Landscape Drawing

My company is across the street from Papa John's international headquarters. Surprisingly, they have an incredibly well landscaped campus complete with rolling hills, walking trails, ponds, picnic tables, bridges, and a fountain! When it isn't ungodly hot (or cold) it's a wonderful place to take a walk, or drawing break.

Cat Scott
Louisville Graphic Designer and Illustrator
@gato108
www.CatScott.com

Dream Holiday

I had an illustration in mind for my holiday card this year. I had even collected reference materials and started on the preliminary sketches.

Then, I woke up last Sunday morning from a weird dream: I found myself in a storage room for an apparel company with someone who was showing me all of their old marketing materials. This one piece I stumbled upon, which I think was a jeans hang tag, really struck me. I turned it over and studied it and thought to my Dream Self, "I could totally do this!" I woke up shortly thereafter, grabbed a post-it and jotted down what I could remember.

In the dream, it was double sided, so I sketched what I could remember about both sides. But since I don't really need a jeans hang tag, and I was in need of a Christmas card design, I changed some things around. I gotta say I'm pretty proud of my Dream Self. I wish I could always work out a solution to an image while sleeping - that would be Ultimate Multi Tasking!

Will Rogers

Will Rogers, originally uploaded by Gato81.

I brought my watercolor pad to the beach on Saturday afternoon to attempt some late afternoon "plein air" sketching and painting. I started with a pen sketch (the usual Hi-Tec C, in Blue) and then added washes of watercolor. I had some issues with the paper repelling the paint over on the left hand side. I guess it's from sunscreen rubbing off of my arm while I did the sketch (I'm left-handed).

When I returned home, I wanted to drop back the value of the mountains. The color I originally used was pretty dark, and if you have ever been to the beach in LA, you know the mountains are hazy and washed out! So I got out the trusty GAC 100 and some Titanium White and painted over the sky & mountains. I felt pretty good about it.

A little while later, I found mysterious water/GAC splotches on the painting. Not detrimental, but still frustrating. Ugh. I guess that's why this is "sketchbook" work :)

Santa Monica Pier

Another lunch break drawing adventure in my Moleskin.

This little gem was created during two 30 minute lunch breaks (for the on-site pen drawing) and a little bit of time with the acrylic paint and GAC 100 at home. I was watching "Intervention," a show on A&E, while I worked on this, and will now forever associate my drawing with a crack addict named Chad. Don't worry, he ultimately sought treatment and is now sober.

Similarly, I have a drawing of apples that I worked on while watching the 9/11 coverage; I can't look at the apples without being reminded of the details of that day. I'm sure it's normal to associate what you're drawing to whatever you're listening too; it's like I heard; "if you doodle, you remember more."

For fun, I thought I would share a nice aerial view of this drawing vantage point and scene:

Views from the 16th Floor

My office is located on prime real estate in Santa Monica: Pacific Coast Highway and some sand separate us from the ocean. It's pretty ridiculous when you enter the main reception area: Floor to ceiling windows line the entire west (ocean) facing walls, and you see blue sea for miles (or just a mile, depending on the smog that day). The other sides of the building look out over the city - north to Malibu and Pacific Palisades, East towards Brentwood and Santa Monica (and on a clear day, towards Big Bear), and South towards Venice - and I find these views to be much more interesting. While waiting for a job to print in our production room, I grabbed a few scraps of paper and doodled some of those views and thought I would share them with you. This is another one that would be cool if I had paint on hand because the colors make a big difference. Maybe I should start bringing my gouache set to work :)

"Sunset in Malibu"; or "View From Parking Garage"

Leaving work last week, I was taken with the view northwest towards Malibu from the 9th floor of the parking garage in Santa Monica. So I sketched it. This has potential to be a pretty cool painting; but maybe just a small gouache one.

In other news, I started a Facebook Page for my biz. So now I have yet another site to keep updated! Woo hoo! Check it out here and become a fan! Cat Scott Illustration + Design

Lake George at Dusk

10" x 8" Acrylic on Gessoed Hardboard, $80, available for sale here

Silver Bay, NY is hands down my favorite place on this planet. (I haven't made it to Italy yet, so I guess this could change). This painting was done from a photograph I took looking south from Slim Point.

A little bit about this place I keep talking about: Technically, it's a YMCA conference center, but to me, it's a family vacation spot much like Dirty Dancing (or The Shining if you are there in the winter). Families return summer after summer to relax and enjoy the simple things in life. There is no cable, internet is hard to come by, and if you really need to use your cell phone, you either canoe out to the middle of the lake, drive 15 miles south, or huddle near the flagpole in the center of campus and hope for the best.* Evenings are spent catching a show at the auditorium and socializing over ice cream at The Store, and if you're feeling really wild, you'll head down to the beach or to the dock to watch the waves in the moonlight.

My grandmother, Barbara, started the Scott family tradition when she worked at Silver Bay as a teen. Eventually she and my grandfather, George, purchased a small cottage just off the main campus. Later, my father and his siblings spent their summers there, and now it's my generation's turn. There have only been a few summers I couldn't visit (damn you Kinko's for not giving me time off in the summer of '99!), but I made up for lost time by being an "Emp" (employee) three summers during college. As an Emp, you get paid well below minimum wage, are fed semi-tolerable food (we loved sandwich bar day!), and you live in condemnable dorms that smell like mold more often than not, but the work you do, the people you meet, and the place you are living more than makes up for it. Some people I worked with for only 7 weeks nine years ago are still my good friends; I'm going to one fellow Emp's wedding in just a few weeks.

You get the idea, I heart Silver Bay. I have my tickets to go back in July to introduce the place to My Biggest Fan, Jason. I sure hope he likes it as much as I do.

*it's possible that cell phone coverage has improved since my last visit in 2007, and I secretly hope it hasn't.

Sailboat on Lake George

5x7 watercolor in 11x14 mat, $50

This is another watercolor done from a photo I snapped while sailing on Lake George with my dad. I'm pretty sure it was the same trip where I snapped the photo for this painting.

I think it's safe to say that Lake George is my muse. I'm so Georgia O'Keefe.

Prints are available through ImageKind for as little as 8.49!

Downtown LA

SOLD

This was painted from a photo I snapped while at the Griffith Observatory. I think it's safe to say this is pretty impressionistic.

This is another 5x7 and is a combination of watercolor, pen, and gouache.

Prints are available through ImageKind for as little as 8.49!

Foreboding sky over Lake George

SOLD

This is a watercolor I did from one of my favorite photos I have taken of Lake George. I was out with my dad on his sailboat as a storm blew in from the north. We were anxiously trying to head back to the boathouse at Silver Bay before the rain came. While my dad was busy jibbing and tagging, I was snapping photos of the beautiful sky. We made it back just as the rain started to come down.

This is a 5x7 watercolor; still trying to get my skills honed in this medium.

Prints are available through ImageKind for as little as 8.49!

Sailboats

Sometimes when I go to the beach, there are clusters of white sailboats off on the horizon. Possibly a sailing class going originating from Marina del Rey. I love the contrast of all of the white sails against the blue sky and ocean - so cool and calming.

I tried something different with this piece - I did an ink drawing, scanned it, converted it to vector, and then colorized in Illustrator. I like this way of working because it combines by fondness of ink drawings with the flexibility of computers (not to mention there's no clean-up!)

View from Santa Monica Beach

To kick off our 4th of July weekend o' fun, Rachel and I hit the beach after our half day of work last Thursday. I sketched our office building, 100 Wilshire (the tall one), and the condos and other building along Ocean Ave, while soaking up the sun.

I got very sunburned while drawing this.

Birds of Marina del Rey

Birds of Marina del Rey, 5" x 7", pen + watercolor

When you take a sailboat out of Marina del Rey, you happen upon a "breaker" of sorts (forgive me for not knowing proper jargon, I'm not a sea-person). This breaker is a mound of rocks COVERED in birds. It's quite a spectacle. So I drew it.

Buy prints of this piece here!

Venice Beach

I thought it would be a good idea to bring along my little travel watercolor set and my little watercolor moleskin sketchbook to do some plein air painting at Venice Beach. I did a fun ink drawing with a sepia Hi-tec C, and started laying down watercolor. Then everything fell apart. I knew the pen would bleed a bit, but I did not know it would turn purple. I had about a teaspoon of water to mix with so all my colors became muddy. Sand was in my paints, my water, and in my paintbrushes. So I sort of gave up, but there's still something I like about it - I captured my day in this little watercolor. I look at it and am flooded by the experiences of the day, even if it included a failed attempt at plein air watercoloring.

doodles

I have been slacking in the blogging department this week. I am moving TONIGHT into my new apartment, so my free time has been spent packing, cleaning, organizing, making piles for Goodwill, etc. My paintbrushes are packed in one of the gazillion boxes I packed this weekend, so I haven't finished my latest watercolor. But I have been doodling so I thought I would share a little collage of those.

The top left is a landscape drawn after seeing a beautiful shot of some castle in Italy on PBS (I wish I remember which one, but I had just turned the TV on). The man next to it is the host of "The Power of Art" which I caught a few minutes of last night, also on PBS. I sketched a quick outline while he was on screen and then just made the rest up. The man to the far right was a funny little man I shared an elevator with. I went back to my desk and tried to draw him from memory, a challenging thing to do, but oh-so-good for your mind. The bigger drawing is of David's coworker, Monica, playing some MarioCart on a Nintendo 64. Also a quick sketch - she moved her head like an owl while playing which made it difficult to capture her likeness! Then the birds were just randomly sketched from something I saw on TV.

I'm unpacking my first load of stuff tonight - hopefully I'll have a little bit of time to finish my little watercolor!