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!

Doing "Nothing" on the Seaside Deck

I recently went back to the inn at Spruce Head for a night (after having been there on June 4 (backtrack to the post of June 8.)  I returned so I could sit again on the shaded deck & gaze, & smell the flowers & feel the sea breeze. And to sink into the quiet & peaceful rhythms of the tides & the seabirds & the light & the changing colors. The sketch above is actually a sketch drawn after I got back home. It was based on the rather scribbly & energetic sketch, below.

The difference is interesting to me. 

Below is the first sketch from the previous visit, also different.

Each one is my true impression, but none are attempts at accurate drawing. Sometime I would like to make some accurate  studies of landscapes using perspective among other techniques. But, these sketches are just my way of using my journal to observe & to connect with a place where I love lingering. They are almost an excuse to be able to sit & do "nothing"...

Acadia National Park: Love All Over Again

Acadia National Park is turning 100 years old. I started a new Moleskine accordion in her honor. I'm going back as soon as I can to fill a few more pages. 

I first fell in love with Acadia in 1968, when I hitchiked to Bar Harbor from Orono with a friend. My last visit was recent, & there have been many, many visits inbetween. There were different eras, different companions, different activities, different seasons, & different me's. Each time I grow more deeply in love, each time there is so much more to explore & so much to revisit. How can it be that two million tourists visit each year, & yet it feels so intimately like my own special place?

I'm not 100, but I am delighted to be growing older with Acadia. I am seeing changes, one of which is more of a focus on preservation with the involvement of newer, younger stewards. The Park needs continued loving care. They say that the current generation of young people is more connected to technology than to nature. However, we did see some delightful families, enjoying the magic. The Park also presents some wonderful Jr. Ranger & Explorer programs for kids.

A little about the sketching process: The new Rigger's Bag (from Hamilton Marine in Searsport) sat on my 3 legged folding stool while I stood to draw. Best arrangement I've found so far!! It also works in the car & has made a difference for me to be able to spontaneously stop & sketch with watercolor more often. 

It's Lupine Time in Maine

Every year in June, I gaze at lupines, lupines & more lupines out my back windows. I take many photos at different times of day because their hues & intensities change according to the light & weather, and because I know that these violet colors are only here briefly. But, it wasn't until I finally did the little painting that I felt I really saw them as I searched for lupine paint colors, as I danced my brush in lupine strokes.

The photos do capture a more accurate image, I suppose. What is striking about fields of lupines is their amazing violet color bands, set off by contrasting colors. The blossoms are beginning to turn to seed, but then the seeds will pop & fly & more lupines will appear next year! 

These lupines were at the Craignair Inn in Spruce Head, just at the edge of Penobscot Bay. It's a lovely & typical midcoast Maine wildflower scene. Yellow buttercups are more plentiful than ever this year, or is it that I'm just seeing them more?

Spruce Head, Maine

I had a lovely vantage point for watercolor sketching 
from the deck of the Craignair Inn. 
I was at a French Immersion workshop at Spruce Head.
(Those are purple lupines in the foreground: 
Do you know Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney?)

My "studio" ~ Note my new "Riggers Bag",
 bought at Hamilton Marine in Rockland. 
An artist at Camden's Rockport Blueprint had recommended it. 
Shop local! 

The fog rolled in at times...cool, sweet & soft...

The 4 sketches below are in the smaller Moleskine,

the 2 above are in the larger Moleskine watercolor book.

Some people used a free period to go
 for an after-lunch walk. I stayed on the deck. 

During a walking "treasure hunt" activity en français,

 on the nearby small island, (joined to Spruce Head by 

what I think is a natural walking bridge), 

I stayed on the deck because of my aversion to ticks &

because of my sun sensitive skin. 

And, because, 

it was my lovely vantage point for watercolor sketching!

 

Lovely gardens surround the inn. It was

hard to tell if they are cultivated or wild. 

 

A little stone elf & stone flower greet you near the entrance.

Even though it was just for the day, it was a perfect vacation~ French, art, and the Maine Coast!

Cafe Figure Sketching

 Trips to Portland always include 

early morning cafe sketching
and writing notes in the Old Port.

Costumed characters.

Great theater for the price of

a non-fat vente latté.
The notes are as important to me
as the sketching.

It is also my Figure Drawing class.

While so many others are on their devices,

I am on my sketchbook. 

The Willy Nilly Drop In Journal Book

The Drop In Journal Book, one friend calls it

The Repository. It's a place to toss in

various photos, clippings & cards.

Another blogger friend who inspired this post 

calls them "Odds & Ends". 

My own notes & sketches mixed in with 

images of others...

Patterns to what I collect emerge...

I seem to be fond of grids & squares & rectangles.

This has been going on for years.

 A beautiful card from a special someone...

It could be filed in my box of received cards.

But it needs to be here because of the image.

Some photos & sketches 

of my old Christmas card designs.

Some rough draft remains from 

The Language Exchange logo.

(Not all of the pages are grids and squares.)

 Images of postage stamps.

I had tossed a bunch that I'd kept in a box, 

&  preserved some in the book. 

More little squares, little charts. 

For my naturally nonlinear brain 

they are soothing. 

On the left, a copy of Sara Midda's work. 

On the right, someone's paintings from a magazine

(I should have recorded the artist's name.)

More of my notes & sketches,

 mixied in willy nilly to the Drop In Journal Book.  

This book is just about filled, & I have a new one,

also coptic stitched, standing by!