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...

The Lupines Are Up!

 They are everywhere, alongside of major roads, the interstate, back roads, & my own back field.
In Maine they seem to always welcome the Summer Solstice.

I marvel again at the colors of this annual event. 

In the field out back I watch them as the light changes 
from sunrise to sunset.

Oh, the colors!

One glance reveals blue-violet, the next, violet-rose.

Some kind of Lupine magic...

The Lupines directly out my back door 

have shed most of their blossoms 

& are getting ready to sow more Lupines for next year. 

A week ago they were in full bloom 
& I did a quick morning sketch. 

To see my Lupine post from June 16, 2016, Click here.

Local Sketching!

Saturday morning: I met 3 friends to play French Scrabble 

in the large café space at the new United Farmer's Market of Maine. It's here in Belfast!

Wonderful, fantastic, happy, FANTASTIC indoor market! 

It equals the old Portland Market (now gone), & indoor marketplaces I've loved in France. 

Food, produce, coffee, flowers, & even crafts! 

After the game I sketched the view I'd been looking at during the Scrabble.

Tips of white tents on the waterfront~another celebration!

I met a Swiss tourist, an oil painter. 

He showed me his book of lovely travel sketches 

of this region's scenes. I spoke French with a French woman

& her sweet daughter who were selling handmade soaps. 

 Yesterday some of us sketchers went to a presentation on watercolor products 
at Rockport Blueprint in Camden. 

As usual, I sketched through the lecture, both the class scene & out the window. 
Helps me to listen.

Talented artist friend L snapped a photo. 

So much fun talking watercolor & materials with friends & acquaintances. Inspired, after the presentation,
 I did an inventory of my watercolor stuff, then continued some unfinished work.

 They had an after hours sale for us participants.
Voilà my new sketch tote! I brought it with me this morning &
it is not only cute, but it works!

(If you visited my last post, I have replaced the

first sketch with a new draft.) 

I learned a lot through the first one while overworking it. 

I simplified & paid more attention to value in the 2nd.

Still a complex subject & a challenge as opposed to today's sketch, which seemed to paint itself.

Urban Sketch Group Date #2

2nd draft sketch
2nd time with the Urban Sketch Group.

From a small park on Main Street, several of us 

looked down toward the Shore Walk, 

which is just to the left of the boat landing.

Our hilly town presents scenes with distances, 

marvelous combinations of forms & proportions. 

I want to draw more of these complex views 

with their challenges of perspective & scale. 

This is teaching me to simplify, to keep a rhythm going.

I am bolder with the group, I attract less attention from passersby.

After, everything around me looked so vivid & attractive. 

I wished I could have stayed to do more.

They say that when drawing/sketching/painting

 a physiological change occurs

& perception becomes clearer. 

It IS a form of meditation. And a way to appreciate  

a moment in time, a place...

Iris

Something there is about an Iris...in Spring.

(with a nod to friend S. and William Carlos Williams...)

Urban Sketch Group Waterfront

Our 2nd excursion with the Urban Sketch Group.

A Hometown, Downhome day, on our waterfront. 

We didn't need to wander far from town for this pleasure.

I sat in the protective shade of the Gazebo, 

on a blue sea breeze, sun filled cloudless day.

 My warm up drawing (not shown here)

 was of two cabin cruisers, 

an interesting challenge in perspective & proportion, 

but in the end not a scene that moved me.

Two of us stayed on,after the group was done 

& "fell to" silently, drawing & painting, 

separate but in good company. 

We talked about our attraction to water 
& how lucky we are to be here.

Second Drafts and Responding

Both are 2nd draft sketches, sketches from sketches. The little flap above the flowers is from a 1st draft page that I had removed. The top sketch is from a drawing I did in February while staying at a neighbor's home when I had to evacuate my own home due to repairs. The original was stiff, overworked. It reflected a ton of stress, & also reflected a desire to please my neighbor. No.

The 2nd is a re-make from a heavy, overworked sketch at Friday's Farmer's Market which reflected my tension from not having sketched for 2 months. It did not express my feelings to the burst of color that I encountered.

This sketching is like physical exercise: One "stays in shape" & flows by doing it frequently. I am discovering, that Lightness is a key to my authentic response & expression. Sometimes it must be less about what I specifically see & more about the feeling. Always lessons, yes?

With an Urban Sketcher: Farmer's Market

A new kid in town rolled into our Sketcher's Group last week. She is a card carrying Urban Sketcher & she organized a group sketch excursion for us today. We went to our outdoor Farmer's Market!

This solitary sketcher, moi, loved not being alone today. At the end we each talked about our sketch/es & what we experienced. Oh, how fun to learn from other sketchers & to see through their eyes! Thank you to the group and to our leader!

A woman asked us, "Is this a class or are you all just having fun?" Struck me so funny!!

Me, being a gregarious sort, I chatted with people I knew rather than sketched some of the time. This was a sort of warm up day, as I haven't sketched for awhile. It's a rough sketch, the first in my new 81/2 by 11 inch Moleskine watercolor book (bigger than my small comfort sizes.) I prefer the paper in "Hand Book" watercolor journals, but I'm enjoying this larger size.

The Farmer's Market: Local people & tourists, a fiddling duo, flowers, cheese, breads, baskets, seedlings, vegetables, farm animal products...& lots of banter & hello's & it's so good to see you's...lots of movement, lots of walking, toddler's toddling, children swinging, breezes blowing...