A Tiny Pumpkin

Today, it was like that nursery rhyme I used to do with the kids:

"Oooooooo went the wind, and out went the light,

and the 5 little pumpkins rolled out of sight." 

A lot of homes in the state are still without light...

And, without computer. Maybe that is the real horror of the day!

But I enjoyed my early morning, writing with my fountain pen

by candlelight.

The mini card above is the size of a business card. 

I'm selling them with various popped on images.

Will show more soon.

At the Scenic Train Ride Station

Field trip with the group to the local scenic train ride station.

Instead of focusing on the trains,

I was attracted to the scene across the street. 

Colors are fading, but the big old pine showed her vibrant greens. 

I heard that when she sheds her needles (leaves), 

they are from last year's batch.

 So wonderful to be with the other sketchers.

Each of their sketches, very different from mine,

taught me something, & each pleased me.

Diverse comments about each work enriched my viewing.

From seeing their art work 

I thought maybe we had shrunk down 

& found ourselves to be figures 

in a miniature toy train station.

This place is designed for us kids, young & old!

Autumn Sketching in Maine

 

Our local sketch group goes out twice a week to beautiful spots in our area. 

They/we are like school kids on a field trip.

But often I'm not able to go.  

 Yesterday I went to a place they visited without me,

an unknown cove along the coast.

Tourists and boats are gone now.

I sketched from the car, instead of from my folding chair. 

It was a bit clumsy, but it worked. 

 Previous week, quick sketches from the shore of a pond, 

on smaller, non-water color paper. 

Another place that one of the Sketchers found for us.

The 2nd sketch was about feeling linear rhythms.  

Adding color masked what my ink lines expressed. 

I learn from this.

Don't always be seduced by color, even in Autumn!

 Same view in my larger watercolor book. 

This time I worked without my ink lines.

They say the leaves weren't as intense this year.

Many dropped before reaching full color, due to dryness

& warm temperatures. 

Still, I found Autumn out there

when I went looking.

PS Someone asked me if she could copy my sketches 

& post them online. I say, No, don't do that. 

Explore on your own, I say, however you want, but in private. 

More Books from Bits

More little blank books from.... 

 my newly organized bits and pieces.

These guys are waiting for their turn.

Sketchbook Candy

I'm continuing to use existing materials, including small drawings

and designs that had been sitting in various boxes. 

(They are happy to be out in the world.)

And my Mom's buttons. They seem like candy.

Coptic stitch does get easier & better with practice.

I'm using a non-adhesive book cover technique.

Glue and I are not BFF's (slurp, smudge).

 Some watercolor play sheets turned book covers...

It's all feeling quite yummy...

Sketching, Organizing, Collage

Last weekend I went sketching again 

at The Common Ground Fair.

A happy annual ritual.

I've been using existing bits & pieces here in the art room. 

Employing friend M.'s "Use It Up Initiative". 

My paper sun  finally found a new home. 

That's a little cardboard house structure provided by Waterfall Arts 

for a grassroots project on the subject of Home.

Leftover papers are also finding homes.

 In collages ... 

 ...and handmade books for friends.

Made possible because of lots of hours

organizing a new studio space. 

Now I know what I have & where it is!

In the process, lots was given away & tossed.

Weeding, raking, planting seeds for a new season 

& new directions.

...Which include French study after the summer off.

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.

Photo: Dream Summer Winter Nightmare

Kathy, at her blog, Catching Happiness, always gets me thinking about how one has the ability to choose how to go through each day. Her recent post, about summer verses winter in Florida, got me thinking about these seasons here at the other tip of the United States. 

Last last winter I spent some time in a living nightmare because of some unlucky circumstances. But I experienced a phenomenon that I had known to be true from inspirational writing & stories: In the midst of fear & despair one can find fortitude, joy & serenity. With some hard work, & a little (a lot of) help from friends the nighmarish circumstances seem to finally be floating away.

And summer has drifted in like a pleasant dream. I first started living in Maine when I was in my late teens. I feel as youthful today as I did then when I am kayaking...(well, almost...) There I go, paddling gently into happiness...

Week-long Class • Coastal Maine Art

Belfast City Park:  Writing will come later.

What luck, Coastal Maine Art Workshops brought one of my favorite watercolorists, Mel Stabin, to teach a week class in Belfast. I served as "Class Monitor" which meant I got to help out in a variety of ways. When not working, I got to participate, & even had a little time to draw/paint. Very accomplished painters in the class, & then, little me, still tied to my ink line & sketching style. But I learned a lot & felt good about offering my services in my own town.

From the Park at Steamboat Landing

Stage 1. Beautiful water views were behind me, but I couldn't face the sun, so loved the view I was "forced" to observe.

Stage 2, continued at home. Learned a lot in this one. Greens still a bit bright, Mel says greens can be poisonous, they must be mixed & varied, not used straight out of the tube. Mel encourages me to do some real paintings now, from my sketches, to get out of my comfort zone...we'll see where I go from here.

Belfast is known for some of its mansions, formerly owned by ship captains. A town with beautiful flower gardens. Again, I continued my initial sketch at home.

 And my favorite: Sketching people quickly. I took pages of illustrated notes during demos & critiques.

 My favorite Mel Stabin book is out of print, but you can find a 2nd hand copy. Watercolor: Simple, Fast and Focused. And he has a website.

Also, check out Coastal Maine Art Workshops. Wow!! What a way to have a Maine coast vacation. You meet people from all over the country! Click here.

Summer Celebrations Summer People

Summer in my little town: Friday morning Farmers' Market.

The Belfast Bay Fiddlers!

And people browsing, shopping, local plants & food.

One key to making a lot of quick sketches:

Use an inexpensive book with lots of pages.

Bring 2 sketchbooks so that one can dry

while you work in the other.

 Thursday night outdoor concerts, 

sometimes on a blocked off road in town, 

sometimes on the Common, overlooking the harbor.

Lots of opportunities for fast sketches of what seems to be

my favorite subject.

My fascination with observing people began

with my mom & little me on vacation. 

We would sit on a bench on the boardwalk,

& describe the summer people strolling by. 

A sort of Conversational Sketching.

The Saturday indoor United Farmers' Market. 

Another happy place. It's crowded, but I found a great
corner with a table on which to rest my book.

Dot's Café in Lincolnville has longer hours now.

The wine bottles, like sparkly little people.

I'm allergic to their content, but they are festive!

Super Fast Sketching

 We attended a tour of the Farnsworth Homestead in Rockland, 

a historic tour of an upper middle class Victorian home in Rockland, 

& part of the Farnsworth Art Museum.

I had to draw & write quickly in order to take notes. 

 Not too legible to others, 

but what a pleasure to  take down information 

in this way! (Glad I didn't have my camera...)

 The house has been preserved as it was when Lucy Farnsworth died in 1935. 

Our guide gave us a sense of the life that had gone on in the house, 

as well as describing the historic interior. 

 The life of the children was evident. 

 After, we visited the Museum. 

The Marguerite Zorach show

has murals, paintings, 

& my favorites: Needlework & tapestries. 

She invented intricate stitches, 

some of the tapestries are huge, complex scenes & montages! 

  Wednesday, a 5 minute sketch from Belfast's Walking Bridge. 

I couldn't stay due to sun & heat, 

so I scribbled quickly.

I'm loving the Pentallic series of 4 X 6 blank books with different colored covers. 

The super quick sketch under the maroon Pentallic is from the Saturday morning Market, 

in the midst of LOTS of passersby, 

while I was waiting for a sandwich. 

Color was added later, but also quickly & minimally.

The Joy of the Fast Sketch! 

No time to think, just attention & focus...