Another view.

I couldn’t resist returning to the Cavalia big top for another sketch, see  2/17/2012; this time on a larger format page. I blocked in the sky piece with a wash brush but finished with waterbrushes which are so handy for sketching with watercolor. The challange though on this day was the relentless wind which kept blowing over my backpack and other supplies.  After awhile I had to retreat to my car to complete the piece.

Private garden.

Beyond a picket fence and surrounded by dogwoods, oaks and shrubbery, this view from the sidewalk of a gazebo in a private garden was just calling out to be sketched.

Legal grafitti.

While grafitti is considered to be criminal defacement of property and a sure sign of urban decay there is a place in St.  Louis where it is completely legal, even encouraged.  Since 1996, Paint Louis, has attracted local and nationally known grafitti artists to tag a 20′ high concrete flood wall with distinctive signatures and murals creating a work of art that extends for 2 miles starting  just south of downtown. The wall runs through industrial areas rarely seen by the public but most of it is just a few blocks over from Broadway, a major thoroughfare.  It is easily accessible but admittedly I have always felt that the area was a little sketchy, the other kind, even in the daytime.   The Paint Louis blog links to a Google Street View which shows a  portion of the length of the grafitti wall. 

Grafitti Wall, 04/15/2012, Michael Anderson, watercolor heightened with gouache, Arches 140lb cold pressed, 10″ x 14″.

Alley view.

An alley is literally a back of the house view but offers the sketch hunter the visual challenge: How do you represent the scene in an accurate yet appealing way. In this case I like the deep perspective. The alley extends the length of three city blocks all the way from DeMenil Place to Lemp Avenue.  The cast the shadows laying on the pavement and climbing up the wall under the bushy overhang also caught me eye. The final touches were linear.  The guy wires, utililty poles and bare tree branches tie the whole sketch together.

Alley, DeMenil Place, 04/11/2012; Michael Anderson, water brush, water color, Canson 140lb cold press, 7″ x 9″.

Satellite dishes.

The stair well on top floor of the Keiner Plaza East parking garage bristles with satellite dishes. Like all forms of clutter after awhile they become invisible and just another piece of the urban landscape. I completed this sketch over a period of several days working 15 to 20 minutes at a time during lunch hour. I have recently noticed a few other seemingly mundane infrastructure set pieces in the downtown area such as electrical transformer stations that are monumental in scale and intricately complex that now are my “sketch worthy” list.

Elegant garden folly.

Now preserved as a garden feature in the Temperate House, this classical stone porticco was the entrance to St. Leo’s Catholic School built in 1902.  According to the info on a wall plaque the school was on Mullanphy Street  and was demolished in 1978. Thankfully the elegant  portico was salvaged by the Saint Louis Architectural Art Company. Although the day was unseasonably warm it was too windy to attempt sketching outdoors. I commandeered an empty bench, broke out my supplies and sketched this sunny but completely indoors scene.

Portico, Missouri Botanical Garden, 02/28/2012, Michael Anderson, waterbrush, watercolor, 7″ x 9″, Canson 140lb cold press.

Cavalia big top.

Often the best way to paint an object is not to paint it all but rather paint the shadow shapes that define its form, especially the colossal pure-white Cavalia big top.  The shapes and their edges, some sharp and some “lost”, created by cast shadows constantly change as the sun travels its inevitable path across the sky. Cavalia will feature 60 horses, acrobats and performers in the downtown St. Louis run which opens March 22. For now I don’t have plans to attend the show but I do want to sketch this visually intriguing structure again soon.

United Methodist Curch.

Winter view on Monument Street.

Although the tragic events occured more than 100 years prior to the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. it seems appropriate to remember on this day another martyred advocate of freedom, Elijah Lovejoy. Lovejoy, a newspaper publisher and Presbyterian minister, was a champion for freedom of the press and freedom of speech. He was also an outspken abolitionist. Lovejoy was killed by a pro-slavery mob defending his printing press in 1837.  The memorial centers on a 93-foot high granite column topped by a 17-foot high winged statue of Victory. The monument was dedicated November 7, 1897, the sixtieth anniversary of Lovejoy’s death.

Elijah Lovejoy Monument, 01/15/2012, Michael Anderson, watercolor on Canson 140lb cold press, 6″ x 8″.