Early Foggy Morning

 Early foggy morning...looking toward the the hills by the sea...

My friend has gone walking while I sit sketching.

Since the workshop 

I'm drawing more with my brush than with my pen.

Every once in awhile some tourists come by. 

They are respectful and do not come too close.

I hear and say, "Good Morning", and "Have a Good Day"... 

But I think we mean it more here, at this hour, 

than we do with cashiers at the grocery store.

There is a whole day ahead.

This is a lovely start.

Evening Sketches by the Bay

Late afternoons, early evenings on the nearby mountaintop. 

There are some tourists. They are happy to be here. 

I go for solitude, but I like meeting people from other places.

I name some of the islands & distant mountains for them.

Sharing what I know, it isn't much, but we all enjoy it.

Another little known place, a small rock & shell beach.

My companion started packing up to leave 

just as I began drawing this one. 

It was an incomplete vignette, but after I added color from memory, 

I liked the resulting simplicity.

Coast of Maine Art Workshops

This coast of Maine attracts many painting workshops which attract many summer vacationers. They come from Massachusetts. Pennsyvania. Indiana. Alabama. Canada...How lucky I am to live here! I am so in love with "my" midcoast Maine!!

I attended a day of a class of Mel Stabin. I was thrilled that the location that day was "my" Camden. In the afternoon, after painting a harbor scene, I sought refuge from the heat in "my" library, the place where I often do my ink & color sketches, usually of people (see previous post). How fun to try a painted sketch this time, & larger, trying to apply some of what Stabin had demonstrated in the morning. And how uncertain too...

 After I got home I experimented more, on a small scale. No drawing, just seeing what the paint and the brush were up to. I am trying to work more with wet on wet which is what watercolor does best. Stabin says let it play...Let IT decide. A curious interplay between control & letting go of control.

The Sketch Habit

 When does something go from an enjoyable activity to a (good) habit? Well, it has happened for me as most Sundays I find myself in the Camden Library's reading room. While others read, I sketch. (This drawing is not all scribbly, like many of mine because it is a remake from the first draft sketch.)

A portrait of a dear artist friend in my library's Belfast Free Sketchers group, which I facilitate once a month (we're going to twice a month beginning September!) This sketch IS scribbly! 

These may be sketches of other people, but they are self-portraits too. Folks doing the very things I love to do! 

Umbrella Personalities

My town's Arts in the Park Fair, down by the Harbor, got a rainy Sunday morning. I donned my new yellow raincoat & blue umbrella & went down to take photos. Of people with umbrellas.  I have loved umbrellas since I was a wee little girl. My colorful umbrella gave me fancy dancing powers. Singin' in the Rain. 

I looked forward to rainy days ~ still do!

Diane Horton, (with her Monet Poppy Field umbrella) is a popular local artist.  

How cheerful people were even though the rain was washing things out.

 Ooooh, colorful umbrellas, reminding me of my first one. 

Umbrella Personalities!

Blog Post, October, 2012. Boston Rainy Day. 

I was sketching  through a café window that faced a busy intersection. 

Umbrella. Parapluie. ParAsol. (Polish with accent on the 2nd "a") 

Even its names are fun to say!

And you, do you like rainy days?

Sketch While U Wait

 

While waiting at a popular restaurant, 

Sunday summer morning, Belfast.

While waiting in a doctor's office...sketching in my tiny book.

I've been using MICRON 02  It's not too bold,

but looks nice on the actual paper & is waterproof.

A blog friend asks: Do I start with the ink lines or the paint? 

Definitely the ink lines. The drawing is the cake,

the color is the icing.

While waiting for a class to end...

I had no idea what was going on in this class, but, thank goodness, I was sitting in the back row & thank goodness I had brought my Rigger's bag with me (previous posts). I ended up having a great time, 

maybe not in the way I had expected, but maybe better!

Two students. Can you tell they are a couple? 

Here is the moral of the story: 

Do NOT EVER leave home without your sketch tools!

My Slug Helps Me to Organize

It started because I couldn't find my slug from a 2012 post. To see that post, Click Here. 

I tore through a big box of drawings from the last 4 years, 'Where are you, Slug?!" 

Mon Dieu, quel désordre!

Now, I have piles arranged by subject:

Landscapes, journal pages, plants, Portland,

café people, buildings, small whimsical drawings...

Next, I will place them back in the box, 

with sticky note labels.

I long for the kind of order that the 

compartmentalized box above provides for color floss. 

(bought at the local Waterfall Arts Annual Yard Sale).

But it doesn't come naturally to me.

 I do manage to corral my supplies and creations into some sort of compartments. 

But disarray often finds its way back & 

I still manage to lose things. Just not as often as I used to...

I thank my lost slug (who was eventually found)

 for getting me started on this organization thing. 

I was at a point where I couldn't move forward 

with my art & my projects, 

a chaotic disorientation taking hold of me. 

Oh, please, do share YOUR tips for organization 

with me & my slug!