I flew in on a Monday, flew out on a Wednesday -- but what I saw of Wroclaw, Poland, was postcard-lovely. Much of it is relatively recent reconstruction, given that the city lay in ruins after WWII.

I went to the Philharmonia one evening to see Mario Hossen and Les Orpheistes Festival Orchestra of Vienna play Vivaldi. The concert hall itself was nothing to look at, but there was no need for anything to distract the eyes given what was coming out of the musicians' instruments.



Daylight hours found me at the office, but a colleague kindly took me on a nighttime ramble around the Old Town, university and Ostrow Tumski.

My last day there, I took an early morning walk around the Rynek (market square) in a chilly, driving rain. I huddled beneath a doorway, trying to keep my sketchbook as dry as I could.



Wroclaw has gnomes and vintage neon signs and a cathedral and trams (I do love trams) and lots and lots of bridges. All of which (and the pierogi!) will certainly bring me back again.

Tagged along with M. to Germany a few weeks ago, as he was speaking at Frankfurt Book Fair. We flew out a few days early so we could spend the weekend in Strasbourg, France.



I expected the half-timbered buildings (aside: they are really tedious to draw even after you figure out the pattern) and the ubiquitous flammkuchen (tarte flambee). Turns out Strasbourg is also multimodal transportation heaven. There are trams and riverboats and bicycles and pedestrian-friendly squares.





Oh yeah, and a famous cathedral.



We had a nice meal at La Corde a Linge, a riverfront restaurant that specializes in spaetzle and is thematically decorated to evoke a vintage laundry.



I didn't even get to the EU Parliament building or the Rhine, and I hear there's great biking among the vineyards in Alsace -- all to-dos for a future trip.

Sept. 20 was a lovely (though breezy) day for the Walk2End Alzheimer's at Ocean Beach Park in New London. As we waited for it to get underway, I sketched a yoga class on the beach and then the pavilions and event tents.

I was in Cleveland again for work a few weeks ago. This was the view from the Aloft Hotel in the Flats - East Bank, before a day full of meetings.

Can you guess the mood? Nina Johansson had us channeling stress and calm and sadness and joy in her workshop and interpreting those emotions in our marks and our colors.





Amazing how choices of color and line style can completely alter the feel of a sketch.



Paul Heaston taught us about wide angles, challenging us to cram everything we could see from ear to ear into a fisheye rendering of the world.





Our lovely B&B, Pousada Pontal Gardens, had a two-person kayak for guest use. So we carried it to the beach and bobbed along the water. As M. paddled, I held on for dear life (it reinforced my dislike of sit-on-top kayaks) and sketched the view, leaning over to dip my brush in the water.



Too soon it was time to leave. I kept a pen and sketchbook handy from sunrise at Pontal Beach to day's end in Rio, so I could capture little vignettes from the transport van.











We spent the last two days relaxing at the Sheraton Rio, listening to the hypnotic crash of the waves on the beach. We had fabulous food in Leblon, especially at Q Bistro Brasileiro.



Before heading to the airport, I sat in the Sheraton Club Lounge and drew the Chacara do Ceu favela on the hillside. Interesting to sketch, to be sure, but heartbreaking -- when the rains come in the summer, we were told, the sirens sound for evacuation as it's not safe for the residents to stay lest there be a landslide.



I miss you already, Brazil -- and now I see why you make us get a 10-year visa: we can't resist your lures for long.

Read Part 1 | Part 2

Paraty, halfway between Rio and Sao Paulo, is a time capsule colonial town that seems to hold a different festival or conference every week. There are horse carts and cobblestonesboulders and pousadas with questionable plumbing. And hummingbirds, and tiny birds that sip greedily from cut watermelon slices (who knew?). Walking involves carefully choosing your steps, except when the tide comes and you have to wade, ankle-deep.



In Simonetta Capecchi's workshop at the Engenho d'Ouro distillery, we chronicled the making of cachaca, the famed sugarcane liquor found in the caipirinha.









When I tired of the machinery I turned my watercolors to the misty mountains beyond.



With Lynne Chapman we splashed color and drew lines and used mixed media to get over the fright of making marks on a blank page.







Read Part 1 | To be continued...

As of a few weeks ago my passport has a stamp from a new continent: South America. I admit I was skeptical when the venue for this year's symposium was announced. But I fell hard for Rio, and Paraty was charming in its way. I see now why Rio is called the "cidade maravilhosa" (marvelous city).

Before heading to Paraty, we stayed a few days at Casa Beleza, a lovely and quiet B&B in the hilly, artsy Rio neighborhood called Santa Teresa. On our first day, we ran into fellow sketcher Rita Sabler lunching at Rustico.





At Pão de Açúcar (Sugar Loaf Mountain), we stayed and gawked till the sun had set.



Dinner was at Espirito Santa, which specializes in delicious Amazonian food.



The views from Christo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) were equally fabulous.



We skipped Copacabana and sank into the sand at Ipanema beach.



In the business district of Centro, we made the requisite stop at Confeitaria Colombo, the art nouveau cafe with its lavishly decorated mirrors and floor-to-ceiling displays of decorative plates...



...and then I sketched a narrow slice of old Rio (Arco do Teles) as the light began to fade.



To be continued...

Finally got around to going to this event last weekend, after talking about it for years. Teams of people race one another across the water in massive boats with dragon heads, way out in Flushing Meadows Park.





It takes a while to get there by public transportation, and by the time we did it was nearly time to turn back as we had other plans for the afternoon and evening.

Figured I'd take a few minutes and sketch since we'd spent so long trekking out there. So I scribbled a few lines and splashed a few colors around in the blazing sun as I listened to the incredibly peppy emcee exhort everyone to consider Hong Kong! If we ever wanted to open a business! Gotta say, he was pretty convincing.

I've always liked the way the light comes into the tiny window of the guest room on a weekend morning and slowly spreads across the furniture.

Prismacolor colored pencil on Canson Mi-Teintes Touch paper, sketched as I looked through the doorway into the room.

I'm currently reading James Michener's epic, Chesapeake, having been inspired by our recent trip to Maryland for Plein Air Easton's Quick Draw competition.

Yes, I grew up in MD, but had never managed the trip east from Annapolis to meander around this side of the Bay. The Eastern Shore seems a world apart from the just-outside-DC areas of the state - it has a slower-paced, New England-meets-the-South aura, with roadside crab shacks, corn-rich farmstands, and wide open spaces between the fingerlike waterways.

We explored Easton and St. Michael's, biked and bird-watched in Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and kayaked the calm waters near Oxford.

I chose to work in watercolor for the Quick Draw and happily sold my work to a local collector within ten minutes of the horn signaling "brushes down."

M.'s annual family gathering in Mystic, CT, always offers opportunities for some sketching in between games of cornhole, kayak runs and shopping excursions.





We ended the weekend with a picnic lunch at Misquamicut State Beach, just over the border in Rhode Island.