Yes, I know I haven't posted in some time, but I have been sketching!
Here are a few sketches done over the Fourth of July weekend in Mystic, CT. There was a man attempting to put up a sail, and as he kept circling around the same area while doing so, it gave me an opportunity to get the major shapes down.

I also liked the way an abandoned boat looked, aground on the shore, so I added a sketch of that as well.















Some swans decided to sun themselves on the little beach near my in-laws' house:

















And this is a super-fast sketch done this past Saturday while sitting on the Lambertville, NJ, side of the bridge that takes pedestrians and cars across to New Hope, PA:

















(Lamy Safari/Noodler's ink in Lexington Grey; colored later with Staedtler Aquarell watercolor pencils.)

At long last, the Perpetual Rain Machine let up and we were able to go see this year's Shakespeare on the Sound performance of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in Rowayton's Pinkney Park. It was a very entertaining performance -- the actors seemed well cast and the music by Stew was very cool. Looks like the new artistic director is already making her mark! The raked stage definitely brought the actors closer to the audience, though our vantage point wasn't the best for scenes that took place under the trees. I sketched the stage and audience while we waited for the play to begin, and then quickly drew impressions of the various characters as they danced, crawled and shimmied through their parts.

There are several vacant buildings in Stamford's South End -- long abandoned former factories and such. I've been wanting to sketch them before they're all razed for the new Fairway-and-condo complex, and I finally went out this morning to do it. Instead of my usual Moleskine, I tried out a sample pad of Bristol board. Surprisingly it takes watercolor quite well.























(Lamy Safari w/ Noodler's Lexington Gray ink and waterclors on Strathmore 300 Series smooth Bristol.)

It's been raining pretty much every day here for the past several weeks, so we were a little apprehensive about going to the Clearwater Festival in Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., yesterday. It's an annual extravaganza to preserve the Hudson River, headlined this year by Pete Seeger, Jay Ungar, Arlo Guthrie, and Taj Mahal, among others. But we went anyway, and the sun did come out, at least for short periods of time, so it wasn't a complete washout. The sudden showers did prove to be a challenge, however, for sketching -- it was a race against time to complete a drawing before the large, splashy drops began, announcing the next downpour.
I took along my large Moleskine watercolor sketchbook, which I haven't used a lot lately, and I wasn't too pleased with the way watercolors handled on it -- odd, I know, because presumably it's exactly the same paper as in the smaller version, which I use all the time.











































































(Lamy Safari w/ Noodler's Lexington Gray ink and watercolor in large Moleskine watercolor sketchbook; last one done with Pentel brush pen and colored with Faber-Castell Pitt artists' pens.)

I'd always wanted to visit Green-Wood Cemetery, in Brooklyn, and got an excuse to do so on Saturday. We had a quick, surreptitious picnic on the grounds with friends and then walked about for a bit afterward since it wasn't raining just yet. Green-Wood is the resting place of such notables as Leonard Bernstein, Boss Tweed, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Louis Comfort Tiffany. It's vast (478 acres) -- would love to go back there sometime to explore it more thoroughly.


















(Lamy Safari with Noodler's ink in Lexington Grey; watercolor added later.)

Just got back from a long weekend visiting friends in St. Thomas (U.S. Virgin Islands). Did a lot of snorkeling, but had time to do a few quick sketches. Here's one of Hull Bay (yes, the water really is as turquoise as it looks in brochures):


















And one that I drew while waiting for lunch to be served at a waterfront restaurant in Charlotte Amalie:

















Here are some people relaxing at a picnic table at Magens Bay -- often thought to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.















(Lamy Safari with Noodler's ink in Lexington Grey and watercolors in Holbein Multi-Drawing sketchbook.)

Went camping this past Sunday at Housatonic Meadows State Park in Sharon, CT. According to our fellow campers, we just happened to miss a massive rain/hail/cats/dogs storm that deluged and swamped the campsite for a half-hour -- we had pitched our tent and gone up to the next town to check out a kayaking outfitter store. Luckily our tent was fine -- just a bit damp inside. On Monday, we drove up to West Cornwall to kayak a little on the river. We were there before 7 a.m., but the trout fishers had beaten us to it, as you can see.

Decided to pop into the brand-new Ritz Asia in Ridgefield, CT (on Rte. 7) on our way back from visiting family and checking out the flea market in Rhinebeck, NY, on Sunday. Typical Asian fusion fare - selection of sauces for sauteed veggies/meat/tofu, pad thai, sushi, etc. -- nothing too amazing. But the huge statue of Buddha in the middle of the restaurant just BEGGED to be sketched.

On our last day in London, we breakfasted at Smith's of Smithfield, in the area of Smithfield Market. The blackberry-mint smoothie was divine.






















Then we took the Eurostar train to Paris. Here are a few impressions of the landscape outside the train. There were fields and fields' worth of acid yellow rapeseed flowers, too, which were gorgeous.











The weather in Paris was gorgeous, too. Here's a quick sketch of a cafe on Rue St Antoine:














When we went up the "butte" of Montmartre, we found lots of sketch artists making conte pencil drawings of tourists for a fee -- and so they themselves became the subject of my sketch:















Dinner one night was at a traditional French bistro, the General La Fayette:

















We returned to London on the Eurostar on Sunday -- here's a passenger asleep on the train:

Yes, that's where we are, and we couldn't have asked for better weather -- it's been hovering around 70 degrees here. So -- no excuse not to get the sketchbooks out! Yesterday I walked practically the length and breadth of the city, looking in at various shops like Green & Stone and L. Cornelissen for art supplies; Finnesse Lifestyle for the Aarika 'Foxi' earrings that I'd bought in Helsinki and promptly lost; Foyle's for some of the travel sketchbooking art books I wanted, etc. So the only two sketches I did were these, at the beginning of the day, both at Duke of York Square on King's Road. (I don't have a scanner with me, so obviously these are only as good as I can make them with a digital camera and Photoshop.)































Today, I decided to do the opposite -- I went to fewer places and got more sketching in. Here's the scene at a cafe on Earl's Court Road where we had breakfast:
















Went out to Smithfield Market after that, and did a quick sketch while I was waiting for an appointment that never actually happened:























After a picnic lunch in the hotel room from M&S Simply Food, took the tube out to Kew Gardens:
























































I brought along this Muji notebook to experiment with -- I don't know that it's meant for drawing at all, but it has lovely brown kraft paper and so far I really like the way it works with a gray Pitt Artist pen and a gel-ink white pen. I sketched the above while in the gardens, and decided to add a little color with my Stabilo color pens later on:























Finally, I did a quick impression of people at a small cafe in Kew, near the railway station.

It was pouring in Stamford and I didn't make it down to NYC so I did a solo crawl. First, had breakfast at the Post Road Diner in Norwalk, CT:
















Went to the Stamford Town Center mall in the afternoon, where I sketched some mannequins at the XXI Forever store:














Had dinner at California Pizza Kitchen, and sketched the kitchen area while enjoying our meal at the bar:















Finally, went to see the Troupers Light Opera production of Gilbert & Sullivan's "Trial By Jury" and "HMS Pinafore" at New Canaan High School. Here are some quick sketches done while the orchestra was tuning up:















Hopefully I'll be able to join others next time!

Cherry blossoms – cobblestone streets – horse-drawn carriages – art galleries – great food – what could be better? As you can probably tell, I thoroughly enjoyed attending the sketchbooking workshop at The Art League School. Although the class was geared more toward beginners, it was still useful to go through the basics of drawing again – seeing negative shapes, practicing perspective, and so forth. The best thing about the weekend (other than the glorious spring weather) was that I was focused completely on drawing and painting, with no other distractions. So – here are the results, in roughly chronological order. (The drawings were done in a Strathmore 5.5”x12” sketchbook; the paintings were done in an accordion-pleated sheet of watercolor paper provided by the instructor.) Click on each image to see it larger.

Saturday, 4/4
Breakfast at Table Talk, a slice-of-Americana diner on Duke Street, was a hearty helping of eggs and potatoes.













(Pitt artists pens and Staedtler Aquarelle pencils.)

While waiting for the school to open, I stopped at the farmer’s market in Market Square on King Street and sketched a mozzarella vendor.




















(Lamy Safari w/ Noodler’s ink in Lexington Grey and Staedtler Aquarelle pencils.)

After a morning of drawing exercises, we broke for lunch. A popular spot is the Firehook bakery on Union Street, with breads, sandwiches and pastries.











(Lamy Safari w/ Noodler’s ink in Lexington Grey and Pitt artists pens.)

Our final drawing assignment of the day – a series of drawings with a narrative, forming a cohesive, designed sketchbook page.











(Lamy Safari w/ Noodler’s ink in Lexington Grey and Pitt artists pens.)

Sunday, 4/5

This time, we breakfasted at Bread & Chocolate, a European-style eatery on King Street.










(Lamy Safari w/ Noodler’s ink in Lexington Grey and Pitt artists pens.)

The morning was filled with more drawing and watercolor exercises – and then we were off to sketch outdoors. I warmed up with a quick sketch of this horse-drawn carriage as I ate lunch at Mai Thai near the water.













(Lamy Safari w/ Noodler’s ink in Lexington Grey)

Then it was a race to fill our accordion-pleated booklets of watercolor paper with several sketches before painting them back in the studio. (For easy viewing, I’ve scanned them separately here. All were done with the Lamy Safari and colored with Winsor & Newton Artists’ watercolors.)

First, I tackled some buildings at the corner of King & Union Streets.






















I then took my folding stool to a little arcade by the waterfront.






















I started sketching the detail of this plant and thought that the guy eating lunch would fit into the picture, too.


















I had only a few minutes left, so I quickly drew the shapes of this popular hangout – I liked the boldness of the colors.





















Finally, I turned my attention to Prince Street, a cobblestone road right near the Art League School’s Duke Street Annex.














And that was my two days in Alexandria – can’t go wrong with sunshine and a sketchbook!

Went to see Charles Dutoit conduct the New York Philharmonic in pieces by Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky last night at Avery Fisher Hall. This was the view from my seat way up on the third tier.














(Lamy Safari with Noodler's ink in Lexington Grey, with watercolors, in Moleskine watercolor sketchbook.)