Tomatoes of August

Image on my current Belfast Free Sketchers poster

Next meeting is in September

 Autumn Fever. 

Meanwhile August is a juicy & flavorful time of year.

Like the tomato I bit into the other day from a friend's garden. 

In the fields, spots of faded gold, and tall beige grasses

waving in the breeze. 

Reminders that this will pass.

Another garden friend is busy, as she is every August, 

"putting up" her vegetables in Ball jars. 

Just as her mother did before her.   

The Common Ground Country Fair is coming in one month!! 

Celebrate Harvest Time!

My local Farmer's Market is brimming with leafy greens,

 flower yellows & purples, pinks, 

carrot oranges, beets of crimson and coral...

Every year it happens,

but some years I feel it more than others.

The Lady in Waiting

From the window of Atlantic Bakery: Elderly woman, waiting, on a Rockland sidewalk. 

She had navy blue painted fingernails, a huge cameo sort of ring, & silver dangle earrings. 

As she waited she talked & gestured to no one in particular, & kept glancing down the street. 

Eventually, her son (with whom I chatted in the Bakery) came & helped her into a large van. 

She was gone, her image remained.

I was reading that materials often dictate our results. I recently started a new 3.5 X 5.5 Moleskine, 

the one with the smooth cream colored pages, for my carry-everywhere sketchbook. 

With it I use both a super fine Slicci & a heavier point Staples.

And colored pencils. 

Coincidentally, I found this pouch in Rockland.

It is by "Patz, Made in Maine". Perfect! 

In some ways colored pencils are easier for me than watercolors. 

I can use more force than the delicacy that watercolors ask of me, and layer and lift more. 

Crayolas & Prismacolors, they are like a first language to me. 

While some children today have their own studios where they freely make art with lots of materials, 

I grew up on coloring books & Crayolas, on the bedroom floor. 

Blue Skies, Gray Skies, Rainbow Skies

There's a song (my favorite version is by Willie Nelson) : 

"Blue Skies, smiling at me. Nothing but Blue Skies, do I see...

 ...Nothing but Blue Skies from Now on."

A fast sketch of a Blue Sky Day at our City Park.

But one of my most memorable experiences this summer was not of blue skies at all! 

I watched, from the top Mount Battie, a storm as it moved in over the Bay. 

Then it moved in over me, punctuated by one big thunder clap!

I ran to the car for shelter & started sketching!

To the northwest, from the same spot, 

I saw Blue Skies & puffy clouds at the very same time that 

the storm was gray & wet to the east!!

At the end of the storm, still no Blue Skies. 

But, that was fine by me!

Going north, I drove up my other favorite mountaintop.

Rain again, this time raining right on my car. 

But a few feet from me the trees were sunlit & casting shadows!

I have heard that this is called a "sun shower".

I waited for the miracle that I knew was to appear.

Driving down the mountain, another stunning view.

I stopped to sketch from the car, right in the road. 

A park official stopped to ask me if everything was all right. 

I knew he meant that I should move out of the road. 

I told him that I just wanted to finish my quick sketch...

"Can I have just a few minutes more, sir?"  

Blues skies, gray skies, rainbow skies...from now on...

Sketchers Go to a Local Garden

 I joined Sheryl's Urban Sketch Group at a private country residence on one of 

Belfast's Open Garden Days. 

A dense field of daisies lined a gravel path 

that wound its way down to a lily pond, flowers on each side. 

Stopping to look closely, for an extended time while sketching,

varieties in the shapes & arrangements of petals!

In the whispering breeze, they nodded and danced.

These were not your clichéd stereotypical daisies!

A sea of daisies, going back & down, quite far off the path,

yellow orange caps & sparkles of white 

peeking through the daisy foliage in the foreground.

My mother loved daisies.... 

I sketched with ink while standing, added color later.

 A fashion show by ladies, clad in crisp summer

outfits. Hats, hats, hats! 

Like the NYC Easter Parade!

 Eavesdropping from a distance: At the Information Table: 

Hudhammmmaadeho...Garden....

Umnndhonsdwwosh...Garden...Idinwhetouiomumble?...

Ohsoprentyyshopyummair....Garden...Realbeautgrodtooshshe...Garden...

One of my original sketches didn't quite work out.

So, I made a memory illustration later.