Aaaand, from our October Sketchcrawl..

I forgot to post these!  We were at the City Market, in Kansas City...fun, if small, crawl!

The Spirit of Urban Sketching

This is from Gabi Campanario's blog--Gabi is sort of the founder of our Urban Sketching concept. I thought it was a good clarification, if such is needed.

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Thursday, March 14, 2013

The spirit of urban sketching

The way I see it, being an urban sketcher isn't merely about drawing cities, big or small, urban or rural, with a pen or with your fingers on an digital tablet. It's about drawing places that can be put on a map, and everything that happens in those places. It's about showing the world with drawings, taking people to locations they may never go through artwork only you can create. You were there, you saw it, you sketched it, you told us what happened with your hand drawn art, sketched in the moment but perhaps touched up later because you ran out of time or can't resist the urge to fix something up. What matters is that you "draw what you witness," as my fellow sketchers in Indonesia like to say.

Those beautiful vases of flowers or the bowls of fruit on your kitchen table are sure great subjects to draw, but do they tell me something about a place I can put on a map? There are countless of beautiful sketching subjects to be drawn from observation that don't quite fit the spirit of urban sketching: an out-of-context portrait of my friend or her cat or her baby or her baby's shoes, for example.

But there's no point in making lists to define what urban sketching is or is not. You know what it is already, you've probably been an urban sketcher for a long time!

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Whoops, KC area sketchcrawl!

UPDATE:  We'll try the River Market, and meet in front of Steamboat Arabia, how's that??

Thanks Holly!

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Holly wrote to tell me the KC Marathon starts at Crown Center, and there will be 10,000-15,000 spectators in the area.  NOT good.  We're scrambling to come up with a fall-back plan, and I'll let you know as soon as possible!

Sorry!!

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.

October Sketchcrawl for KC area sketchers

HI all--thanks to Susan for the reminder, we're planning our sketchcrawl for next Saturday, the 18th, in the lobby of the Crown Center Hotel, at 12:30--I need to paint/sketch the waterfall, and there's a lot there to do!  I've sketched The Streetcar Named Desire before, and there's always lots of good people sketching.

Hope to see you!

Fall Creeps into Montague

Yesterday was my day to work at the White River Gallery in Montague, Michigan. The gallery is located kitty corner across the lake from where our boat spends its summers. This is the view down the street from the gallery yesterday afternoon. The sun managed an appearance. It was cloudy most of the day. And the fall colors are creeping into the trees.

We pulled our boat for the winter last Friday and it is amazing how much the trees have changed in just a week. Where it was green last weekend, almost overnight, green has been replaced with reds and yellows.

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