Drawing and having breakfast at Shaw's Cafe

I spent Saturday morning with my friend Tom having coffee and quiche at Shaw's Coffee on The Hill. We drew until the day got longer and Tom set off while I drew for a bit longer wanting to fill out a few pages at least. My drawings improved and then even I got a little tired and definitely ready to head on to the next thing.

PS - If anyone would like to suggest a location to hang out and sketch or would like to hang out, shoot me a message and let't get together and draw.
:)

Here is Tom Drawing me and the other scenery.

Urban Sketching - Old Webster Groves

I finished off the day with a few panels from Old Webster Groves. While drawing Russsel Vanecek and his wife ran into me sketching during an evening out. We usually run into each other at Marlene's Studio. 

This time the last few days I have been drawing very quickly and gesture-like. I am going to try the same subjects that I drew yesterday again today and this time be more intent on accuracy as a goal and more minimalist in  capturing the details of the scene. 

As I sat drawing, I watched a train pass at the intersection of  North Gore Ave and West Pacific Ave. As an intersection, it does have a feel of an older more idyllic North American town from a time past as a group of teen boys walked across the tracks and horsed around while a few other locals walked up and down Gore around dinner time...

Botanical Gardens

Sketching the Central West End

Coffee Shop Sketching

Rough Sketch

Refined Sketch

View Two

A change of characters on the stage.

iPad Sketches: The Passageway

The Passageway

Carondelet Park

Artists Drawing

The Boathouse Lake

The Painted City Book (Session atThe Zoo)

A good sized group of us from the Meetup Group showed up to the Zoo on Saturday to draw the animals.

Here are some of my sketches:

Camels and Zebras

Seal Enclosure at the Zoo
and a few sketches from Sunday

Some pictures from the trip:

Drawn by Barnes Jewish Hospital

Drawn by Barnes Jewish Hospital

Soulard Musican

Soulard Musician

Soulard People

In the examples below I am just playing with the contrast of my shadow layers. I have three of them. At top they are like 25%, 50% and 100%. In the middle they are closer to 50%,75% 100%. At bottom, they are 20%, 40% 60%.

medium contrast (above)

stronger contrast (above)

in a higher key (above)

sans line drawing

viewing all of the layers

I do feel a ned to put down the iPad and also take up the pen again as well. I don't want to get rusty. Here is another one from Soulard. This one has a bit of textured brush also.

Hi-Pointe Theatre

Hi-Pointe Theatre

Hi-Point Theatre

Digital daily sketches

Laundrymat

AutoZone

Ted Drewe's

iPad drawing of the water tower at Grand Avenue

Drawing at Bevo Mill

This (digital sketch at top) was done all live on the spot. I may take it a bit further at home in the studio. It was drawn on an iPad in Brushes 3.0.

Update 2014-10-16:

Here below are two watercolor illustrations that I commissioned other artists to do based on my sketches and reference materials.

The first one is by a Lois M.

This second painting below is by Ayushi B.

The Style Cleaners

Uncle Bill's Pancake House

Saint Francis Church

Neighborhood Architecture - iPod Drawing