Jo-Ann's Fabrics

I liked the contrast between the pattern models poses with attitude and the mannequin.

Playland-Not-At-The-Beach

We went to Playland-Not-At-The-Beach on their monthly adult night. I loved the rows of pinball machines. I drew while a couple of serious players racked up really high scores! The other thing I really like there is the miniature circus, built to scale of half inch to a foot. There are over 300,000 hand carved figures! Scroll down and see what the other sketchers liked.

Joann Fabrics and Crafts

There were so many items to sketch, but the dress makers form and juxtaposition of sports fabrics and Hello Kitty materials caught my eye. Please see fellow sketchers' previous posts from Joann's.

Joanne Fabrics

Birdhouses - just a few!

Gnomes? Elves? Santas?

Joanne Fabrics has a huge variety of things to sketch. Fabric stores are sort of like general stores now, as few people sew. The gnomes (?) I finished coloring in Photoshop, which I guess makes it not "real" in a way, but it what's real anyway?!

Ten Ren's tea and ginseng, El Cerrito

Ten Ren's El Cerrito, 9x12in

Ten Ren's is a great place to draw. They have lots of colorful jars and boxes and a very interesting tea table were we sat while sipping a good cup of tea. The staff is extremely friendly and as compared to the hallways of the mall it was nice and warm.

I used pencil, pen and ink, watercolors and gouache. I muddied the colors and I ended up rubbing and going over with gouache. My sketchbook has good paper and the page survived.

Pastime Hardware in El Cerrito

On a cold (for California) winter evening we sketched at our great local hardware store. See Ceiney and Susan's sketches in earlier posts.

Urban Angel Under the Power Lines

Angel under the Power Lines: Holiday Display on Moeser Lane, El Cerrito

Sundar Shadi was born in India but moved to the Bay Area to attend college in 1921. In 1949 he put up a holiday display on the large empty lot next door to the home he built in El Cerrito.

Sundar Shadi Holiday Display (at sunset between rainstorms)

Every year until he was 96 he added to the display, building figures, animals and a whole village. He passed away but his family and volunteers continue to assemble the display each year. Sundar Shadi was a Sikh not a Christian, but created the display as a gift for the community.

Happy 75th Birthday Cerrito Theater!

Cerrito Theater, ink & watercolor, 6x8"

The Cerrito Theater is having its 75th birthday celebration this week. It originally opened on Christmas Day in 1937 as an art deco "motion picture palace." It closed in the 1960s and was used as a furniture warehouse until a community group worked to bring it back to life as a theater in 2006.

More about the theater, the sketch and the town on JanasJournal here. 

More Around Town

At El Cerrito Natural Grocery, ink & watercolor, 8x5"

I sketched this from a corner at the back of El Cerrito Natural Grocery the same night Cathy drew the funny chickens from their meat department in her post below. I was so tired that night that I left my sketchbook behind in the shopping cart I used as a table. It's a good thing I had "If lost please call..." with my phone number on the first page.

Outside Peet's Coffee by Center for the Blind

This blind woman was waiting at for a friend at the next table while people waited at the bus stop behind her.

More about these two sketches on my blog here.    

Chicken Pot Pie Celebration

Chicken Pot Pie at Fat Apples Restaurant, ink & watercolor, 5x8"

Carrying on from Suhita's Food Obsession posts, here is my contribution: the yummy chicken pot pie, salad and rolls at Fat Apples Restaurant I had to celebrate finally moving into my new studio.

Umbrellas at Fat Apples

I had fun trying to make sense of the two umbrellas in the middle of the restaurant but ran out of time to finish the drawing. Everyone was done sketching and eating and were waiting for me. That's a waitress with pigtails (sort of) behind the counter under the umbrellas.

More on my blog JanasJournal.com.

Road Construction Bulldozer

Road Still Under Construction, 5x7", ink & watercolor

I was sitting on the curb just finishing up my sketch when a guy in a truck pulled over and politely asked me to move so he could park in front of his house, where I was sitting. I added the watercolor standing up.

This bulldozer is the last of the equipment from the one mile long road construction project in my neighborhood that took two years to complete. 

Squid and Ale at Elevation 66

Esther Vanilla Stout: A milkshake of a beer!

Here are my additions to the wonderful sketches that Micaela, Cathy, and Beth posted below from our night at Elevation 66 (click their names or scroll down a few days to see sketches below).

Strange but yummy dinner: squid, avocado, grapefruit and fritters

Beer vat and wine on shelf with hose and pipes

Cathy and Micaela sketching at the bar

Elevation 66 is a fun, small lively, neighborhood place with lots of sketching opportunities and good beer. More about the evening on my blog. 

Sketching at the Hardware Store

Original version done at Pastime Hardware, ink & watercolor, 5x7"

I stood and sketched between the paint solvent and cleaning product aisles (both stinky), using an aisle-end shelf for my paints. When we finished and shared our work, I realized that in the original sketch above, I had ignored the fact that it was dark outside. 

Sketch finished at home with dark windows

So when I got home I painted all the dark windows. I’m not sure which I like better. What do you think?

K9 Unit and Fire Truck at El Cerrito Plaza

K9 Unit, Paramedics and Fire Truck at El Cerrito Plaza

The parking lot at El Cerrito Plaza was filled with police cars, fire trucks, hazmat vans and other emergency responders when I walked up there to do errands Saturday. Contrary to my sketch above, which looks like a police car crashed into an ambulance, it turned out to be the annual Tri-City Safety Day.

I sat on the curb and sketched while cops, firemen and other public safety people handed out fire hats, pencils and buttons to kids who got to climb on police motorcycles and fire trucks, and explore the DUI checkpoint trailer.

Sunset at Sunset View Cemetery

Shadows at the Cemetery

 The ridges and shadows in the grass are what first grabbed my attention, and then the tombstones.

The chapel and bay beyond viewed from a hill at the cemetery

The sunset was spectacular so I stopped to watch it. With the days getting shorter, the time for drawing and painting outdoors in the evening is getting shorter too. Soon we'll be going back indoors for our Tuesday night painting. 

Boring? Not!

San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito looking north from Peet's Coffee

At first glance, the corner of San Pablo Avenue and Carlson in El Cerrito is boring, boring, boring: a wide busy avenue with boxy buildings. But when viewed on a lovely summer day from a cafe table outside Peet's Coffee with pen in hand, it transforms itself into a sketching delight full of fun details and color.

San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito, looking south from Peet's Coffee

Looking the other way down San Pablo, the Wells Fargo Bank building holds little hope for drawing inspiration. But start sketching and it too transforms itself. There are trees of all kinds and colors. A cerulean sky with only a hint of clouds, a pink apartment building and a gold dentist office. Sun, shadows, banners.

Not boring! I don't think I've ever felt bored when I was sketching. Years ago a friend told me that when I was sketching I looked like I was roller-skating. Whee! Let's skate!

Sketching while waiting

Waiting at Kaiser, Ink & Watercolor, 5.5x7.5"

Sketching is such a great way to enjoy time spent waiting. In the sketch above I was waiting for someone during her appointment at the medical center.  The lady on the left was dressed completely in Barbie pink from head to toe, including sweatshirt, purse and shoes. Even her cell phone was bright pink.

The little boy above spent his waiting time enthusiastically "reading" a book. He squealed with delight to his mom over each page.  It was so nice to see a child loving a book even if he was too young to actually read the words.

BART Station Street Light, ink & watercolor, 7.5 x5.5"

Sketched while waiting for friends to arrive at the El Cerrito Plaza BART station.

Playland Not At the Beach is

filled with so many colors and lights and sounds, I'm still reeling. This self-proclaimed "Museum of Fun" in El Cerrito more than lives up to its billing. Some of the artifacts and memorabilia, like the pinball machines, can be touched, not just looked at and admired. I caught this guy in an epic battle of human vs machine.

Grotesque Garbage

There are about a million different things to see at Playland Not-at-the-Beach. Here is a weird and creepy trash can that I kept noticing as I walked by. Such a grotesque figure on top of the wooden barrel, yet I couldn't look away.

Ranch 99

The fish were breaching their ice bin at Ranch 99 last night.