Thumbs Up!

A month ago I inflamed a joint in my right thumb (who knows how!) and have been wearing a catcher's mitt size brace immobilizing said thumb. That has made sketching, and many other things (opposable thumb and all that) problematic. During the month  I managed to hold the pencil and brush between the knuckles of my fingers. Not the most comfortable solution but it did help me work on loosening up my sketch style. Below are sketches from Laurie Wighma's workshop in the Sierras, the chickens at Berkeley's Edible Schoolyard, Flower Piano at SF Botanical Garden and The Ukulele Jam at Yerba Buena Gardens. Brace is now off and the thumb feels fine. (Fingers crossed!) I think I will incorporated some of the mew techniques into future sketches. — Cathy McAuliffe

There were A LOT of chickens!

Over 1000 chicken statures in one place. We tried to draw them all (well, not really). See the following posts from some of the other sketchers. Thanks Jesse for thinking of us when you saw all those birds!

Fowl Play

The warehouse at Lux Appraisers and Estate Services in Emeryville is always full of some kind of treasure or another.  Today the reward was a massive chicken collection--seemingly thousands of them in all shapes, sizes and materials from an individual's home in Pachecho.  Fun to play with drawing fowl a few days before Thanksgiving.  Thanks Jesse and staff for hosting us.