Last night’s EDM was to draw a traffic sign.  I have one of these in my front yard.  So, at 10pm I traipsed out of the house to draw a school zone sign.  Of course it was cold.  I really need to start looking at these challenges in advance.

I love spring time in Oklahoma.  I know other places have spring also, and I’m sure they experience these same issues.  This morning it is 25°F outside.  By this afternoon it is expected to be 75°F.  That means whatever warm, protective clothing you wear out of the house, you will have to carry home.  The vast majority of people in this part of the world run outside and warm up their cars before it’s time to leave, or at least their car warms up on the trip to work.  So they will dash out of the house in a light jacket and dash in to work, not spending much time out in the freezing air.  Even the ones that do work outside will take off their coveralls and throw them into their vehicle.  It’s a little different on a motorcycle.  I will leave this morning with six layers of clothing.  Getting them home can sometimes be challenging.  I did empty all of my art supplies out of my saddle bags so I probably have room to carry my clothes.  But then I had to steal the bride’s backpack for my art supplies.  Luckily, she doesn’t notice these things.  When she does, I point at Girl2 and shout, “Look at that baby!”  When she’s distracted, I run away.

EDM
EDM 85: Draw a traffic sign

Have you ever played one of those Hidden Object games, like Mystery Case Files?  There are tons of them out there and they are wildly successful. I find myself marveling at the game designer’s abilities to draw a cluttered room or landscape.  Everything in those has to be drawn with enough detail to be recognizable for what it is and still be obscured enough to be realistic, or at least visually interesting.  As impressed as I am with that talent, I have little or no desire to try and develop it.  I find that I get bored trying to draw all of the minutiae that lies in a landscape, cityscape or interior.  I quickly find myself reverting back to symbolic scribbles to represent buildings or baskets or whatever, just to try and fit in more detail.  I prefer to work on closely cropped images and try to find the angles that are most interesting to me.  Last night’s EDM challenge, draw your neighborhood store, presented a different problem.  It was still a cityscape type drawing, but there were some interesting ways to crop the view.  I initially wanted just to do the corner post of the building with the trash can and the Dr. Pepper sign.  But I also wanted to get their name in the picture.

Neighborhood groceries like Dunn’s Food Center are rapidly becoming a thing of the past.  They are independently owned and operated and just can’t compete with the large chain store prices.  Our town used to have three branches of this store, as well as at least four other neighborhood stores.  Between the Wal*Marts and the Homelands, they just couldn’t survive.  As a capitalist, I think that’s the way it should be.  If you can’t hold on to your market, you fall by the wayside.  Dunn’s has a niche in that they don’t sell beer and are not open on Sundays.  Many of the local Churches flock to support them.  That’s not only true to Mr. Dunn’s vision, but well planned marketing.

However, as a community member, I miss walking to Mike’s Minimart for a loaf of bread and some eggs.  You could get a fistfull of his freshly made beef jerky and a cream soda for the walk back.  When gas prices began soaring, I thought maybe we would see a resurgance of these places.  I’m always hopefull that we will.  Until then, I like to visit Dunn’s at least every other week.  Even if it’s just for a loaf of bread and some eggs.

EDM
EDM 84: Draw your neighborhood store

Every other weekend we try to go ” t’th city*” to visit the in-laws.  I’m almost guaranteed to end up at the Barnes & Noble coffee shop on Saturday night.  I get a lot of backsides this way.  I keep hoping to get around to some of the other sites, but it always ends up with us struggling  to meet some deadline.  The days are getting longer and it is warming up so maybe in the near future we can all go someplace to sketch and play.  Tuesday, I think the Oklahoma Artists Guild is meeting for figure drawing.  Watch me get stuck drawing backsides there too.

The EDM challenge was to draw bread.  We went out to this neat little chain restaurant, Mimi’s Cafe.  We like the food, the service and the muffins.  Of course with all of us on diets, it was more like one muffin split among six people.  They bring out a basket of different breads while you are waiting for the meal.  While I was chowing down on something scrumptuous with cocoa and raisins, I sketched this little roll.

EDM
EDM 83: Draw some bread

* T’th city is “To The City” where the city is anywhere directly or even indirectly connected with Oklahoma City.  This could be Norman, Moore, Mustang, Yukon, Midwest City, Del City, Edmond…  While they all operate autonomously, they’re all the same to me.  Often you will hear it as “upt’th” city.