Meet the Sketchers: Jana Bouc

Bella Vita Window, Oakland, CA, Ink & Watercolor by Jana Bouc

A friend once told me, "When you're sketching you look like you're rollerskating." He was right! Sketching gives me that same feeling of joy and exhilaration.

I'm easily amused and enjoy sketching just about anything I see around me, from shop windows (above), to the gritty urban streets and scenic wonders of  the San
Francisco Bay Area and the wide variety of its residents.

I sketch in order to explore a subject I'm interested in painting, as meditation, for fun, and of course, to improve my drawing.

Clark Kerr Campus Berkeley

I love the kind of deep seeing that happens when I draw. It's like peeling layers of the onion in reverse. First you just see "onion" and then there's the shine and curl of the skin, the bit of of a green sprout peeking out here, the shadow below that's reflecting the gold of the onion and a bit of blue...

I carry my journal (which I bind myself) and a sketching kit wherever I go, including Tuesday night sketching with our Bay Area Urban Sketchers group.

Visit my blog JanasJournal.com for more of my sketches and my website JanaBouc.com to see some of my paintings.