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

The Elms

Drawing from this past Saturday at The Elms Hotel in Excelsior Springs, MO.  Sat in a comfortable chair in the lobby and enjoyed drawing this wonderful fireplace.  This was my first ever attempt at using watercolor pencils.  Did my base drawing first with a fine point Sharpie in a large watercolor Moleskine and added the pencil / water over the top.  Interesting to use and I like some of the effects that resulted.  Fun afternoon with the sketchcrawl group.

March Sketchcrawl

Our sketchcrawl group met at the Elms again, for a tour--they're rehabbing the whole place, and seeing the progress is fascinating!  Thank you Keith and Bari for letting us tour...

This was my second sketch of the day--since there were workmen there even on a Saturday, we weren't allowed to sketch inside, this time.  The weather was so perfect we were delighted to spend our sketching time outdoors...

The parking lot is FULL of dumpsters and piles of gravel!  It looked like a railroad switchyard...

I found Don out back, sketching the fire escape...

Hope he adds his sketch soon!

Pamela was sketching some of the old stone BBQ fireplaces...

Malinda and kidlets worked inside the big gazebo...she had a new high-tech toy she was sketching on!

It's going to be beautiful, when they're done, with one of the largest spas in the Midwest.  And we gathered later at Willow Springs Mercantile for a late, luscious lunch and sharing our sketches.  A beautiful day and a lovely time...