(Blog) Home for the Holidays: Card-Making

A little forest of mini Evergreen Christmas cards.

Each card is unique, though a member of the same forest.

My mini good luck charm Dopey thinks it's his little forest! 

It is until we send out the trees to their new homes. 

Cut Outs and Paper Dolls:

The trees reminded me how I love cut-outs. To see my old post, "Paris Paper Dolls", click HERE.

 

Or, click Here to see my old post 

"Paper Doll Story in Progress".

So, Happy Holidays to All, and to All Happy Creating,

no matter what your medium!

Sketchbook Wandering: The Last Post

How I hate endings, but,

the time has come to end this blog. 

It's been such a wonderful experience

with some gifts that I never expected, 
including making some new friends & penpals, 
in this state, in this country, & in Europe!

I've loved following your blogs regularly 

& receiving comments. 

I've loved sharing my process & my little drawings.

Sketchbook Wandering taught me a lot.

I am Wandering less these days, 
but continue to carry my Sketchbook.

I'm enjoying my art & other involvements here, 

close to home.

There are pictures to be drawn,

pages to be written, & new surprises to come!

A friend says each morning as she arises, "Yippee!" 

I say, "Hura!" "Youpi!" & "Yippee!"

I'll leave the blog up & check in from time to time,

so if any of you wonderful correspondents wish 

to leave me notes, I will love that!

Do zobacznia, au revoir, & may we meet again!  

Lake Megunticook: Island in Autumn

I sat in my car by the side of Lake Megunticook, sketching. 

I then made this painting back home, 

from the sketch & from memory. No photo.

Sketching on location gave me

an excuse to be immersed in the colors, movement, 

changing light, & air for more than a passing moment.
Good for the soul.

A gorgeous bouquet from Autumn!

So grateful.

It's one of my favorite spots in the whole world.

The Language Exchange of Portland Maine

Meet La Fofolle. The idea of her 

as well as her name came from 

Valérie Guillet, the founder of 

Portland Maine's Language Exchange. 

She is part of the new logo & website for the school 

& its wonderful Immersion Programs & Trips.

To see her in her context, 

& to check out the school's offerings Click HERE .

La Fofolle is full of joy because at the school 

she has learned to communicate in the native language 

of the foreign country in which she is travelling! 

And she gets to learn more of that language 

when she travels with

The Language Exchange's Immersion trips!

Click Here to visit the Photo Gallery of 

Valérie’s magificent photos of past Immersion Trips.

My favorite happened to be the Lavendar Trip en Provence.

  It was one of the most enchanting experiences of my life!

The day we went into the mountains to see, to experience 

& to smell the amazing fields of lavender 

I'd forgotten to bring my camera. 

So I had to sketch like never before!

But now I am delighted to see Valérie's photos in her gallery!

Homework: Still Life Versions

Homework for class: Ink Drawing

I started with simple, tiny, (2" X 4"), 

02 Micron pen drawings  (below)

But afterwards, I couldn't resist 

making a color version. (above)

 I love the feel of the ink line, 

but one should not keep scribbling 

on one's little drawing because one will be left with:

Only a black surface.

So, I continued scratching & hatching 

on new versions.

(Above): minimal line.

I love it, but it takes restraint 

to not keep going. And, so it is in life. 

Learning to know when & how to stop,
or to move on to the next.

Why a Drawing Class?

 "Why would you take a drawing class

when you already know how to draw?" someone asked.

Because:

• In drawing one never stops progressing & learning.

• One learns from other students as well as a teacher.

• New energy & motivation.

• New exercises & materials = good bye comfort zone!

• Homework!

• Community of folks with similiar passions

The above drawing may appear to be similiar 

to many I've posted.

But:

It was re-drawn with my familiar ink 

from a fast, on-location pencil sketch

which was new & different.

I haven't used graphite in a long time. 

And I used a "WOODLESS PENCIL", 

introduced to us in class. Very dark, smooth, & rich! 

An in-class exercise also affected the way I'm drawing now: 

Drawing with our non-dominant hand! 

A wonderful way to loosen one's approach!

I HAD to do it when I had a wrist injury,

but the comfort zone made me abandon the practice 

when the wrist healed. 

Illustrations: Library Kids' Stuff

This little guy bear has been coming with me 

to library story times for a long time.

We don't do that many, now that we are retired,
but we still do enjoy them.

This is an image I created for the children's page 

of the Scarborough Public Library, 
back in my days of being children's room library worker.

The Sight of the Stars

"For my part, I know nothing with any certainty.

But the sight of the stars makes me dream."

~Vincent Van Gogh

Last night I dreamed I was looking up at the stars 

 & remembering how I loved to do that in the past. 

These days I dream,

but I forget to go out to look at the sight of the stars.

From the Walking Bridge, these days, 

I watch loons, ducks, gulls, cormorants & seals. 

The Walking Bridge which goes over the Passy River 

where it runs into Belfast Harbor 

and then to Penobscot Bay 

 which opens out to the open sea.

From the Walking Bridge these early evenings, 

I am treated to the sight of curtains of rain 

falling from violet-gray dense clouds

10 miles out across the Bay, 

over the Castine Peninsula 

& beyond that Blue Hill.

Up close along the path to the Walking Bridge 

I am treated to sweet ferns dancing, 

inviting me to touch them

with their natural perfume.

These days wild flowers are shrivelling 

& displaying seeds with white feathery wings. 

These days, through the car windows 

on Maine road trips, 

I am treated to the sight of rolling hills 

& gold toned meadows,

distant hills, & apples sparkling on trees. 

I want last night's dream to come true,

to enjoy the these early autumn nights, 

as well as these amazing days.

Portland Cafés

So I moved from a city that I love to a small town that I love. I've been tuning into feelings of homesickness, lately, mal du pays, nostalgia, longing, in Polish its called tęsknota.There are concrete aspects of the city that I don't miss: pollution, traffic, low flying airplanes. But I miss some places terribly: the cafés for example. Some of them moved away as did I: Cambridge Café, Portland Coffee Roasting, and Mornings in Paris. Above is a scene from 2000 at the old Portland Coffee Roasting that was on Commercial Street. Cafés are for many people places for conversation, for me, they are most often a place where I love studying my French and, of course, sketching.

A Maine Storyboard

Just thinking about favorite places in Maine.

At this moment in the background of my mind 

I am hearing the Beatles: 

"Love, Love, Love..."

Hmm...What to do with this? 

Is it a storyboard for some paintings? 

A storyboard for a little book?

Might I add text & turn it into a graphic novel of sorts? 

Hmmm....

Portland Farmer's Market with Maine College of Art

 I spent a day in my beloved old home city of Portland, 

at the downtown Farmer's Market, 

sketching with a Maine College of Art Workshop. 

Above, not the original, as the raw sketch was 

too full of fast, scribbly lines. 

 Also a sketch from the sketch. 

Sketching with a class gave me the bravado to plunk myself 

& my little stool down in the midst of a sea of 

moving people, colors, & sounds. 

What a great way to slow down & to focus 

on one subject at a time.

If anyone was peeking over my shoulder, I didn't notice. 

This is the actual on-location, raw sketch.

Our Lady of Victories, is the monument in Monument Square,      

created to commemorate lives lost during the Civil War. 

Every Wednesday she looks down on the market below. 

I was looking up at her while eating at a sidewalk café table 

on the edge of the sidewalk.

Also on the edge of the sidewalk was Myron 

playing blues harmonica & singing lyrics, 

some traditional, some invented on the spot. 

He played well to the young children

& made them dance. He made me laugh. 

That's a foot operated tambourine!

My New FWB: Favorite Watercolor Book

I'm been making little gifts of dried lavender that I got 

from the local Glendarragh farm & the shop in Camden. 

Purple, violet, plum, lavender, 

periwinkle, mauve magenta 

& crimson hues are calling to me. 

Over the years so many 

of my young girl art students 

chose them as favorite palettes, 

& not just on Valentine's Day.

Such beautiful palettes in Mimi Robinson's book,

Local Color: Seeing Place Through Watercolor. 

Influenced by Josef Alber's work showing color relationships,

 & realizing how much she enjoyed painting color tests before painting subjects, she started using palettes 
in & of themselves as a form of visual journaling. 

 The  book is meant to be instructional, 

but it is beautiful in its own right between her photos, 

the palettes & her representational paintings.

So many watercolor books have overlapping information, 

so I rarely buy them anymore. 

But this book is unique & a pleasant addition to my collection.

The French Series

Based on a book shop in Arles

I will be visiting some old French study group friends 

who asked me to bring some of my pictures 

of France, the ones I used to sell. Most of them have sold.

Here are a few of the old ones:

 Based on a street scene in Paris.

Artist's collection.

La maison aux volets bleus, Venasque

 Two hilltop villages in Provence

 
Arles

Paris

 
Paris

Paris

Maybe someday I'll go back to France...
These days my sketches and drawings are made 
right here in my beloved Maine. 

From the Sketchbook: MFA, Boston

Going to Boston means going sketching. 

Above, the MFA permanent Impressionist Gallery, 

a place  of familiarity & comfort for me,

 a place that on this day was not crowded.

The crowds were at a temporary show of Leonardo drawings.

Leonardo said that recording observations

with your own eyes was more important

than any established philosophy or religious principles.

Leonardo's concept of beauty was found in the 

"study of the living" in all its complexity.

"Drawing was an essential part of artistic practice during the Renaissance." 

"Drawing became the artistic equivalent of writing poetry 

or thoughts in a journal."   

 Unlike some European art museums which I've visited, 

the MFA is filled with loud, LOUD adult VOICES, 

sometimes talking about the art, oftentimes, not. 

In Blockbuster shows, it is often difficult to get near the works,

 especially when they are small.

So inbetween reading & seeing what I could of the drawings, 

I guess I stepped back & recorded my observations of

 "the living."

Backroads of Maine. Haystacks

Looking East to the Camden hills from route 52.

For me, it's one of the most beautiful backroads in Maine.

It's all the more beautiful in early evening light after

an afternoon of kayaking on a very blue Lake Megunticook.

In my childhood I dreamed of living on a farm.

Haystacks were a symbol of that life. 

Those haystacks were cone shaped in the fairy tales, 

formed by hand instead of rolled.

In childhood I always colored the grass a flat green color.

It is interesting to me how differntly colored it really is! 

On the Road in Maine

This summer,

I've been traveling some Maine backroads. 

Destinations:

Augusta, Camden, Appleton, Rockport.

Portland, Freeport, Union, Searsport.

And Twice to Quebec City...

"Life is a journey, not a destination," 

said Ralph Waldo Emmerson. 

But on these trips, 

the journeys & the destinations

are equally pleasant parts 

of my summer life.

Summer Colorplay

A little collage to wish you all

a most playful summer!

Maine's Glendarragh Lavender Farm

I always associate lavender with France, Italy & England.

But yesterday we visited a Maine lavender farm! 

After a beautiful ride through green, green, green, 

woods, farms & fields, overlooking rivers & lakes 

& the Camden Hills to the east, 

we arrived at a 26 acre farm in Appleton,

 nestled in rolling meadows & 

filled with French & English lavender, 

flower gardens, bird houses, & old oak trees, 
not to mention happy wanderers.

Glendarragh Farm is open to the public 

only 3 days a year, during the harvest. 

Young student farm workers guide you , 

explain the growing, harvesting & drying processes, 

and share some history of how the farm came to be.

The gift shop, in an old barn, allowed us to bring back home

 a little healthy, therepeutic, aromatic, cheerful Lavender, 

in my case, in the form of a bouquet.

The Glendarragh Farm Lavender shop 

on Camden's Main St. is open year round!

When the front door is open, enchanting, enticing 

fragrance wafts out the door & lures me in, to luxuriate in

the scents of dried lavender,  & lotions & balms,

made by Glendarragh's owner.  

 They are interspersed with lovely treats such as 

blue & lavender scarves, pottery, sachets, & candles... 

The Fourth of July: 

It was a, pastoral, lavender filled summer day...  

Maine, But Not the Coast

You hear a lot about the Maine Coast...

Lobsters, lighthouses, islands, & sailboats...

But Oh! The mountains & lakes

in central and western Maine~

Such immense beauty there!

Quick Sketch from a Quick Sketch

 A view from the window of the Camden Library.

A very quick sketch (above) 

from an even quicker sketchbook sketch (below). 

Above:  Staples DuraPoint pen

on Arches 140 cold press. 

While waiting for some one I was trying out

two new pens from nearby Rockport Blueprint, 

a fantastic art supply shop. 

The new pens: Gel Xtreme 

(not waterproof so I'll only use it for writing) &

Alyn TechLiner 02 which is waterproof & which I love.

More Phone Doodling

While on the phone my brain is busy, 

and it leaves me alone to play...