Truck, waiting

Here I drew a basic contour. Given more time, this would have been an interesting exercise in working with negative shapes. View from waiting room window.

Sign of the times

Toys’R’us, April 2018

Four years ago today, I tried watercolor for the first time since high school. I sketched the ToysRus across the road from a local Starbucks.

This week, I sat in the same space (now a Bibibop) and tried again, adding a little colored pencil to the ink and wash, later. The Starbucks has since moved next door, to a building with a drive-thru window; the ToysRus is going out of business.

I found the building lists to the left, on the page, like a ship going down, when I tried to level it in the photograph.

Toys’R’us, April 2014

Children of my parents’ generation read books and played with tools, fabric, and wooden toys; many children of mine settled for television and plastic imitations (“disposable” but not biodegradable). The next has gone virtual, ordering and streaming bits and bytes.

Footnote: I still remember my dismay when the car in the center of the lower drawing left, half way through my sketch of it.

Primary colors

View from Charley’s

Three cars lined up outside Charley's Philly Steaks. (You don't get the chance to use three unadulterated primaries, in a sketch from life, every day.)

Breathing space

Philodendron, dentist's office

A few weeks ago, I had a dentist's appointment. The philodendron in the waiting room was more interesting than the television.

Church of Jesus Christ, LDS (from back parking lot)

A few days later, we had another appointment, near a green space bordered by two church parking lots. We arrived early, so waited briefly in one of them.

I painted the first sketch after I returned home.  I was still in colored pencil mode, from January’s pattern practice, so went over the watercolor with colored pencil, on both of these, at home.

Snow

This is one of the few the results of my short-lived goal to sketch nature through my window for 100 days. We had snow almost immediately; for days, the main task of landscape sketching seemed to be deciding where to leave the paper untouched. Often, the overcast sky kept even shadows from breaking the expanse of white. (I know many skilled watercolorists enjoy painting shadows.) At least I got this one done, through the car window, from the Wendy's parking lot.

Under construction

Dublin Green

The new Dublin Green Bibibop will share a building with the recently opened Tim Horton's. A busy construction crew wove a tapestry of wires, pipes, and tools between a foreground of cloud and asphalt reflections and a background of pink insulation.

A man raked soil around a large tree, just planted in one of the islands of the Dublin Green T.J. Maxx/Home Goods parking lot.

Textures

These are textures and materials viewed from the Kroger parking lot: awning, brick, bicycle rack, bushes, shingles, stone (with downspout), faux gable window.
When I was young, we shopped at a Kroger built on the edge of a parking lot decked with sculptures of the Seven Wonders of the World. Those were the days.

Further reading about Ivan Pusecker, Walk of Wonders artist:
Pusecker family featured at Church at Mill Run

Moments in time

1) Waiting for the gas tank to fill. Wondering how free and wild the forebearers of these bushes were. Feeling sorry for them, stuck in a suburban parking lot, surrounded by asphalt.

2) Discovering most-popular-local-diner-we'd-never heard-of-till-now, Jack and Benny's Barnstormer at OSU's Don Scott airport. The bacon and eggs didn't last long enough to draw. Should have checked the price of orange juice before ordering, but the scent of long ago Florida vacations was almost worth it.

Bumpersticker

The gaily turbaned driver waved and smiled, as I let her into the line ahead of us, to exit the mall parking lot. Appropriately, we were--each and every one--in one of two turning lanes.
God bless her.
To everything, there is a season. . . .

St. Brigid's, thumbnail sketches

View from parking lot, Hard Road library

Someone had been cutting a tree down. This library is worth a visit to see the life-size storybook art in the children's reading room. It also has a cozy fireplace and a convenient snack area.

Mini-Cooper at the Library

The Mystery section at the local library has been usurped by graphic novels. Mysteries are now mingled with general fiction.

License plate

Seen in school pick-up line, a few months ago.

Seagulls in the Rain, parking lot near Sawmill