Buttnekkiddoodles

 

Ever get that feeling you’re being watched? Sometimes, as I’m drawing someone, they look up and gaze around, and then return to what they were doing. I’ve had my subjects look up from what they were doing to stare directly at me. Do they have exceptional peripheral vision or do some folks actually possess a sixth sense?

the band members, especially the bass player and the drummer kept looking in my direction and later informed me that they weren’t sure what I was up to. Once I showed them the sketch they were pretty delighted and the rest came over to check out what I did. Above, the man with the plaid shirt and cup with straw never looks my way.

Fountain pens filled with either DeAtrementis Document Black or Platinum Carbon Ink, Pitt Artist Pens on Romeo unlined Ivory journal.

I’ve had an unusual and superb vantage point of a demolition and construction site which is directly across the street from my apartment. Never having watched a site from start to finish before I have been surprised by some of the developments. Upon demolishing the existing structure seen above in a snowstorm and just below that at night, the rubble was separated into different materials, i.e. bricks, the reusable ones were stacked on pallets and wrapped, banded and carted away for reuse. Metal materials were hauled away then general rubble was removed. But one of the biggest eye openers was the digging of roughly twenty 25-30’ cylindrical holes that had rebar cages inserted before being filled with concrete. Then, these concrete columns were covered up with the heavy equipment moving to dig the next holes.

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drawings executed with Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens and graphite on Stillman & Birn Nova Series Toned sketchbook, Tomoe River Paper.

Getting in some quality time at the Evanston Public Library. Pitt Artist Pens and a Graf Von Faber Classic Ebony fountain pen filled with Platinum Carbon ink on Tomoe River Paper.

    

Shot down to Wicker Park where I met up with a dozen Urban Sketchers to draw in the Den Theater building. One of the USkChi crowd is an architect who is working on renovating the building which has at least 4 theaters and 2 bars and has been gaining notice as a playhouse putting up plays of note.

I rode the Metra in from Evanston and got off at the Clyborne station which sits on the edge of the Bucktown/Wicker Park neighborhoods. I like not only the convenience of this station’s location, but the physical bearing of the massive concrete and steel raised platform. The following 2 drawings were drawn from previous visits and displayed in prior posts.

 

Clyborne Station is the first stop north on the Kenosha/Waukegan Line and a mere 18 minute ride to the Davis stop in downtown Evanston. The station straddles Ashland Avenue and both Cortland and Armitage avenues and running beside the Kennedy Expressway.

Chose to park awhile in the dimly lite main theater at Den where the stage was dramatically lit while the rest of the room was dark, punctuated with a shaft and sliver of ambient light. After an hour of drawing, someone came in and turned on a slew of lights so I threw in the towel. Following the event, I grabbed some fried chicken from Harold’s and had lunch in Wicker Park where I sketched the woman below. Back up on the Clyborn platform I waited by the pedestrian shelter for the train headed north.

 

Above are my roll up pen wrap and the gear I took out for the day. From the top to the bottom, various Faber-Castell Big Brush Pitt Pens, a black, white, 2 shades of warm grey, and a cool grey, 2 Pitt Pens, a brush nib and a 1.5 nib, aSailor brush nib fountain pen, a Pelikan M205 with a medium nib, a Faber-Castell Basic with a leather grip, and a Faber-Castell Ambition. The fountain pens were filled with Platinum Carbon ink.