28 February, 2022.

I’m on the fence whether I like this house or hate it. It’s nestled in among houses that are more consistent with architecture dating to the 1880s through 1920s. Seems out of place. Plus, it’s right across the road from the eyesore that was once the Guy’s Potato Chips factory. #bw #sketching #oldhouse #midcenturymodern

27 February, 2022.

I mentioned in the last post that I’m allowing an approach to drawing people to play out. I would describe this moment as an exploration of expressive line and minimalism. Today’s sketches further explore the possibility of expressing an emotional quality. Frankly, I’m intrigued.

26 February, 2022.

Yes, I’m staring the #oneweek100people2022 challenge a little early. It looks like the actual week is going to be pretty busy for me, so I’m opting to do my drawings on a different, earlier week.

You may notice I’m working in a little more expressive style. It’s a recent development and I’m seeing where it goes.

25 February, 2022.

If I run out of available subject matter, there’s always Annabelle. She lays on the couch, unmoving: a perfect model, often for hours at a time.

24 February, 2022.

I’m on a rampage at the moment, playing around with the positive and negative shapes I see in the houses around me.

23 February, 2022.

Drive across rolling hills, at times fallow – at least for the winter – remnant stalks of corn crisscrossing the ground. Except along fence rows, there are few details to break the monotony of cultivated farmland. In the distance, the horizon is broken by the silhouette of buildings. Approaching, one sees a cluster: outbuildings and barns, a house certainly, other smaller sheds and such. Continuing onward, ones car glides past and the monochromatic landscape returns.

22 February, 2022.

In the diner, he sits at the counter, his breakfast is a milkshake.

Who am I to judge? In fact, it sounds good.

21 February, 2022.

It’s the end of day, a favorite time to explore, to see the world. Daylight wanes. Shadows grow long. And places take on a certain mysterious quality they don’t possess at any other time of day.

An abandoned house, its stair long since fallen to the ground, catches the final bath of sunlight. Along an elevated deck, the overhang casts a dense shadow, revealing little detail. Siding has rotted in places, or somehow pulled away and fallen to the ground. A thick thatch of scrub oak is in silhouette, arms or tentacles or claws ominously reaching out. One day soon they will envelope the house.

20 February, 2022.

March is an eventful month for Urban Sketchers Kansas City. Our group of sketchers will be drawing and painting at the Country Club Plaza, the first and original planned retail area designed to accommodate shoppers arriving by car. I realize that description makes it sound like a mall, and in a way I guess it kind of is – but The Plaza is so much more than that. Dating to the early 20’s – and gosh, that makes me realize they should be celebrating their centennial next year! – the Country Club District is a source for culture. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art are blocks away. There are so many opportunities for fine dining. Parks. Music and art and theatrical festivals. The Kansas City Art Institute.

And the architecture, of course. Designed in Moorish Revival style to mirror the architecture of Seville, Spain, the buildings are a distinctive departure from the hodge-podge of design styles that define neighborhoods throughout Kansas City and the surrounding communities.

For this reason, Seville, Spain has become known as our sister city. In the heart of The Plaza stands the Sister Cities Bridge, spanning Brush Creek. And all through the month of March, sketchers will be drawing and painting the architecture of The Plaza for an artist postcard exchange with the Urban Sketchers of Seville. On March 12, we will meet outdoors for a special Sketch Out Saturday to draw and share our work as a group. We will, of course, continue to maintain appropriate social distancing.

I’m excited about this event. We had originally planned the sketch out to take place with USk Sevilla almost exactly two years, but the pandemic swiftly tabled those plans. We are finally at the point where we feel confident about an outdoor – but socially distanced – gathering to sketch. USk Sevilla feels the same, and boy are we all ready for this!

Surprisingly, I had nothing on my calendar yesterday so I drove down to The Plaza to scout convenient locations to stand while sketching on the 12th. One of the things I like is how the Moorish designs seem to unobtrusively knit themselves into a composite tapestry of various surrounding structures and cars and pedestrians.

20 February, 2022.

I feel like most of us who grew up in the Midwest feel some affinity for trains. The small towns across Missouri, for instance, were once connected by narrow and often winding country roads – and trains. Agricultural communities to this day rely on trains to load and unload corn and wheat and soybeans.

I’ll often find myself cycling along a long county blacktop that parallels a track. In the distance, a lonesome wail echoes across the flat river bottom farmland, and minutes later a train lumbers into sight, rumbling past, usually carrying grain, coal, or cattle. The cars may stretch from the engine a mile or more.

Or, as in the Procreate sketch above, I may encounter a train at rest, seemingly at random. (I do not often carry my iPad into the field; the imperfections of a pen and small sketchbook is preferable and better suited to such linear observational sketches.)

Architecture related to train transportation and cartage is distinctive. Many of the buildings seem to have been constructed within an era, the early 20th century. The structures and materials and design often share attributes, and we instinctively understand – even with further context – that these were once a hive of activity, a hub in fact.