The 2014 Urban Sketchers Symposium...

...will be in Paraty, Brazil!  Our workshop/symposium committee worked long and hard on proposals and the voting process, and this should be a good one!  (Well, of course they ALL are...)

Paraty sent in a terrific proposal, well thought out, complete, with wonderful venues for sketchers. Congratulations and thank you to Eduardo Bajzek and Fernanda Vaz de Campos for their impressive proposal!

Paraty also meets an important criteria for us, not repeating a symposium on the same continent 2 years in a row.  Check it out here, and put it on your calendar!

www.urbansketchers.org/2013/09/paraty-brazil-to-host-5th-international.html

Fall's Creeping Round the Corner

I was out early this morning with the local plein air group at Townsend Park near Rockford. The park is about 12 miles from my house. Kind of chilly but about 10 people showed up for the session on pastels or just to work. This is my take, today, on the fall color that is working it's way down from northern Michigan and into the local area.

Junked Truck, Still There

Junked Truck and Goldenrod

Diagonally across the street from my house is a vacant lot where junked or little used vehicles are stored by the owner of the lot. Theoretically, not allowed by city ordinance in residential neighborhoods, this truck has been there for several years. The seasons change around it. Today, I stood on the edge of the lot to paint this.

Here, in winter, I drew looking down on the lot from my second floor bedroom window. Then the truck was joined by a school bus.

School Bus in Vacant Lot

What Happened to Summer?

I was doing some computer file maintenance and discovered some sketches from a spring vacation to California. What happened to summer? I don't even know what happened to spring! The first sketch looks like fall at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. It was actually done in April but that's how the colors looked to me. The second was done later in the week in San Francisco. Vermeer is one of my all time favorites and I was thrilled to catch this exhibit!

Free concert in Forest Park, St. Louis

Hundreds attended the St. Louis Symphony's free concert in Forest Park on Tuesday evening as it kicked off its 135th season with a bang, literally. The setting was on Art Hill, a natural amphiteater that over looks the Grand Basin. The program was a mix of a few familiar classical pieces, a selection of movie themes and a John Phillips Sousa march played as the concert finale followed by a spectacular fireworks display. I made this sketch on an iPad under an umbrella to block the glare from distracting the people around me.

St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Outdoor Concert, 9/17/2013, Michael Anderson, Brushes 3 for iPad, Sensu brush

Urban Foraging's Bounty

On walks in our Cedar Falls, Iowa neighborhood, my husband I inevitably find things of interest to bring home. This late summer and fall there has been a bounty of fruit--peaches, apples, and pears, growing on public boulevards or in parks. It's free for the taking! (That's the way the squirrels relate to it to, too.) If we see a tree in someone's yard with its fruit dropping to the ground, we ask the property's occupant if we can pick. More often than not, they say yes. (They don't know what they're missing.) We might come back with a bucket, although we have come home with our pockets bulging. There's nothing better than locally grown fruit. 

Above, from the front going counter clockwise: a platter of peaches, a bowl of Macintosh apples, a casserole dish of pears, and a single green apple--all picked in the past week and collected on our dining room table.  

                                                                             

     

To the right, a crop of peaches harvested from a tree on my block and drawn in  mid- August.

    

Not related to urban foraging or fruit, but to the room--our dining room, here's a another view of it in winter. And like the one above, part of my Inside/Outside series.

Running for Home

This was done when we were in Boyne City, Michigan with our boat in July. Boyne City is located at the south end of Lake Charlevoix. The lake is 13 miles long, beautiful, and is accessed from Lake Michigan via a channel in Charlevoix, Michigan on the lake's north end.

I was sitting on a picnic table in the park, next to the marina where the boat was docked, watching this storm come in. The storm was quite beautiful to watch as it formed. The clouds got darker and began to boil over the hill tops across the bay from where I sat. The storm was proceeded by rolls of thunder and lightning. I started this quick sketch and as I worked I could see power boats running down the lake heading for shelter...they were running for home.

Urban Sketchers Midwest at Kansas City's First Friday/Hello Art event!

We had an amazing time at Kansas City's First Friday event; we were invited to share our sketchbooks and journals at Kendall King Group in KC's Crossroads Arts District.

I brought journals, art supplies, prints, giveaways, and signup sheets!  We gave away a Stillman & Birn Zeta journal and a copy of my book, Artist's Journal Workshop.

Here's Don Gore and his wonderful work--Don invited us to take part in the First Friday event and share our sketchbooks.  That's Don in the red shirt.

People were fascinated by his work!  (So was I.)

Joseph shared his sketchbooks and minded the store when I was out socializing, drooling over others' journals, and snapping photos.  In the foreground, you can see some of the simple travel kits I brought for inspiration.

Jeanette Sclar shared her incredible journals and field boxes, and encouraged people to make their own 5-minute journals.  Her station was really popular!

Holly Spencer had large prints and lots of interest in her work!

Steve Penberthy came from St. Louis to share...his tablet slide show was a brilliant idea, and showed his process from sketch to finished painting.

This is one of Steve's sketches...I wish I had gotten a photo of the finished painting as well.

Don invited other USk-Midwest artists to send some of their work if they couldn't be part of the First Friday event, and put it up on the wall with some of ours, too.  Very inspiring!

Ladies checking out my journals...

Jeanette sharing inspiration

Wish you could all have been there!  

Urban Sketchers Workshops: Sketching in the footsteps of Piero Della Francesc...

Urban Sketchers Workshops: Sketching in the footsteps of Piero Della Francesc...: An urban sketching workshop with Gérard Michel and Lapin. October 4 - october 6, 2013 Sansepolcro, Italy   Workshop description : F...

Chicago Chinatown

Two Zodiac statues I drew during Chicago Chinatown sketchcrawl in August. We happened upon a Buddhist festival, it was wonderfully colorful and happy. 

We had a great show of sketchers, here are some of us by the end of the event. And then we went to eat!!

Surfs Up Chicago!

There are beach hazard warnings today in the Windy City. This is a quick 4 inch square sketch I did this morning at Oak St. Beach, just one block off the Mag Mile, the shoppers' paradise. "My Kinda Town Chicago is"!