the left was done at home. You can see that the color is less muddy on the left hand page.

Crack Press (NW 3rd and Glisan)

NW 3rd and Glisan, right at the Steel Bridge on-ramp. This is on the edge of Old Town and therefore has the red lamp posts that are used there.

I'm not sure if this building is still inhabited but, at one time it was the home of Crack Press.

Break in the Weather

It's been very wet, even for Portland, so when I got up on Friday morning and could see my shadow, I grabbed my sketch bag and headed out. It was in the mid 20 degrees Fahrenheit, so I stayed in the truck but I thoroughly enjoyed getting some drawing done.

These were both done in the SE Industrial area a few blocks from the Willamette River.

The sketch above was done at the corner of SE 3rd and Ash.

This one was done at SE Salmon near 1st Ave. I'm looking toward the river showing the skyline of the SW downtown including the KOIN Tower and Wells Fargo Center with the West Hills in the background.

It was so nice to see and feel the sun.

RR Utility Sheds

7" x 10" watercolor and ink

This is at NW 9th Ave near the intersection of NW Naito Pkwy, which I still think of by it's old name, Front Ave. Centennial Mills and the Fremont Bridge are visible in the background.

Two Views from a Garage Rooftop

5" x 8" pages

This spread, on facing pages of a Moleskine Watercolor sketchbook, is of the views, looking in opposite directions, from the rooftop level of a parking garage on NW Station Way in the Pearl District of Portland.

The sketch on the left is looking west through the Pearl toward the West Hills and the other sketch is looking east toward the Wilamette River and includes the Broadway Bridge (undergoing construction upgrades) and the historic Albers Mill Building, which is now being leased as office space.

Although I've sketched and painted several times, at this location, these both started as absent-minded doodles, during meetings, from snapshot on my laptop.

Missing House

This is a site on North Knott Street between Interstate and Mississippi. I was drawn to it because it appears to be the site of a home that is no longer there. There are 2 overgrown cedars beside a concrete stairway that leads up from the street but no house at the top.
The Fremont Bridge looms behind it and the property is littered with dumpsters now. I wonder who built and lived in that missing house.

Apple

Wrong Way

Union Station from the corner of NW Hoyt and Broadway, at the foot of the ramp onto the Broadway Bridge.