San Diego Sketches

San Diego Sketches

A recent trip to San Diego allowed some free time to do sketches. I was with the talented Adam Jarvi on a survey run.  We wandered around the Gas Lamp District and a very large concrete pier.  I grabbed a few sketches along the way while he did some wonderful photography. He took the two shots of me sketching below.

San Diego is a really wonderful place. The weather was amazing and the people watching even better!

James Nutt

Ice House, Eli's North, and before Church sketches

I am working pretty hard on learning to draw people on site and quickly.

This sketch is from earlier last week at the Ice House watching one of the JT Bates bands with Will Jensen. This was drawn and painted in the dark, so you never know what you are going to get. 

Unfortunatley on the second sketch I was sketching JT (it was dark is my excuse) and the drummer from Ahmad Jamal at the Dakota showed up in the sketch!

Two sketches on one sheet. People study in the downtown Caribou Coffee outside the government center waiting for the zoning board of adjustment to start and the second is a quick sketch after the meeting at the newer Eli's North just across the bridge.

I am working pretty hard on drawing people lately and I am always a little delighted with who shows up on the page. Sometimes it is even the person I am drawing!


The rest of these are people studies. I have free time before church and I sketch while we are having breakfast.  You can see Leo's drawing of Darth Vader (Angry Birds version of course) on one of the sheets.

Happy Sketching everyone! Where ever, whenever... with whatever....

James Nutt

Travelling in Fort Worth Texas - People Studies

Travelling Solo in Fort Worth

A great part of my job as an architect is to travel and do building survey's or to get building permits etc. These are quick trips, usually solo or one other person with free time in the day or evening to wander interesting places.  Recently I went to Fort Worth. I was downtown and no car, but a great city to walk in.  I am on a mission to get better at people, so on this trip I gave myself a challenge to draw 30 people.  An airplane technical problem and extended stay helped make this possible!

I would wander around my area, find a discreet place where I can see but not be overly seen, pretend I am drawing the room and try to catch expressions.

The watercolor and sometimes gouache was added with my tin kit onsite

 The convention center is basically a big concrete spaceship with a beautiful park next door. This is a pretty rare sketching opportunity and I enjoyed it.

 The bottom sketch is in a very very dark jazz venue calle the Scat Club. I was basically drawing by one of those little yellow battery powered candles so the quality of sketch and color was anyones guess while doing it.

In the airport there was a group of young Japanese guys. Some were wearing the white air filter masks and one bought a very white cowboy hat. I just had to draw that!

I thought I would share the journey!

James Nutt- Minneapolis

Merry Christmas Everyone

A day of sketching in Philadelphia

I took an extra day in Philly to wander and sketch. Great city. I had a nice time. Patrick Stinger and his wife gave me a general layout of things to sketch. I roughly followed their direction.  I started in the Italian Market with a great cup of coffee and salami as I found a stoop to sketch from. I got to have a lot of conversations with kids.

This sketch was actually the first stop, if only because we spent the previous evening at the Pope's Pub and I wanted to get a sketch. The first one was from the car. The second was from a photograph later in the airport while I could still remember it.

The last stop after wandering randomly around the city was the Barnes Museum. Really beautiful building, but I had a hard time getting a painting I was happy with. I was determined to go abstract without lifework. However, that didn't seem to be in the cards so I did as best I could and loosely sketched over it.

Got to the airport at 4pm. finished the second Pope's Pub sketch and finished off a great day.

Altoids paint kit 3 "The brush"

It took forever to find this little brush, but Liz at Wet Paint came through for me. And now they carry them! Thanks!

"Koi water brush". I don't really see a model but the numbers "xqr" and the numbers 38552 and 4ml large are on the pack. These come in three sizes but I have only played with the medium.

I love it and Perfect for what they do and the size, but my critique is they are a lot harder to squeeze and don't have the water control of the larger sizes. Easy trade off for portability, but planned sketch day would benefit from the larger brushes. The water cartridge travels really well, but be warned it doesn't hold a ton.

Now with my Altoid kit and a rubber band holding a paper towel I have had a blast being able to paint with (almost) as much portability as a pencil (almost, but certainly more colorful)

A weekends worth of sketching

Nothing special about the weekend except I really felt like sketching and had my small kit with me.

 A quick sketch at Sporty's Bar (A dive bar of epic proportion in a good way) waiting for a friend to show up. Given this was done in poor lighting I think it came out ok. Mostly practicing people and watercolor with a prelim sketch.

Before church drawing my son in the Westminster Library and people in the coffee shop. My people are actually starting to look like the people. 

In the NE Coffee Shop we all three went hung out for a while and I did a rough abstract of the flowers at the table.

Later that day, painting while Leo played in the park. Once again, trying to draw more with paint, although I did do a light sketch of the major parts and proportions. I simply ran out of time on this one. It was fun and I have decided for an architect, I don't sketch enough houses and buildings.