Spring, Springing

Portland trees are erupting with lovely blossoms all over town. I decided to challenge myself to an art experiment this weekend: capturing the beautiful pink cherry blossoms in the neighbor's yard using a unusual art tool...being the 16-month-old kiddo.

Step one: Admire the awesome flowers. (Wow, huh?)

Step two: Assemble non-toxic art supplies in the appropriate color scheme (in this case, a gray washable non-toxic marker, a custom mix of red and white tempera paint, a nice soft paintbrush, and a stack of cream-colored cards.)

Step three: Strategically hand art supplies to kiddo during a gap in the incessant going-down-the-slide practice and cross fingers...

Step four: Burst buttons with pride at how nicely that all turned out. Brag on internet, mail originals to grandparents.

Yeah, OK, it's not really that much different than the folks who dip grubs in paint and them them crawl all over the paper...But it's a fun exercise in selecting materials and introducing chaos! (Plus, it's so exciting to watch this grub learn how to re-load a brush with paint.)

Happy spring, y'all.

Scarcely even a baby now

Looking through my sketchbook of late, I found myself thinking--"Oh man, there's almost nothing but sketches of the kiddo in here. I bet folks might get annoyed if I only ever post that stuff..."

And then I did a double-take and decided that I should be proudly embracing this life stage both in person and on the blog. So here you go, internet: some almost-recent doodles of this growing changing toddler. Enjoy!

Summer Sketching in Sellwood Park

It's such beautiful weather to get outdoors, slap paint onto scraps of paper, and heck, even nap on the lawn.

Here are a couple of the sketches I did in tempera paint on brown paper at the last Urban Sketchers gathering. You can see more in my post at pdxusk, as well.

Babykins, looking somewhat serious.

 

Kiddos on the swings

Slightly abstract interpretation of bright sky between tree branches

Two-tone sky: puffy clouds, doug firs

Sensible hats and tired feet: #WCsketch

I've put up two posts from the 2nd Annual West Coast Urban Sketchers Sketchcrawl event over at pdxusk.org, so I figure I'll drop my last handful of sketches here just for kicks. It was a warm day and I was a little tuckered from the various planning committee duties (still am, in fact--almost typed "wet coat" instead of "west coast" above!) But as we wrapped up the second round of sketchbook sharing in the afternoon, my hands found a new pencil and I found myself whacking out a few more doodles.

Part of the motivation was the fact that Paula's hat was nearly the same vermillion color as the pencil in my hand...

...And sensible summer hats were really such a staple of the sketching toolkit on that very warm summer's day.

Having packed everything up and loaded myself, my gear (too much gear), and the baby onto the city bus, I started to realize how tired the day's adventure had left me. When the kiddo got a bit fussy just two blocks from home, I was only too glad to take a break in a shady spot of overgrown lawn at the local schoolyard. She had a great time tugging on grass flower stalks while I leaned up against the fence, drank the last of my water, and thought, "Whew! What an adventure!"

Back-of-envelope baby sketches

OK, as this darling baby kiddo gets older, sketching gets more difficult for me. She's ambitious! She wiggles! She wants to put every darned thing right into her mouth!

But I have been able to whack out a few back-of-an-envelope opportunistic sketches, usually when she drops off to sleep in my lap.

Sometimes those sketches happen on the back on an incoming envelope...

...and sometimes it's on the back of an outgoing envelope. 

(These sketches were from March and April, and she's changed so much already since then!)

Bigger Baby, Same Poses

Amazing how this kiddo, even as she gets bigger and fancier and stronger, still strikes the same poses when she's nursing as she did as a teensy newborn.

Out and About

We've been using stretchy cloth chest-carry wraps to schlepp the baby around town, whether on foot or by public transit.

A couple of times now I've tried sketching the view of the baby, snug in the carrier an layers of winter clothes, napping against my chest.

By contrast, when she's out of the carrier and wiggling around, it can be a lot harder to sketch her! I attempted this doodle with my non-dominant hand, while the baby was sporadically kicking that arm as she nursed, no less--adorable chaos.

Evening Watercolors

Our baby tends to need a feeding in the middle of the night--3 am or thereabouts. I've done a few experiments with sketching her in watercolor during these times. At first I was going about it in a more realistic way...

(That adorable moment when she's done eating but her mouth is still gaping open for a while...)

 ...but it has been much more fun to let the low light and the sleepy brain take the sketches in more abstract directions.

I may not do a lot more of these at this juncture, since it squiggs me out a bit to have the paint supplies out in the same time and space as feeding time. Rule #1--don't eat paint. We learned that quite clearly from Van Gogh already.

 But this has been a lovely excuse to bust out the beautiful travel sketchbook that my aunt Lois made for me. (Parenthood is a type of voyage, isn't it?) If you're reading this, Lois, I think the choice of watercolor palette is dead-on awesome and the whole unit works like a charm!

Baby Hands

Through a combination of innate reflexes and personal style, a baby's hands and arms can be very bold and expressive.

I haven't yet been able to capture the fleeting "jazz hands" reflex when our little peanut is startled, but I do have plenty of chances to draw how she drinks milk with her pinky up, as if sipping tea with royalty.

There is so much personality in those tightly-closed fists, too.

If it weren't for the chilly winter weather, I'd likely be sketching her tiny baby toes as well--but for now, warm socks are the priority. (A project for spring?)

Baby Face (Part Two)

As a new parent, there's a lot of data to gather about the tiny critter that's burst onto the scene. For the first weeks, I was keeping careful track of when she last ate, how many diapers she blasted through during the course of a day, etc in order to make sure all is good and healthy.

Thus, my pocket notebooks have become a strange medley of charts diagramming milk in/milk out, with elaborate baby doodles in the margins.

Not to mention the fact that, when struggling to stay alert for lengthy late-night feedings, sketching on any handy scrap of paper can keep my brain from shutting down entirely. (Sleep deprivation is a great way to loosen up the linework of one's sketches, as it turns out).

 

Whether it's studying her face as she nurses...

 

...or just trying to stay awake in the doctor's waiting room, I've been very grateful to have pen and paper on hand.

Baby Face (Part One)

I gave birth to a baby girl on Halloween morning, and was sketching her right from day one. (I actually packed my watercolor kit and a good squirrel mop brush in my hospital bag--laughable to see me pondering what brush is best for the occasion!--but have nonetheless only done pen sketches of her so far.)

Sketching helps me wrap my head around this momentous event. Who is this tiny human? What does she look like, how does she move?

A baby's face is such an odd thing--familiar in structure, yet with such different proportions than an adult face.

Simultaneously adorable and surreal, bizarre.

It it that it's rounder, taller, wider...? Still can't pin down the exact dynamics that makes a baby's face distinct.

But good job, evolution, on making baby faces absolutely fascinating.

Baby Elephant

I am happy to report that the 16-day-old baby elephant at the Oregon Zoo is exactly as cute as you would expect. * Tengo placer en declarar que el elefante que se nació hace 16 dias en el Oregon Zoo es increíblemente precioso.

She runs around a lot but also trips over her own feet sometimes. * Ella corre con alegría, pero es muy joven y por supuesto se caye de vez en cuando.

And when she had explored for a little while, she runs back to tuck herself in the safe shelter of her massive mom. * Despues de explorar un poco, suele correr a la albergarse cerca de su mamá enorme.

The difference in shape between a full-grown adult (above) and a baby elephant (below) is very interesting! * ¡La diferencia del forma de un elefante adulto (arriba) y un elefante bebé (abajo) es muy interesante!