Power plant chimney, again

[By Marcia Milner-Brage in Cedar Falls, Iowa]

The Cedar Falls Utilities coal-burning facility is in the old-town neighborhood where I live. It's hard to miss the landmark chimney, towering above everything else.  Railroad tracks lead to the coal yards next to the chimney. Washington Park is on the other side of the tracks. One has to cross the tracks to access this riverside park. I drew the above recently from the park's entrance. Train cars are often stored here.

The above drawing is part of a recent paint marker series I did of Washington Park. See more of that series on the international Urban Sketchers Blog HERE.

October 2012, I included the chimney in another drawing. It became a backdrop to Wertjes Uniforms, a shop for police officers and firefighters, which is just down the street from my house.

Red roses climbing

By Marcia Milner-Brage, Cedar Falls, Iowa

Steps to garden

Every year I attempt to express the beauty of my Iowa, May garden in a painting or drawing. The climbing roses on the arbor are usually the impetus to see if I can convey what I feel and see in my backyard paradise. Once again, I'm afraid I've fallen short. Nothing from my hand approaches the reality. l enjoyed trying though. May 30, 2016

Here's another attempt that includes our rose trellis from six years ago, shy two days. Note that the roses had not yet climbed over the top. May 28 2010.

Back patio roses

Coffee shop sketches: trying out new tools

By Marcia Milner-Brage in Cedar Falls, Iowa

I purchased a set of Derwent Inktense pencils recently. I've never been too enamored with a set of Caran d'Ache watercolor pencils I inherited from my daughter who got them as a birthday present 12 years ago. So I took my new toys to Cup of Joe coffee shop here in Cedar Falls, Iowa, to give them a test-drive.

When I'm not traveling out of town, I'm a real homebody; I rarely go to coffee shops or restaurants. So even though on home turf, I was exploring new terrain.

Cup of Joe is on the corner of Main and First Street. Trying to establish more about the venue, I put in the afternoon traffic on First Street, as seen through the front window. Aha, another for my Inside/Outside Series!

I started with a line drawing using a calligraphy pen. Oops....the ink was water soluble...adding watercolor pencils maybe not the best combination. The guy on the right got kind of mucked up. I do like the irregular line the pen makes, though. I'll have to see about loading it with permanent ink cartridges.  These two men seemed to be really enjoying each others company. Coffee shops are sure a great place to people watch!

mannequin with white sunglasses

I probably spent more time on this drawing than it was worth. Cup of Joe has a funky mid-century vibe. Mannequins with vintage clothes, formica tables, Fiestaware, and green and blue lampshades, which impart interesting colors onto people's faces. 

The juries still out on my new Derwent pencils. I do like their vibrant color, reminiscent of my wax pastels that I have used a lot for years now. I think less is more (like the first sketch versus the last).

Any thoughts?

Apple Tree on 2nd Street

By Marcia Milner-Brage from Cedar Falls, Iowa

There are other apple trees growing on public boulevards in my neighborhood. This one is notable: it’s the latest to bear fruit and then, the fruit hangs on the tree well into winter. This year it was particularly bountiful.



I wanted to draw it before the first hard frost and the first snow. Before the brilliant autumn colors diminished. Time was running out. The forecast: 2 days of rain and wind followed by colder temperatures and then a snowstorm. With one day left, before the upcoming string of unfavorable weather, it was still too cool and windy to draw outside of the car.

Unfortunately it was Sunday and there were more parked cars then on weekdays. So I couldn’t get the angle on the tree that I had envisioned. I wanted to be across the street, with the tree in the foreground and the car wash sign on the other side of the block in the mid-distance. Hoping that a parking spot with this view might open up, I decided to bide my time and draw this sketch in my pocket-size Moleskin. No cars vacated my optimal spot. Resigned, I launched into a gouache painting, right from where I was.

Go to Eat Local: Scavenge on the Urban Sketchers Blog to see the gouache and  enjoy a closer look at the apples.

Dairy Queen with ink and more

By Marcia Milner-Brage, Cedar Falls, Iowa



The DQ on 18th Street here in Cedar Falls, Iowa, has been on my to-draw list for a couple years. It looks like a red barn you'd see in the Iowa countryside. The large oak tree behind it was always a big part of my attraction to this place. I sat in the parking lot, working from the passenger seat of the car. It's been unseasonably warm this fall. I had the windows down. The grass is still green, yet the trees are starting to change.

I'm participating in the #inktober drawing challenge--an ink drawing a day for the whole month. This was Day 6. Here's what the drawing looked like when it was more just ink:

RAGBRAI stops in Cedar Falls

RAGBRAI is the annual, weeklong bicycle ride across Iowa.  It's been going on every year in July since 1973. The ride starts on the western side of the state at the Missouri River and ends on the eastern side at the Mississippi. It takes a different route each year, traveling backroads, stopping each night at different towns along the way. This year my hometown of Cedar Falls was the fourth overnight stop. On Wednesday, July 22nd, 15,000 cyclist peddled into town from the west on 27th Street. 

I found a spot to set up my easel. It was a perfect, not too hot day for bicycling along the verdant Iowa countryside. It was a lovely day to dabble with my paints in the open air. This was about noon. Many riders waved or called out to me as they passed. A few stopped to see what I was up to and chat. It's not just Iowans that ride RAGBRAI. I  talked with people from New York, Missouri, Oklahoma and Illinois. When I told one man that I was part of an international group called Urban Sketchers, he excitedly shared that he'd just purchased Marc Taro Holmes book The Urban Sketcher.

At each stop, the RAGBRAI tribe is welcomed with facilities for overnight tent camping. Each town offers their own version of a party atmosphere with live music and food booths. The Cedar Falls campus of the University of Northern Iowa became the epicenter for all things RAGBRAI on Wednesday. And then in the morning, the bicycling horde packed up and peddled out of town, heading southeast for Hiawatha. The end of this years ride will be Davenport on Saturday.

Freedom: NO COLOR

I love the ease of using a few simple tools. Don't get me wrong, I love to work in color--whether crayon or watercolor, too. But there's great freedom in rambling about my neighborhood with just a few tools and a pocket-size sketchbook. Here's a few recent sketches: black, white and shades of grey.

All were done within a short walk from my house in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

A house on a corner lot with overhanging eaves has a mature tree to shade it from the east and south.

A vintage trailer parked in a back-alley.

Railroad tracks wend their way through my neighborhood. 

All were done with 5B pencil, Bic stick eraser, and water soluble graphite applied with a water brush. 

You can see more black and white sketches HERE in my Urban Sketchers blog post Black & White: traveling light

Steeple through Spring Trees: the process

A lot goes into a drawing even before I put a pencil or crayon mark on the page. 

KNOWING THE PLACE: I'd walked on Grove Street as it curves and becomes W. 7th many times, in all seasons. That curve borders this large grassy expanse. It was a floodplain of the Cedar River before the flood wall and dike (unseen to the left) were built.  This is a distinct Cedar Falls neighborhood of single family houses with yards, a nursing home, a church, and the Viking Pump Foundry. The Foundry, which was behind me as I stood at my easel for this drawing, is what makes this neighborhood not quiet on workdays. It's only a few blocks from downtown. On the other side of the dike are railroad tracks leading to the coal burning utilities plant and a City park that hugs the bank of the Cedar River. 

WHAT CAPTIVATED ME: the shadows on the grass, the grove of dark tree trunks, the steeple of Our Redeemer Lutheran Church through the trees before the leaves would unfurl fully and obscure it, the small dark red shed behind the tree trunk on the left, the soft colors of early Spring. All of this was in my mind's eye, before I actually started to draw.

WAITING FOR THE RIGHT DAY

The preceding days had been either too cold, rainy or windy. On this late April day all was quiet and early Spring idyllic. We all know here in the Midwest how breathtakingly rapid Spring can unfold. I knew I had a narrow window of opportunity to capture what beckoned. 

STARTING WITH A QUICK COMPOSITION SKETCH--soft pencil in my pocketsize Moleskin. Sometimes, my Moleskin sketches are all I need to do if I feel they've captured what I call "the truth of a place". But this time, I was pretty certain a larger, more developed piece in color was called for. I'd bicycled the 1/2 mile from my house, carrying my roaming studio in panniers: portable easel and my drawing accoutrements.

UNDERDRAWING--9B water soluble graphite applied with a wet brush on warm gray Canson Mi-Teintes paper. 

BRINGING IT TO COMPLETION: After about two-and-a half hours on-site, I'll  have an almost finished Neocolor II water soluble wax pastel drawing. That's about all I can handle standing in one spot. Anyway, it's alway good to take some space, step back and peruse afresh in the cloister of my studio. Sometimes, as with this drawing, I'll do some minimal tweaking (usually of value relationships), before I call it done. Go to my post HERE'S THE CHURCH AND HERE'S THE STEEPLE on the Urban Sketchers blog to see the finished work up close.

Repurposed Rental Truck and a story of my neighborhood

I wander the back-alleys of my Cedar Falls, Iowa neighborhood and find wonderful gems to draw, tucked behind people's houses. Here, a Penske rental truck made into a camper. Through the process of drawing, I come upon a story of place. Not just this driveway, this alley, but about the larger community where I live. Please, follow THIS LINK to the Urban Sketcher's Blog post.

Meet the Correspondent--Marcia Milner-Brage

This is me in my backyard. Cedar Falls, Iowa has been home for close to 30 years. My first memory was drawing my parents when I was five years old. I've been trying to figure out the world through drawing it ever since. I became hooked on urban sketching when I went to the 1st Urban Sketcher Symposium in Portland, Oregon, in 2010.

I like drawing landscapes. Many of my drawings are of my neighborhood--part of old town Cedar Falls. My favorite media is wax pastels on tinted paper. I spend about 2-1/2 hours on-site, doing one. The 3rd down I did yesterday afternoon. It's finally warm enough to get outside and draw!

2 Steeples Winter

School Bus in Vacant Lot

Backyard Shed on 13th

Since I retired from my wage earning job eight years ago, I draw more than ever. And I travel, drawing wherever I go. I carry a 5B pencil with a stick eraser and a pocket-size Moleskine everywhere. I try my hand at watercolor, too.

Moonrise from Lapa (Lisbon, Portugal)

Green House on Flower (Venice Beach, California)

Perio Point Dock sketch (Beals Island, Maine)

August 2014, I was asked to be a Correspondent on the Urban Sketchers international blog! Very exciting--a dream come true! I also write short personal essays; some have been published and many have been broadcast over Iowa Public Radio when I was a regular commentator in the 1990s. The Urban Sketcher blog is a wonderful format for telling a story with both drawings and words.  Here's one of my posts: Bringing the Garden Inside. 

I am also one of the seven volunteer editors for the Urban Sketchers Blog. We curate content for guest posts and interviews. I love doing this and am honored to be the conduit to feature other Urban Sketcher's work. Winter Hats on a Moscow Suburban Train is a guest post by Masha Kirikova. Reuven Dattner's Pattern Rich Israel is an interview. 

If you have a cluster of urban sketcher drawings and words to go with it that tell a story and would like to be considered for a Guest Post on the Urban Sketcher blog, send your proposal to editorial@urbansketchers.org. Likewise, if you think one of your posts to this Midwest blog should be reposted to the international blog, send us a link to be considered.

Soon, all Urban Sketcher regional correspondents will be invited to be listed on the Correspondents page of the international blog. If you're a Midwest Correspondent, get ready by posting your Meet the Correspondent here.

Trying to be a BIG City Urban Sketcher for a Week

I was in Brookline, Massachusetts for a week spanning Thanksgiving, spending time with family. Brookline is part of the greater Boston metropolitan area. My husband and I rented a pleasant flat in an apartment building, on a treed street.

From Beaconsfield Road Flat

Through the front windows, I did a Neocolor II wax pastel drawing of the apartment across the street. To my Midwestern sensibilities, the building was quintessentially Boston: brick facade, slate roof, copper flashing, bay windows and stone lintels. Snow remained on the roof from the flurry the day before.

Beaconsfield Road preparatory sketch

I had high hopes of doing a slew of big city urban sketching in-between family times--drawing on the trolleys and subways, sketching Boston landmarks, even fitting in the trademark Urban Sketchers coffee shop scenes. All that alluded me: I came down with the flu! After which, looking out from the inside of this cozy home away from home was all I could muster between fever, chills, and long naps.

My daughter-in-law sent over flowers.  I put them on the counter next to the kitchen window.

Drawing a minimal sketch of the utility pole from bed seemed a huge effort.

Luckily, on my first full day in Boston, before I got sick, I went to the Goya exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. What a world-class museum! What an inspired exhibit! See some of the works in the Goya exhibit and sketches I did at the museum in my Urban Sketcher International Blog post: Goya and his admirers in Boston HERE.

Public Gardens of Mt. Desert Island, Maine

Thuya Garden

After a decade and four trips to Downeast, Maine, my husband finally agreed to a side trip to Mt. Desert Island so I could visit the public gardens I'd read about. On our way back to the Bangor airport to fly home to Iowa (after 10 days in the lobster fishing village of Beals), we spent a few glorious hours at three gardens:

Asticou Azalea Garden

Thuya Garden

Wild Gardens of Acadia

By the way, my husband enjoyed these horticultural interludes as much as I.

Wild Gardens of Acadia

My three posts to Urban Sketchers Blog about the 10 days before: 

Beals a coastal fishing village

Downeast: Weather & Light

Downeast: Inside and outside from the kitchen table

                 

 

Big Snow

Snow Covered Roof

Snow Covered Car

Winter has been beastly cold here in Iowa. Last night we had our first big snow. This is what I awoke to this morning, as seen from my upstairs window,  using water soluble graphite applied with a water brush.

Greenwood Cemetery

It was a blustery late afternoon at Greenwood Cemetery. Unusual for Halloween, the leaves, still in their peek autumn color, have barely begun to fall. Today, I was prompted by Urban Sketchers weekly theme: cemeteries. Not unusual is that this and the other times I've drawn there, I've never seen another human.

But there are always crows:

And from the cemetery bluff, looking across the Cedar River and its watershed to the vast distance of farmland, is one of the best views in town.

GHOSTS!!

Ghosts in the Windows

The people who recently moved in across the street have seized the Halloween potential of this very old, very decrepit, charming house.

pocket-Moleskine sketch for Ghosts in the Windows

This is not the first October I've painted this house.

Gingerbread Roof and Silver Maples

                         Happy Halloween everyone!!

pocket-Moleskine sketch for 

Gingerbread Roof and Silver Maples               

Apple Picking

Me drawing in the orchard

               
                                                                                                      A family outing on the East Coast

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

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.