Sketchbook Jam - Mary Fleener & the Wigbillie's

Mary Fleener & Paul Therio by Graham Smith.

I took my recycled grocery bag sketchbook to the Friday Night Sketchbook Jam, up in Encinitas, California a while back.

Underground comic artist Mary Fleener played with her band the Wigbillie's, while local artists drew them in our sketchbooks - another pretty nice Friday night in Southern California.

Mary Fleener and Paul Therio sang the blues, played the hell outta some old songs, and kept the protest song vibe alive. The rest of us enjoyed their music, painted, created drawings and a good time was had by all. Special thanks to Studio 2nd Street for putting all this together.

Listening to the music gets my pen going, and since it's Friday night, I draw without planning. I just grab whatever is in my bag and start drawing in my homemade recycled brown paper sketchbook.

The drawing at the top of Mary Fleener and Paul Therio was drawn with the skinny end of a Tombo Brush Pen unless I'm mistaken and it's really a Faber-Castell PITT Artists Brush Pen. The drawing of Mary playing, in blue, was created with a plain old Optiflow roller ball pen from Staples. I drew Van playing the mouth harp with black colored pencil from Blick and General's white charcoal pencil. Paul's portrait was drawn with a Caran D'ache woodless graphite pencil 6B. The roller ball pen came out one more time to draw Cindy Lee Berryhill singing and playing her guitar. The recycled sketchbook is about 7 x 10 inches.

Cindy Lee Berryhill

Singer-songwriter, and early anti-folk proponent, Cindy Lee Berryhill opened the night debuting an emotionally wrought, early version of "Beloved Stranger" in a very personal performance, making this a very special night.