Yesterday I promised you the godfather of the beach. I’m a man of my word. Let’s just hope I don’t get whacked for sharing this sketch with you of the patriarch of a family that sat beside me on the beach in Kitty Hawk, NC for a week last month. No, I did not make this up. He was really sitting there like he was large and in charge, glistening in the sun.
The Beach Godfather (click on image to see larger).
Like I said, he sat there presiding over his family. This second sketch is of the “godfather’s” son flying a kite that looked like a Blue Angels’ jet plane.
Click on image to see it larger
Thanks for coming to the blog this week to see the life drawings of my summer travels. If you are out and about, be careful of your appearance should you encounter me. When I’m out and about, I often have my sketchbook under my arm ready to record interesting people! YOU could be next!
Here is the third installment of my beach sketches drawn on the sand in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina this past August. Today’s sketches are just of some of the various people that would come down to the Outer Banks for a week and play in the sand and surf. Thankfully, as they were creating sand castles and running out of the water from jellyfish, they never noticed what I was up to over in my little beach chair sheltered from the sun beneath a baseball cap and an umbrella. Enjoy.
This man intrigued me. He was a grandpa who just stood there barely moving with a slight grin on his face watching his grandkids. With that interesting physique, I wished he was a little more active so I could see him in motion doing something, but the best I could hope for was for him to slightly turn……which he did do for me to capture this slightly different angle. Once he sat down, he was out of my line of sight.I really liked how this lady had her legs kind of twisted as she just stood there with her camera waiting to get a shot of her kids.Speaking of kids, there were a few of them at the beach, but mostly pre-school aged kids since in the South, school starts by mid-August. It was tough to draw them as they never held still long enough for me to see a strong pose. This girl’s attention was held slightly longer than most when she played in the sand.And this might be my favorite sketch of my time at the beach. This little girl was maybe 6 years old, and had that delightful awkward gangly thing going for her. She reminded me of children’s book character Eloise.
Most people often primp and prime to tuck, disguise and at times, enhance aspects of their physique to look a certain way before leaving their homes to go out. They go out of their way to acquire certain undergarment devices that lift, squish, and support the structure as if their bodies were to be seen as elegant Roman sculptures. Those same people will, for some reason, put on figure hugging or figure revealing lycra and gladly let it all hang out when going to the beach. To me that is one of life’s great head-scratchers. It also provides me with great material for sketching.
So, here is part two of my 2009 Beach Sketches. Today’s post is concentrating on the beach walkers. You’ve seen them. These are the people who walk up and down the beach in a constant unorganized parade of exhibitionism. It is usually quite a sight to behold. Here are a few of the more interesting characters that crossed my line of sight:
More beach sketches to come tomorrow! Come back again!
During much of August, I spent some quality time taking in the beauty of God’s creation in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina – the sun, the sand, the surf, and the various shapes, sizes and personalities of humanity.
Often in walking down to the beach, I would take along my sketchbook wondering who might be my unwitting subjects for the day. Will there be some kids burying each other in the sand? How about a good looking couple whose physiques will allow me to brush up on my muscle knowledge? Or perhaps there will be a little old granny riding the waves on a boogie board. Regardless, there is always someone of interest to sketch at the beach, and hopefully I won’t get caught doing so.
On this one day in particular, it wasn’t hard to notice this family who set up shop next to my family. They broke out some lawn darts to toss – not far from my head. Besides seeing sharp pointy objects that glistened in the sun flying through the air in my general direction, I noticed the fun that these adults were having, in particular the patriarch of the family.
This individual was a large man. He was tall with an imposing presence. His size was only equalled by his personality which was evident in the fun he was having with his sons and daughters-in-law tossing those weapons of mirthful competition. They partook of some friendly trash-talking, and this gentleman was not above striking silly poses to get the goat of family members, even to the point of performing mock hulas. This large man was, in short, a big loveable character. I had to draw him.
Well, when one is drawing strangers, one must be as discreet as possible so as to not offend nor frighten the subject in question. I am usually very good at that – usually. As I was about to finish my sketch, I overheard some of their family commenting on my drawing from behind me. I had, in fact, been discovered. This is what they saw:
Click on image to see it a little larger.
Thankfully, no one seemed offended nor upset by my doodle. If they were, they never told me. Though I wonder why they sat down the beach away from us for the rest of the week after that? Hmmm. Oh well.
Come back again tomorrow as I’ll be sharing with you some more doodles of beach goers who did NOT catch on to my observances.
I know, I know. It’s ME – not you. I have been unavailable to post images here for the past month due to being out of town without a scanner. But it doesn’t mean that I’ve been sitting on my thumbs. In fact, the pages of my sketchbook have been filling up with muses and musings while on the road – well, I mean that metaphorically. Some were drawn while in the air.
That being the case, I thought I’d start with a selection of sketches of people drawn in airports. While waiting for flights, some people read, some work on computers, others just sit there washing out reality with earphones. Me? I embrace the world around me by documenting it in my sketchbook. Where else (besides jury duty) can you find a real cross section of humanity than in an airport? People are coming and going from all corners of the earth carrying with them their customs, their costumes, and their quirks. I love it.
So enjoy these airport doodles. Some were drawn in Los Angeles, some in Dallas, and even more in Virginia. All total, I was in five different airports in awe of the diversity of society.
I thought this lady was interesting. Her chin seemed to stick out like her belly.
As every artist should, I often have a sketchbook handy for those idle moments that pop up now and then quite unpredictably. It is tough to pinpoint when inspiration will strike, or when one might have a surge of boredom. Nothing quite fills these voids better than having a sketchbook to launch yourself into another time or place, or sometimes just to document the time and place in which you find yourself. It is the latter of these two that I have been remiss in sharing with you. You’ve seen some of my imaginary doodles, but sketches from real life have been elusive on this blog.
I am about to take off on a trip, and to pass the time in airport waiting areas, there is nothing better than having your sketchbook by your side to draw the crazy characters that undoubtedly surround you at any given moment. There are folks of any shape or size, there are people with strange behavior, there’s a child acting out with an exasperated parent not doing anything about it, there’s the airport worker sweeping, there’s the elderly person being wheeled by in a wheelchair, and if you are looking, you may even see the casual celebrity walk by like Don King, Carlos Santana, or even Jerry O’Connell and Rebecca Romijn as I have.
So, today I am sharing with you a few airport doodles pulled from my sketchbooks. I’ll be adding to them this week, some of which may be worthy to share with you later. Sometimes you don’t get more than a moment to capture someone, so you have to be quick. And the real trick is to do it when they aren’t looking. You never want to get caught by your subject. They tend to not enjoy the scrutiny.
However, you have my permission to scrutinize the following doodles of regular folk all drawn from real life. Feel free to click on the image to see them larger.
Here are a few sketches of random people I’ve seen in airports.
