From Minneapolis to Excelsior Springs, Mo
On a trip to drop my son off with his grandparents in Arkansas I had a two day trip back to do as I pleased. I had always thought of stopping by Excelsior Springs to visit Cathy Johnson. Cathy is an artist I greatly admire and helped me with advice and encouragement and a great example of living by art.
These are roughly in the order I sketched them. 90% on site work. The last 10% was line weight ramp up and some color touchup. It was getting dark, and I will admit a little creepy being the only one walking around downtown once it got dark.
Cathy and her husband Joseph graciously welcomed me in. I had no idea if they only had time for a quick visit but it turns out we all went to dinner together at a beautiful hotel downtown. The restaurant at The Elms is quite beautiful and food was great. As soon as the food was done the sketchbooks came out!
Neat little building corner. I think it was the Mill Inn. I need to go back and put the lettering in.
It was starting to get dark and the color got away from me. This building isn't really green, but now that I have some distance on my frustration that it turned green I really like it. Always be careful with mixing yellow at night. You really can't see it so use about 1/3 as much yellow as you think. Or just go for it and have bright interesting colors the next day. Either works!
This was just a neat building corner.
Such a wonderful evening. After they left I had about 45 minutes to an hour of daylight and made a quick walking tour grabbing what sketches the light allowed. I think I may have been one of 5 people out and about downtown.
The night before I loaded up two pages with color for some yet unknown project the next day. Over breakfast I did these two drawings. The family in front of me turned out to be an art teacher from Omaha that I wound up showing my sketches and paint kits to. It is always fun to meet people.
Such a nice morning and beautiful patio to have breakfast at. I should have drawn the biscuits and gravy but they somehow went away to quickly!
James Nutt
www.nuttdraws.blogspot.com
