mark #19 - Red Top

It's been quite a while since we've sketched together. Here's my take on mark #19. Good to see again Josh!! Not you Michael ;)

Mark 19/Five-Year Anniversary

Well, it's been a long time since we last posted, but this blog is now five years old! John, Michael and I met at the usual cafe for the first time in years this week, and we did some sketching just like in the old days. Afterwards, we picked out a person in the crowd in front of us, and decided to draw them later on that day to see how many features we could remember. Here's how he looked to me:

Mark 18

So after a long long hiatus from posting, I went back through my sketchbook and scanned all my quick sketches and notes from all the marks I let lapse earlier this year. Normally I would recompose each mark from the looser initial sketch, but because I was so far behind, I decided to just do paint-overs of the sketches themselves. I also backdated each post so each mark is with the others from that week. This blog will be "on hold" in a sense for a little while, until John and Phil and I figure out a good way to continue our sketching rhythm. Hopefully the existing posts on this blog will entertain strangers and friends alike in the meantime.

-Josh

Mark 18: digital paint-over of the loose sketch I did after getting back to work.

Mark 18

Here's my take on the latest Mark on Wilshire and Hauser Blvd.
It's a quick one for the last week on the block. Hope you've all had a good time checking out the blog and sketches. This sketch was created in Photoshop from memory and some guessing ;)

mark 18

It's been a blast picking out marks on Wilshire Blvd. Here's my take take on the last one. Cheers!!!

Mark 17

Digital paint-over of the loose sketch I did after getting back to work.

mark #17

This weeks mark was a petite lady wearing a zipped up leather jacket and shorts. Right before picking her as our mark, we saw a guy on a cool vintage vespa. I decided to combine the two. It's quite possible he picked her up later on down the block.

Mark17

The latest mark captured on Wilshire Blvd and Hauser Ave.

Mark 16

Digital paint-over of the loose sketch I did after getting back to work.

Mark 16

Another place holder for mark #16. I also noticed the cut marks on her legs. Kinda reminds me of Sally from nightmare before christmas.

Mark16

Are you looking at me?
Yep we are back on Wilshire sketching again.
As production slows for my current episode, one of our members returns from Paternity Leave, and we get back into the swing of sketching at lunch, we have returned to our old haunts on Wilshire Blvd. to sketch folks passing by.
Our 16th mark, ( I have to admit, i took some liberties with the action) reminded me of a follower of the pop singer Katie Perry (who may or may not be a follower of Betty Page.) But the distinct thing that was interesting about this mark was that this Perry look alike had large slashes across the backs of her legs.
Don't know how they got there but not something that you see everyday.

Mark 15

Digital paint-over of the loose sketch I did after getting back to work.

mark #15

This is a place holder for mark #15. Didnt get the chance to do the drawing yet, but here are some visual notes I took. This gal was carrying a mysterious box down the street. My guess was that she was going to the UPS store. After following her for a few blocks, I can confirm that my guess was correct.

Mark 15

We moved to a new location down Wilshire Blvd. to sketch this week. Good to mix things up and see a different crowd of passers-by.  Here's my take on Mark 15 "Woman with Box".

Mark 14

(backdated post. actually finished on 3/1)

What was it doing raining in LA?? To be fair, this guy was a lot happier than I ended up sketching him.

Mark14

My take on our rainy day mark:

Wilshire mark #14

Rainy day on Wilshire. Our 14th mark had a unique way of holding his umbrella. It was held really high up. Perhaps he was blocking the rain for an imaginary little friend.

Mark 13

(backdated post. actually finished on 3/1)

Windy day, this one. I think it was the flashy belt, red shoes, and frilled purse that made her jump out enough for us to make her our mark.

mark 13

A windy moment on Wilshire Blvd. Here's a quick sketch of our 13th mark.

Mark13

Our recent sunny sketch session on Wilshire brought out a large number. We had about 8 folks sketching which was great! Hard to keep up with the sketches everyone was doing and the conversations! ;)
As we gathered on to find our "mark" across the way from our sketch spot the wind picked up and we saw our latest. So no, it's not that i didn't want to draw her face, I just captured her just as the wind was blowing all her hair into her face as she crossed the street while searching through her purse.
My take on our latest:

Mark 12

We saw our mark just after sitting down to our usual spot and it was instantly obvious who our pick would be this week. My take on our punk rock boy and his dog.

mark 12

Our 12th mark is a cool dude walking his pit bull. I wonder if his dog's name is Spike.

Mark 12

This week's mark was so obvious that we didn't wait until the end of our lunch break to select one. This guy and his pitbull were out on the street looking for attention, and they got it. The one area I didn't see well was below his knees, but Phil described his shoes & socks well, so I think I nailed them.

Mark 11

So all the color experimentation, I feel was an interesting exercise w/ the basic painting program at work.
But I feel like it was getting to be too much of a "art objective" in itself. The point of these sketches from memory is for them to be just that, "sketches". I can get caught up in trying to "make it pretty art" when it's more about the daily exercise of the eyes, mind, and drawing what we saw as fast as possible. Not laboring over it to make it an artistic piece in and of itself.
So with that thought in mind prior to executing this color, as soon as I got back to my desk from capturing the mark in my mind's camera, I pulled a scrap piece of paper, a pencil and jotted down the figure. I swore once it was scanned in to just drop in the basic color elements for the sketch and move on as soon as possible.

Mark 11

Building on our mark difficulty, this week we took only a small amount of time to memorize a guy that had lots of accessories. So many in fact, that I completely overlooked what kind of shoes he was wearing. I took a stab and guessed "white ones." He had just been to Chipotle and was wearing some kind of 8-bit video gamey shirt.

mark 11

We had a great turnout today! I think there was about a dozen of us. It was really cool to meet new people and sketch. This week's mark was having Chipotle for lunch (according to his brown bag) Here's my take on him.

Mark 10

Here's my take on this funky dude. I've only seen him around and worked from the description that was supplied to me from the fellow MarksMen. This sketch was a blind drawing from collective memories and my own from seeing him walking around on Wilshire Blvd. Another experimentation with color and sketchbook pro.

mark 10

This mark is a guy I see walking around Wilshire a lot. What caught my attention was his posture for his walk. His chest was really leaning forward and he had sort of a limp to his walk. I think he might be recovering from a leg injury.

Mark 10

This guy is often on Wilshire and was toting a shopping bag. He is very tall and walks with long slow strides. There was some kind of black design on the front of his shirt, which was hard to make out in profile. I ran out of time on this one, so unfortunately he got the quick and dirty treatment.

Mark9

Trying something different here to get away from line drawing w/ color.

Mark 9

This girl looked a bit like a short Jessica Alba, with a big wad of multicolored hair filling out her head. Her shoes were dark red and very sparkly. I couldn't give this one much love, but wanted to at least get the impression down.

mark 9

This mark was crossing the street towards us and what caught my eye the most were her super sparkly shoes.

Mark 8

I missed lunch this week, so this guy was described to me via email. Sounded like a confident fellow. I decided to give myself a lot less time to render him, because it's been harder to fit in time to draw lately.

Mark 8 from 2011. Happy New Year 2012!

mark 8

Foot traffic on miracle mile seemed a bit light this week. We originally wanted to find a mark that was a bit more festive, but settled for this guy with an orange and blue plaid shirt. I added the santa hat. Happy Holidays everyone!!

mark 7

Our seventh mark had a really bright orange purse and a yellow sweater. Really eye catching!!!

Mark 7

Here we have Mark 7 who was caught in the blink of an eye as she passed our tables.We had a few seconds to decide and capture this mark. Here's my take.

Mark 7

This week was tough because we decided on the mark literally as she was walking past our group of tables and it was hard to absorb all the details in that short amount of time. I'm not even sure that she had an orange bag with a yellow jacket--it could have been the opposite. I guess I still have a long way to go in training my short term memory.

Detail maybe no one else noticed: the horizontal stripes on her boots.

Mark 6

This guy was definitely exuding a sense of "please look at me," and I find it funny that he has no idea that six people were observing him to sketch an impression later. Although the color palette of his clothes wasn't more than a few brown tones, he had a lot of details to capture.

Detail maybe no one else caught: the white threads at the end of his scarf & the unbuttoned shirt cuffs.

mark 6

Theres only one word to describe this guy. FIERCE. He was the perfect mark. We had a big group and everyone knew exactly which guy we were gonna pick.

Mark 6

So this sketch was done not from memory of seeing Mark 6 in person but by getting the related description from my fellow marksmen. I wasn't able to make it during the last outing so this quick sketch is a combination of information and imagination. Not the ideal, but again it's just a quick sketch. ;)

Mark 6

As a matter of fact.

by Nick Brown

Mark 5

Now that we had mixed it up a bit, the next challenge seemed to be some kind of accessory. When we saw this young kid on a bicycle, he seemed to have a good enough presence to try out for the fifth mark.

Aspect maybe no one else noticed: I know the little black bag D-clipped to his pocket wouldn't go unnoticed, so I made sure to add the white speck at the tip of his black hat's brim.

For this one I tried to work in some more imaginative colors than my previous entries.

mark 5

Our fifth mark was on a vehicle. Maybe we should call him Mach 5. Anywho, here's my take on him. I wonder what's in that little black pouch attached to his belt.

Mark 5

Here's my take on our Biker.
Been a bit of a challenge keeping the memories fresh if you do the sketch a few days later.
Best to get down a ruff sketch immediately and jot down color notes/ specifics next to the sketch, if you're going to come back to it later.

Mark 4

This short woman seemed very sad as she walked slowly down the street. We hadn't done a female yet, so it was good to mix it up.

Special detail:  the curved strap design of her sandles

mark 4

This was our first female mark. It took forever for us to pick one that day, but we agreed on this short lady. Here's my take on her.

Mark 4

Here's last weeks Mark captured on 11/23/11

mark 3

Here's my take on our third mark. Its funny that we saw that same guy the next week; wearing the exact same thing. Must be his Wednesday outfit.

Mark 3

(backdated post)

This guy appeared early in our lunch session. He immediately seemed like a great choice, but he walked away and was gone for a while before we formally agreed on him. Then at the end of lunch, he returned with his quirky look and we agreed to draw him for Mark #3.

Detail maybe no one else noticed: the green iPhone case and the gold & red embroidery on his shoes.