Maine sketchbook

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Woke up early to watch the sun rise from the summit of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park.















Sat on the rocks near Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse to paint this one:




















This is a lobster boat as seen from an overlook on the Ocean Path in the park:

















A quick sketch of Main Street in the town of Southwest Harbor:















Here's Jordan Pond, as seen from the Jordan Pond House Restaurant in the park. (I thought their famous popovers with jam were good but not amazing.)















A super-fast sketch of some boats in Bar Harbor:















And a gazebo, sketched from the same vantage point but on the other side of the park bench I was sitting on:















The flat rocks in the park made it easy to sit and sketch for long periods of time. Here's a look at some park tourists gazing at the ocean at Thunder Hole:















And again, from the same vantage point but looking right instead of left:















I took a lot of different materials with me, so several of these were experiments. I used my usual Lamy Safari with Noodler's ink but also Pitt Artists pens, watercolors and other ink; I used my Moleskine watercolor sketchbooks, Arches hot-pressed watercolor paper, and Strathmore cold-pressed watercolor paper.

Family weekend in Mystic

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

I'm always the type who takes a bunch of activities to a weekend away. This time, I brought along my sketching stuff, some books to read, and my knitting. I didn't knit a stitch, and read about two lines, but I did manage to get some drawing in. I sketched the dock at twilight, even though the colored pencil shading makes it look earlier in the day. Then I sat on the deck sketching family members who had gathered around the table for a card game.


Monuments, museums, meals in the nation's capital

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Visiting D.C. feels like coming home -- a home that has changed a great deal since I left, of course, but somehow is still comfortingly familiar.





























Saturday night, we had dinner at Oyamel, in Penn Quarter, where the made-to-order guac and tiny tacos are heaven...















Dinner on Sunday night -- just as delicious -- was at Agraria Farmers & Fishers on the Georgetown waterfront, which is all about seasonal, sustainable ingredients. Yes, it was originally conceived by the North Dakota Farmers' Union, a provenance that seems a bit odd for Georgetown (but not so odd for D.C.)















(Lamy Safari/Noodler's ink & watercolors; Faber-Castell Pitt Artist's pen & Staedtler Aquarell watercolor pencils.)