Lunch Time Sketches

I work in downtown Baltimore and like to sketch on my lunch hour.  This store front attracted my attention the other day.  It was such a statement about our changing world.  Originally it was a stationers' shop, then a bookstore, then a cyber cafe.  Now it is for lease or sale.  We don't write letters as we once did, we buy more books on e-readers, and most people have mobile devices and don't need to go to a cyber cafe.  Fortunately, the architecture survives to tell the story.

Here are some other sketches.  This is Old Saint Paul's Church on Charles Street.

And here are the spires of the Mount Vernon Place Methodist Church:

And a view of Mount Vernon townhouses for the hotel restaurant across the street:

Finally, a view of downtown skyscrapers looking uptown from the Inner Harbor:

Cool Vista on a Hot Day

I thought everyone would like to look at something refreshing while we swelter through these hot days of summer.  Just imagine yourself in this beautiful garden stepping from one cool stepping stone to the next across the water.  It's a lovely little lake in the gardens of the Heian-Jingu Shrine in Kyoto, Japan.

Napping on a Hot Summer Day

This is what Alexander and Nicholas, my cats, are doing these hot summer days.

Happy 4th of July!

This is a watercolor I did many years ago, but it captures the day and I wanted to wish everyone a Happy 4th of July!

Tuscan Journal

In late April-early May a friend and I travelled to Tuscany to paint in Florence, San Gimignano, Siena, and the Chianti area as well as follow the Piero della Francesca trail from Arezzo to Urbino.  What a wonderful experience to sit in the square in front of San Lorenzo or along the Arno near the Ponte Vecchio and try to capture these sights.  Painting the fountain in the Boboli Gardens made me think of Sargent's brilliant watercolor technique.  San Gimignano was charming with its medieval towers.  Siena provides great challenges in capturing the amazing striated Duomo and the beautiful interior courtyard of Catherine of Siena's house.  Our drives through the Tuscan countryside were a delight for every curve of the road brought new vistas of vineyards and cypress lined hills.  The winding road to Urbino made us feel as if we were going to the farthest and highest point in the world.  Once there we saw a fabulous exhibition on the Ideal City and one of the stars of the exhibition was none other than the Walters Art Museum's painting of the Ideal City.

So, please, come and join me on the adventure with a few pages from my journal:

Pedernal

One last post from my recent trip to New Mexico.  I painted this watercolor of Pedernal, the mountain Georgia O'Keeffe loved so much and painted often.  The view is from Ghost Ranch and shows the brilliant spring greenery along what must be a stream in this desert landscape.  I did the oil painting below after an autumn visit to Ghost Ranch in 2009.  The view is much higher up--about half way up a steep climb to Chimney Rock.  New Mexico is amazing for its expansive landscape and big skies and painting there has been an absolute pleasure.