Back in the French Quarter

I celebrated our return to New Orleans yesterday by taking the streetcar into the Quarter to do some sketching. This is the view of Jackson Square and Saint Louis Cathedral from Chartres street.

Around the House

We've decided to sell our house in New Orleans and move into a smaller, more manageable house in the same neighborhood. The best thing about this new place we'll be moving into? We're renting it. This means we will no longer have to deal with all the headaches that come with owning a charming old house that sits on a swamp and is subjected to punishing weather all year round while being attacked by insects the size of small dogs. Take that, American dream!

As we prepare to leave our humble abode, I've been running around trying to get in as many drawings as I can. I suspect the new owners might have mixed feelings about my spending the morning drawing the kitchen cabinets once we are no longer living here.

Sketching at the New Orleans Museum of Art

I spent a good chunk of my morning sketching at the New Orleans Museum of Art. They have tons of good stuff to draw and it's an excellent option for an indoor drawing destination during the summer months in New Orleans. I actually started out drawing outdoors on the front steps, but it was clearly time to move inside when the sweat dripping from my face began to spoil my drawing. Was it really necessary for me to reveal that in a blog post? Probably not, but what is the internet good for if not over-sharing.

As for the drawings, the top one is a statue from Papa New Guinea and the one on the bottom is a 16th century credenza that is sitting in the Baroque painting room.

Ink Portraits

In the immortal words of Nigel Tufnel: "There is none more black."

I've been doing a lot of portraits lately and I've been slowly gravitating away from pencil and towards ink. Ink tends to go faster and it's a lot less forgiving, but I think it helps do away with my tendency to get overly fussy with pencil. The one on top is another entry from the Flickr Portrait Party and the one on the bottom is a self portrait done with pen and ink wash. As a side note, I hope to someday do self portrait where the expression on my face doesn't make me look like I'm about to punch someone. I seem to have trouble drawing and smiling at the same time.

Dauphine Street, New Orleans

I headed down to French Quarter on a chilly Sunday morning to do a little ink drawing. I did this one from across the street while lots of tourists in Middle Tennessee football gear walked by and tried to pretend they weren't watching me draw. I think I might have to make myself a T shirt that says "It's OK to talk to me, I am not a famous artists producing an immortal masterpiece. Also, I can hear you whispering to your friend while you watch me draw and it's actually making me more uncomfortable than if you just walked up and said hello." The T-shirt is still kind of a work in progress, as I may have a bit more text than I can fit in a legible font size.

Sketch Crawl in City Park

Today was the 25th Worldwide Sketch Crawl, put on by sketchcrawl.com. The original plan was to meet up with some other aspiring New Orleans artists at the New Orleans Museum of Art and spend the day running around City Park with our sketch books. Sadly, a storm rolled in and it was raining all day, which meant that I was the only one there to draw (although a very nice guy named Bill did come by to say hello and set up some other drawing sessions). Here's what I came up with:


This is a lamp post in front of the New Orleans Museum of Art.


This is not actually a real alligator - it's a sculpture by Elizabeth Shannon called "Camille II" that I drew looking out the window of the museum coffee shop.


This last one was done in about ten minutes during a break in the storm. I would have liked to have worked on it longer, but it started raining again and I had to run off. Note the trash bags lined up under the bridge and the hoses poking out of the water - I think they had it set up that way to prevent flooding if the storm that kept all the other sketch crawlers away turns out to be bigger than expected. Here's hoping we can get a few more people next time around.

CC's Coffee House, Jefferson Ave, New Orleans

This is the CCs Coffee House at the corner of Jefferson and Magazine in uptown New Orleans. Those with a keen eye for detail and a knowledge of the coffee houses of New Orleans may have already guessed that this is the very place where I sat and drew this. Actually, now that I think about it, there's really no way anyone reading this could have made that connection unless I told them myself. So, if you did guess, you are probably either my wife or you are stalking me, in which case I'm either about to make popcorn and watch "Westworld" with you or I'm calling the cops. Anyway, it's a nice place to get coffee and a very cool old building.