In-progress Sketch and Art Pedestals You Make Yourself!

Also: I just read a great post about constructing your own art pedestals out of cardboard, for not a lot of money! This was a great find on the web, and I am contemplating building my own to display sketchbooks at the next open studios in Lowell.

Luggage

Trip to Monhegan

These images are all from a recent trip to Monhegan Island in Maine. It was a great chance to do some outdoor painting, and try to improve on my efforts from last year.

This view is from Horn Hill, a beautiful site
looking down at the town and water.
Most of the houses and inns on the island are half
clapboard, half gray-shingled, and dot the
landscape in all directions.

Monhegan is powered entirely by propane
fuel, the tanks are one of the iconic scenes
of the island. As are the Adirondack chairs.

Two watercolor sketches -- this one of a yard with
bags of carob shell mulch: a great smelling
alternative to bark mulch and used everywhere on
the island.

The second is of two pine trees
on Horn Hill,  the most common
tree next to fruit trees on the island.

This is an experimental sketch of shale and desert-
like rocks on Lighthouse Hill. The scrubby plants
and hard backed beetles nearby made it seem like
a barren, hard place, so different from other lush
parts of the island.

Watercolor sketches

 Here are two watercolor portrait sketches I recently did, with subjects suggested by others. I like working off of someone else’s ideas at times; it can be energizing and I get the experience of discovering something new.

Obsession -- Illustration Friday

This week is a breakthrough for me. I got to a solution without relying on my usual ideas. I
hope to do more this way.