Sheboygan Boardwalk

We were in Sheboygan, Wisconsin with our boat last weekend. We made the 10 hour run across Lake Michigan in the company of my daughter and son-in-law's boat Sisu. It was the first time my wife and I had been in Sheboygan in over 20 years. We did a lot of walking, toured the art museum, and while my wife was shopping I sat in the shade and did this quick sketch of the Sheboygan river walk. The river walk is a great place to walk and is home to lots of places to eat and views to enjoy.

Corner Building in Montague, Michigan

This is the corner of a building located in Montague, Michigan. Montague is kitty corner across the lake from where we keep our boat. The town of Montague, like many Lake Michigan lake shore towns, is a product of Michigan's lumbering era. At one time Montague was home to prosperous lumber mills and loading docks that shipped the output from the mills. Today Montague continues on but more as a quite place for summer tourism.

The corner building is part of a block of old buildings that house shops that survive on the town's summer residents and tourist season. For some reason I'm drawn to these old buildings. Maybe its their links to the past.

Montague/Whitehall Train Station

We've been on our boat for much of the summer so I've time again to do some art work. This is a sketch of the old Montague/Whitehall, Michigan train station. We keep our boat in Whitehall and when we first started spending summers on the boat there, active railroad tracks ran past the station. The track have been gone for years, replaced by a rails-to-trails bike path that is heavily used.

The train station is still in use but now a a chamber of commerce and tourist information hub. The piece was done with pen and watercolor.

Dogwood Harbor

 Following the in-water sailboat show at Annapolis, MD, my wife and I spent a couple of days on the eastern shore where we stayed in Saint Michales, MD. On the second day of our stay we drove up and around to Tilghman Island.

This is a sketch done on the dock at Tilghman Island's Dogwood Harbor. The harbor has been a long time home for one of, the once many, Chesapeake Bay, fishing fleets. Skipjacks and other fishing boats worked out of the harbor to dredge for oysters. Today fishing boats are far fewer but they still sail from the harbor.

This is a view across the harbor toward houses that line part of the harbor's shore.

Drying Out

Drying out is a sketch of a Chicago Mac racing sailboat that limped into Frankfort, Michigan and the marina we were staying at. The boat had suffered a line wrapped 'round its rudder and a furling line ripped from the mast. The damage was the result of very bad weather on Lake Michigan during the night of July 15.

The boat was parked in a slip next to us to do repairs and dry out the crew's foul weather gear. It was one of over 300 boats competing in the annual race up Lake Michigan to Mackinac Island, a distance of 333 miles. The boat was 1 of 5 that limped into Frankfort due to blown out sails, equipment damage, injuries, and illness. The boat also numbered as one of more than 100 boats that dropped from this year's race due to punishing Lake Michigan weather.

As one who periodically takes part in cross Lake Michigan races, my heart goes out to all the crews who took part in this year's Mac race. It was a tough one.

Spring...Rockford, Michigan

It's finally warming up here in Michigan. So this afternoon I got out my art bag and took my portable chair and the dog for a short walk to the entrance of the condo association where my wife and I live. I sketched this scene of the mini farm that's directly across the street from us. The person who owns the place has goats, a couple of horses, and chickens...we hear the rooster in the morning.

It was a great afternoon to be out and was fun to do some art work again. It's also quite beautiful here, now, in Rockford where we live. The flowering trees are blossoming and the forests that surround us are taking on tinges of greens and yellows as the leaves begin to poke out as we head into spring. One of the great things about Rockford is that you don't have to go far to be out in the country.

Grand Haven and Saugatuck

My wife and I took a short trip down to Grand Haven in our boat last week. On the way south, I did this quick sketch of the dunes that are south of White Lake and Whitehall...our boat's home port.

The town of Grand Haven sits next to the Grand River which exits into Lake Michigan through a wide west facing pier head. The town itself is overloaded with tourists throughout the summer months. While there, we stayed at the municipal marina and had a slip that was conveniently located next to an ice cream store (the banana split I had was excellent). There's also a board walk that runs past the marina and heads west along the river bank to the Grand Haven pier. The second day in town, I unloaded my folding bike from the boat and took the board walk all the way to the pier to do some sketching.

The sketch below is of the two lights, pier, and cat walk that makes up Grand Haven's south pier head.

Turning to face north from where I was sitting you take in the view of Grand Haven's north pier and beach houses which dot the dunes and shoreline. The day I was out sketching the clouds were enormous and towered over town and the shore the entire day.

We headed back to Whitehall mid week and on Friday afternoon we drove down to Saugatuck, Michigan to meet a friend for dinner. While my wife wandered through the stores, I sat in a park by the river and enjoyed the afternoon doing this sketch of an old tree that anchors one corner of the park.

Free Boat Wash

My wife and I are out on our boat for a month plus. This sketch was done this past Sunday morning while I was sitting in the cockpit of our boat. It's a look south out of the mouth of the Leland, Michigan harbor as thunderstorm worked its way in from Lake Michigan. If you look between the pier heads you'll see a fishing boat that came roaring in off the lake to out run the storm. Once the rain started it lasted several hours and did a great job of washing off the boat. We stayed in Leland for a couple of days until the wind and Lake Michigan calmed down.

To Windy to Sail...

Sunday afternoon it was way to windy to venture out of the slip to go sailing so I got out the art supplies and went to work.

This is a sketch of one of the marina buildings at Crosswinds where we keep our boat. Right to the left are a couple of boats that are still waiting to go in the water. If you look closely, between the boats, is a guy on a ladder waxing and polishing, trying to get his boat ready for launch. Doing the sketch was a great way to relax the afternoon away.

Waco Bi-plane

When my wife an I were in Maine last month we spent a rainy afternoon at the Owls Head Transportation museum, located in Owls Head, Maine. The museum is home to vintage cars, trucks, and an collection of old bi-planes. What's especially interesting about the museum is that each of its inhabitants still runs and flies. During weekends the old vehicles are out and about on the museum's grounds and the planes take to the air.

Being an aviation buff, this beautifully maintained 1923 Waco caught my eye. So I borrowed a place to sit (actually a large plastic bucket), sat down, and give this sketch a go.

 

Camden, Maine...Fall Colors

My wife and I are just back from a trip that took us to both Maine and Vermont. My wife went to do some shopping. I went to sketch, paint, and do photography.

Camden, Maine, our base during our time in Maine, is a beautiful and quaint town. The village is home to a large fleet of schooners that, during the summer months, take travelers aboard to visit and enjoy the surrounding Maine landscape and islands by sail. By mid October many of the boats that populate Camden's harbor have been pulled for the winter. That said, while there, Camden's harbor remained busy with boats coming and going and tourists crowding the town's shops and restaurants. Then too, Camden, and the surrounding area was blooming into a palette of full fall color. This piece was done on a chilly morning and depicts Camden's crowded and busy inner harbor.

Abandoned Municipal Buildings...

This is the old water treatment plant, no longer in use, in Lawson, Missouri...these lovely summer mornings, we've been getting out early to sketch and fish.  The little building is at a lake my husband loves to fish in, so it's the best of both worlds for us!  I wonder where they treat their water now...?

The front entrance, up the hill from the lake...

I can see this is going to be the subject of a whole series of sketches...I explored it up close the other day, and found all sorts of interesting textures and details.

I used my bent nib calligraphy pen on this one...I like the lively lines!

This little metal pier seems to be some kind of pump...it makes noise.  You can see the same little building in the background...

These two are from last month, a different angle...what is it about abandoned buildings that captures our imagination?

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.

TJ Stitchery & Frame Shop

This is a sketch of another of our neat old Rockford, Michigan buildings. The building sits next to what was the rail line that served our town. The rails are gone, replaced by the White Pine bicycle trail. The building is home to TJ Stitchery & Frame Shop. The building's back end hosts a fly fishing shop that services the fishermen who fish the Rogue river which runs through and around Rockford.

Station Stop Whitehall Michigan

In the late 1800s Whitehall, Michigan, where we keep our boat, was a booming lumber town. There were several lumber mills and a tannery here. There was also rail service. The mills and tannery are long gone and so are the trains. The last that trains ran the rails here was 20 plus years ago. The track ran directly in back of our marina. Fortunately, the track bed route wasn't abandoned. A rails-to-trails conversion converted and paved the track bed and turned it into the Hart-Montague trail. Today bike riders, walkers, and roller skaters put the trail to great use. I've ridden the 50 mile trail end-to-end several times. The sketches provide a glimpse of what the trail looks like today.

Thanks to Mike Anderson for inspiring me to post the before (sketch) and after (ink and watercolor) of the view down the trail. That building in the distance is the old Whitehall train station. It stands today and is used by the Chamber of Commerce to provide tourists with information about the local area.

This is the drawing.

All done.

Shoal Creek Living History Museum

I spent the afternoon wandering around the Shoal Creek Living History Museum in Hodge Park, just outside Liberty, Missouri. I had the place nearly to myself and meandered around sketching the various historical buildings with my Lamy Safari and occasionally using my watercolor travel kit.

The buildings here have all been relocated from other places and brought together to provide a snapshot of what our area used to look like. As usual, I scribble with a pen first and then decide whether or not to add splashy washes of color. The jail depicted here looks to me to be one lonely and forlorn place to spend a night locked up!

This is an old one room school house. One thing I try to do when I sketch locations is use elements of the locale to "lead the eye" around or through the composition. Thus, I'm always on the look out for diagonal lines, fences, tree lines, roads, etc. that conveniently allow this to take place.

And just up the hill, atop a heavy wooden post, sits the old school bell. It's cast steel and looks like it would be very, very heavy. I enjoyed "keeping it simple" and just letting the colors run together to create the illusion of rust and patina.

Here's another example of that principle. I enjoy finding a point-of-view that lets the road do the heavy lifting for me in the composition. I'm very interested in going back to draw that mill in the foreground, by the way.

A group of visitors from outside the country were very interested in my sketches. Likewise, I was interested in them as well. I only managed to get one sketch made of their group, an older couple. The others were simply moving around too fast for me to even get a "grab sketch" made of them!

Here I was, just playing around. I needed a break from the pen and made this simple watercolor sketch. I think this is some sort of well house.

Shoal Creek has a lot of interesting vantage points from which to draw and paint. It's quite rich in architectural subject matter and is situated in a very pleasant green location. Best of all, it's free! I'll be heading back again because these sketches only scratch the surface. 

House up the Road

This little yellow house is located just up the hill from the condo association where I live. Winter, summer I always enjoy seeing the house. It's cheerful yellow color can't help but bring a smile. Tulips are up in front of the house and dandelions are dotting the front lawn today. So this afternoon I made a quick hike up the hill and did this sketch. Beautiful afternoon to be out.

Rockford Railroad Bridge

This is a sketch of the old railroad bridge that allowed trains to cross the Rogue river on their way into Rockford, Michigan...another quarter mile down the track. The rails are long gone, replaced by the White Pine State Park rails-to-trails conversion which now crosses the bridge on its way north.
The trail passes about 1/8th of a mile from my house so we often walk the trail and I enjoy cycling on it.

Peppler Park

This is a sketch of a corner of downtown Rockford, Michigan where I live. The dam and surrounding walk ways are part of Peppler Park. The park is a popular place for families, walkers, cyclists, and eating ice cream.

The line of buildings sit next to what was the railroad track through town. The track, now turned White Pine Trail and state park, runs from Grand Rapids, Michigan north through Rockford and points north. The buildings are home to restaurants and, of course, ice cream shops.

Pumpkin Sale

My wife and I were in Newport, Rhode Island through the middle of this week. It was the second stop on a trip to the east coast that started with several days in Annapolis, Maryland for the in-water sail boat show. We went to Newport because we've been a couple of times before and really enjoy the town and its history.

This was done Tuesday this week while my wife was shopping. The sketch is of Trinity Church which over looks the Newport water front. Every year there is a pumpkin sale that goes on in the park in front of the church. Between the orange pumpkins and the church framed against a blue sky, the sight was more than eye catching.