Dave's Brewfarm

With the weather warming up we decided to make one of our token trips out to Dave's Brewfarm. We make the 1hr. pilgrimage a few times a year and find our visits to be like hanging out with a family member who has their own farm. Dave's beer is quite delicious and never ceases to impress us on each visit with his ever changing highly, creative menu. While I can't comment on the intricacies of the beer (I'll leave that to my husband), what I can note is perhaps the new found purpose of designated driver in return for sketching time. With so many new breweries popping up I can imagine this becoming a welcome compromise.

Winter Weekends at Indeed Brewing

All of these long winter days has lead us to find and explore outlets that get us out of the apartment. With my husband looking at starting a brewery and my pending Architecture Registration Exams we've taken to a form of "hanging out" at local breweries.  More than just enjoying a handcrafted beverage, he gets to try any amount of any beer he wants (usually while chatting with other beer fanatics), whilst I, as a designated sober cab, get to enjoy the opportunity to sketch this trend. With all the new local breweries popping up it's quite a challenge to catch them all!

In architectural drawing there's a constant argument over how to represent people. Should they be shown "hyper-realistic," do they distract from the space, or add to it? Should they be shown as implied, such that the focus is on the building.  Every architect has their own (widely varying) opinion on this. Urban sketching by contrast focuses on drawing on site and capturing the moment as you see it.  In this case I hope I've captured a semblance of both - that is drawing on location and on the spot, but influenced by the desire to find this balance between architectural space and the people who inhabit it.

Memorial Day Weekend Road Trip

One extra day off the work week?  Oh my gosh, what to do! We quickly hatched a plan to do a one day road trip visiting the small towns of St. Peter, Mankato, and Janesville in pursuit of Coffee, Beer, Wine, and a Waterfall. I was eager to bust out my sketchbook on this outing and test my travel sketching skills. To my disappointment, those with me were not nearly as eager to sit and wait for me to finish my sketch.  Thus, this sketch was done roughly half on site, and half staring at a photograph on my iphone.  The sketch on the left hand side was our first stop at a local coffee shop in St. Peter, and the fermenters on the right are at a brewery in Mankato. I had visions of doing a sketch collage of every place we stopped at, perhaps a bit ambitious, but I am glad nonetheless that these still made it into my sketchbook.

Media:  Micron Pen, Watercolor Crayon, and Graphite

Below are some process photos:

Looking back, the woman in front is what I probably spent the most time sketching, while the man kept shifting and moving - being difficult. This half of the sketch I focused on being more "freeform" while the fermenters I drew in elevation with drafting lines etc. are more "architectural" in nature.