Plein air watercolor has always appealed to me -- it's the minimalism of the kit required, I suppose, and the spontaneity of the medium. However, I've always admired plein air work in other media -- oil, acrylic and pastel alike.

So when I saw that Pacific Northwest-based artist Annie Howell Adams was teaching a daylong workshop titled Fauving up the Landscape here at Rowayton Arts Center, I signed up and persuaded a friend to do the same. Figured it was a good opportunity to try a new medium and learn from an expert.

The week of the workshop, things got very busy at work. I hadn't had time to shop for supplies, so I hastily put together a bag the night before, noting with despair that I was missing some key materials -- to wit, decent canvases and a tube of alizarin crimson.

Since I wanted to meet my friend before the start of class, M. and I left the house early. On the way we saw a sign for an estate sale, so we decided on a quick detour.

"Looking for anything in particular?" asked the lady at the cashier's desk in the foyer of the estate-sale house.

"Nah, just stopping by on the way to a painting class at Rowayton Arts Center down the road," I said.

The woman brightened. "Oh, you should definitely check out the art supplies downstairs -- my aunt used to take classes there, too!"

She wasn't kidding. Her late aunt had certainly taken her hobby seriously. In 10 minutes I amassed a boxload of prime art supplies - including, by coincidence, the very items I needed for the class. New canvases? Hog-bristle brushes in various sizes? Check! Alizarin crimson acrylic paint? Check! What were the odds? Armed with my finds, I headed off to the workshop feeling very lucky indeed.

Annie, the instructor, was lovely -- so down-to-earth and such a fount of information. She shared her palette layout and did a demo outdoors showing how to mix colors. She often sketches on her canvas with black gesso before glazing with medium and adding layers of oil on top. Here's an illustration of this technique on her blog.

I love that she's unabashedly passionate about creating art in all kinds of media; so many artists these days confine themselves to a certain type of work and even limit their range of subject matter, all to keep galleries happy and establish a signature style. Yawn.

So - how did I make out? I found that my watercolor setup worked just as well for acrylic: I filled an AquaTote collapsible fabric water bucket and set it on my folding stool. On the portable easel was the butcher tray, which held paper towels, a few paint tubes and a rectangle of palette paper secured with mini spring clamps.

The sun and breeze that day meant that paint dried very fast. Next time I'll bring a spray mister to keep my paint wet. I mostly used a limited palette of a warm and a cool version of each primary, plus white, with no browns or black.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, especially as I'd never painted outdoors with acrylics before. And I'd like to think that the beloved aunt, whose materials I used for the painting, would have been happy to see her paints, canvases and brushes live on.

We had only one day in York, which wasn't quite enough. We hit most of the "sights" in the central area, but next time I would love to venture farther afield. (By the way, we'd highly recommend the Cedar Court Grand Hotel & Spa -- steps from the York train station, it's an old railway company HQ that's been converted into a hotel, complete with a fabulously atmospheric spa in the basement vaults.)

The street view in the sketch above is typical of what you see in the medieval-walled town -- especially enjoyed the famous Shambles, which many have compared to Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter series. There was even a small art supply store there, so I bought a Hahnemuhle sketchbook to add to my collection.

The next morning it was on to Edinburgh. It's truly as lovely as advertised -- the views in every direction just beg to be painted. We spent the first day wandering around, going to shops and getting oriented. At Waterstones on Princes Street, I picked up a copy of Mairi Hedderwick's book An Eye on the Hebrides: An Illustrated Journey. Her fresh, lively drawings really capture the rugged remoteness of the islands.

Inspired, I was determined to do slightly less walking and more sketching the following day. The (nearly deserted) rooftop terrace of the National Museum of Scotland was a great setting from which to draw Edinburgh Castle.



I certainly wasn't going to leave Scotland without sketching at least one bagpiper entertaning the tourists on the Mound:



After a delicious vegetarian lunch at David Bann, M. took off to bike around Holyrood Park while I searched out Greyfriars Art Shop (to buy a DaVinci travel watercolor sable brush). I'd heard of the store from an article in Artists & Illustrators magazine about "traditional" art supply stores in the UK. The two Greyfriars outlets I visited in Edinburgh are certainly old school -- packed with merchandise, plus very helpful and friendly staff.

I hope they stay in business, since there are so many lovely things to paint in the city! The pitch of the streets meant that I could stand outside our hotel on the Royal Mile and look straight down to the water:



And this was the view out of our fourth-floor window at the Radisson:



We barely scratched the surface before it was time to head back to London. On our next trip, we'll have to go to Glasgow. And the Highlands. And the Isle of Skye...

Just back from our annual hop across the pond for London Book Fair. It was a tough week in the world, but it was comforting to meet friends and colleagues. I was fortunate enough to be able to take Colin Merrin's weekend workshop "From the Sketchbook to the Finished Work" at the Bankside Gallery. The idea was to take small everyday thumbnails and drafts and turn them into something more finished without losing freshness and spontaneity. Easier said than done! His numerous well-thumbed sketchbooks were an inspiration, and he soon sent us off into the overcast outdoors to dash off sketches.

Started off with some quick ones of the Blackfriars Railway Bridge and some people sitting in front of the pub.





My eyes were then drawn to the busker in front of the Tate Modern. I wasn't the only one; he attracted quite a crowd with his slow, deliberate dance holding a glassy orb.



A few sprinkles from the sky sent me back into the gallery, where I took two of my sketches to develop further. I repainted them using only watercolor (no pencil or ink first) on Arches cold press paper.





The next day, I wandered further afield, ending up at London Bridge. I stopped at the Shard to sketch a view looking down to the street below:



And then a couple talking at Southwark Cathedral...



...and people sitting near the railway bridge.



I finished the day on the steps by the river, sketching children and their parents hunting for treasures as the Thames lapped at their feet.



A few days later, I took the Docklands Light Rail (I've been fascinated by it ever since I took it to London City Airport last year) down to Greenwich. I had hopes of straddling the prime meridian, but found that it was a bit of a walk from the train station. So I sat by the Cutty Sark and sketched the town instead; later I collaged in a few scraps from the Greenwich pages of a vintage London guidebook.



The next day, we boarded a train for York, on our way to Edinburgh. (To be continued...)

Spent an hour sketching at the Brooklyn Library's cafe last weekend with the NYC Urban Sketchers.





A curious young man (I think he was 10, but for some reason my sketch makes him look older) stopped to see what we were doing; he ended up taking out his notebook and sketching with us, as he chatted about Picasso and the Guggenheim -- and then he posed for a portrait.

It all started with a casual leaf (well, digital swipe) through the current issue of Country Living. Intrigued by a feature excerpted from Sibella Court's new book, I researched her and found that she'd earlier written The Stylist's Guide to NYC. A curated pick of shops in the city? Sounded like my kind of book -- and as the Union Square Barnes & Noble had it in stock, off to Manhattan we went yesterday.

After procuring the book, I stopped in for an hour and a half at Old Town Bar, where the NYC Urban Sketchers were holding court. We were blessed with a steady stream of models (I mean, bar patrons) to draw.



Afterward, I met M. at Strand Books, where I snagged the now out-of-print Robert Wade's Watercolor Workshop Handbook.

Two places that Sibella Court favored were next on our list: Olde Good Things and the Antiques Garage in Chelsea. Fun stuff in both places, but definitely priced well above what we'd get them for outside NYC.

We ended our day at Jones Wood Foundry, a cozy British-style pub on the Upper East Side, because I was craving sticky toffee pudding. And it was good.

Bodega's takeout menu, with its fab truck logo, just *begs* to be sketched on. I love the challenge of incorporating existing graphics into the sketch. Drew the goings-on in the kitchen a few weeks ago during breaks between dinner courses. Used colored pencil instead of watercolor with the ink drawing because of the thin paper. Just looking at the menu is making me dream of their brussels sprouts, the cazuela with quinoa, the kale salad -- yum!

In bleakest February, the hardy people of Canada's capital turn the Rideau Canal into the world's longest skating rink, get international artists to sculpt fantastical things out of ice blocks and throw a big party in their city called Winterlude. So how could we not go?

Ottawa turned out to be our getaway, our escape from the blizzard Nemo, which left great boulders of snow in places that were already Sandy-scarred. It snowed up there too, of course -- this was a storm that made headlines even in the north country -- but they are used to it there. There were people pedaling bicycles even as the snow kept falling that Friday, blithely commuting through the accumulating drifts to their homes, to stores, to dinner.

So I wasn't about to let the bone-chilling cold stop me from sketching. I was well-prepared for the weather -- I had an ankle-length down coat, a fleece balaclava to protect my head and neck, lined boots and wool gloves.

The problem, of course, is maintaining dexterity when your hands are mummy-wrapped. Nina Johansson inspired me with her recent gloved sketches of Stockholm done with thick markers, so I brought along some Caran d'Ache Neocolor II water-soluble crayons and other supplies to try. When I was browsing through Wallack's, the local art supply store a few blocks from our hotel, I picked up a Sakura SumoGrip mechanical pencil as well -- figured the fat barrel would be perfect for grasping through gloves.

It's a good thing I bought it, because it turned out to be the perfect tool for sketching in the extreme cold. On Saturday morning I skated out to a bench in the middle of the Rideau Canal to draw. The pencil worked like a dream, but the Neocolor IIs didn't cooperate, and trying to dissolve the hesitant marks with a waterbrush just made them turn to flakes of waxy colored ice that skittered right off the page. You can see my attempt in the sketch below (before I sort of salvaged it much later with watercolors).



I did the pencil drawing of Parliament Hill while sitting on my folding stool next to Major's Hill Park, just before the Alexandra Bridge, and colored it later with watercolors. I marveled at the number of runners who flew past me in the snow on their way across the bridge to Gatineau (which is in Quebec).





On the drive back home, I took out the Strathmore Toned Gray sketchbook and drew the landscape -- it looked this way for hours on I-81.



How about you? What are your tips for sketching in extreme cold?

On Saturday I participated in the 38th Worldwide SketchCrawl. I wasn't able to meet up with the NYC group in the morning but ended up doing a daylong dual-state crawl.

I started off with a quick sketch over breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien in Stamford before going to a few local garage sales.



At one of them I scored a set of unused watercolor pencils, among other art supplies, so I brought them along with me to my next stop -- Brooklyn, New York, where I met my friend Alison. We had lunch and sketched each other. Then I sketched the expansive view from her window, with the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in the distance:



We went up a few flights of stairs to the roof, where we enjoyed breathtaking views of the sunset over Brooklyn and Manhattan. I quickly sketched two views before my fingers began to freeze:





When we went back down to warm up, I drew her daughter practicing piano (finally broke out those watercolor pencils):



Around 6:15 I headed back to Connecticut so I could catch The Sig Brothers playing at Coalhouse Pizza in Stamford -- got a prime seat right in front of the band so I could draw them as M. and I enjoyed the music:



The next Worldwide SketchCrawl will be on Saturday, April 13. Mark your calendar and join in the fun!

To cap off 2012, M. and I drove down to Washington, D.C., on Dec. 30. After the requisite stops in the 'burbs for yummy unfamiliar food and the Tyson's Corner Levenger store, we sat down for an Ethiopian dinner at Etete and browsed at Kramerbooks before calling it a night.

New Year's Eve was a whirlwhind of art supply, bike and pen stores within Metro-ing distance of the Dupont Circle Hotel (scored the Utrecht travel brush set I'd been looking for and three inexpensive new fountain pens from Farhney's). Then it was off to Redwood in Bethedsa, Maryland, for dinner -- their NYE fete was titled "Last Dance in Old Havana," but the Hawaiian shirts and leis strewn about seemed to imply Polynesian tiki bar. Glad we were only there for food and left before their dubiously themed party kicked off!

While we were eating, I noticed this fabulous silver-haired woman perched at the bar with her feet up on a stool -- she seemed to embody a certain old-school style, with her cashmere sweater, silk scarf and jeans, so I just had to draw her.



After a few bites of rather cheesecakey flan, we were ready for our next stop: the New Year's Eve swing lesson and dance at Glen Echo Park's Spanish Ballroom. Last time we'd been was in the summer -- and it was broiling. This time, it appeared to be unheated -- we couldn't wait for the dance to get started so we could contemplate shedding the warmth of our coats.



We went over the basics in the lesson but also learned some Charleston-esque moves, so that kept things interesting even for the more experienced dancers.

Tuesday morning we decided to stop in Annapolis on the way back home. The last time I'd been there was in the fourth or fifth grade, when our elementary school unit on state history culminated with the obligatory trek to the state house. All I remember of the trip is that as we waited for the school bus to pick us up, some of the girls in our group were chatting up the (much older!) Naval Academy students.

Anyhow, turns out it's quite a cute and sketchable capital city. And oddly enough, it was *bustling* on New Year's Day. Shops and restaurants were open, and people were out and about. M. took a bike ride while I parked my folding stool and drew the view up Main Street (and yes, that's the state house dome in the back).



Will have to go back in warmer weather to explore it (and the Eastern Shore) some more.

Hope everyone has a happy and art-filled new year!

Nothing says holiday like a blast of salty spray from the Sound! As usual, we packed up our presents and drove off to Mystic, Connecticut, on the Eve of Christmas Eve, to spend the holiday at M.'s family's waterfront cottage.

This year, we went to the 57th annual Mystic Seaport Community Carol Sing, benefiting the Pawcatuck Neighborhood Center. Everyone gathered at the Seaport's Anchor Circle to sing popular Christmas carols (with the aid of helpful booklets to remind us of the more obscure verses).

 



On Christmas Eve, we went bowling at Spare Time in Groton, with my sister-in-law and her family. We started that tradition a few years ago. She and I often take our knitting projects, but this time I took the sketchbook along, determined to capture something of the action.



I find it's really hard to draw people bowling. The experienced bowlers contort themselves into an odd stance when they release the ball -- right arm just so in front; right leg curving behind the left, toe grazing the ground -- and in a second it's over. Yes, they do it over and over again, which should be helpful, but I still haven't quite mastered the pose.





In the evening, we went to the Christmas Eve service at St. Mark's Episcopal Church. It's a smallish, intimate church, and the service included lots of singing, which I enjoyed. The musicians were in the back behind the pews, so I had to crane my neck around to draw them.



We were all given paper stars (gifts for the child in the manger) so I promptly used mine as a stencil to add some interest to the page. I was also fascinated by the people lighting the glass hurricane lamps next to the pews -- but I couldn't sketch them properly as they moved so quickly.



Speaking of things that move fast -- M.'s parents recently got a King Charles spaniel. She's a bundle of puppy energy, so I was only able to get a few quick sketches of her in during the holiday. Perhaps she'll nap more when she's older. :) Hope everyone had a good holiday!