I'm still sketching

My favorite sketch in this little sample is the one of Steven sleeping, complete with the ear plugs and eye mask he wears while his insomniac wife reads. The next one is Steven fixing a slide projector in our attic room at the schoolhouse. That's Zoey the dog on the floor. Next comes the view from our room in Anaheim, Calif. Some artists say that they never draw. I know I can draw well -- I was trained in the classical method, although I don't draw that way anymore, but more and more lately I've been using sketching like knitting, as a happy distraction whenever I know I'll have to sit and wait. When you sketch in public everything changes every few seconds. I like the challenge that poses. After awhile you realize you can't get it, that man won't turn around and go back to the pose, the woman who had her arm around him, and kissed his cheek suddenly left in a huff. Furniture is better. It behaves. But people push and pull at wooden subjects too, moving the chair you've almost nailed. When I paint in the kitchen, for a still life painting, I cover the kitchen table with sheets of plain bond, masking taped together, then outline the objects I'm painting so I can take my set up off the table for supper, and put it back afterwards without disturbing my family. Your family, like mine, may not like you spreading your paints all over the house, but they are pretty good sketching subjects. First of all they're used to you. You are always there, in fact you may bore them so thoroughly that after awhile they don't even notice you. My fornia last April, looking out over Disneyland, which we never visited. And the last sketch was done quickly in the pub where my son worked. The big man is a bouncer watching the crowd very carefully. It's time to draw the line around this day. Have a thankful Friday.