Haunted Girl's Room

Our current teacher for our online klassroom is very inspiring!  Mattias Adolfsson is an amazing illustrator and one of this week's assignments is to draw our memory of our first day at school as a child.  Well, my mind drew a blank for that day, though I remember the emotional memory quite well.  Instead, I drew the memory of a situation in second grade, I think, when I was just sure the girl's restroom in our elementary school was haunted.  The idea spread like wildfire, and little girls being what they are, before long we were unable to visit the room alone.  When we did (in groups), there was much screaming and racing back to the classroom.  Soon other classes had the "haunted restroom" bug going on.  It took the principal himself to step in and put an end to such nonsense.

Ghost Door

Recently a band of merry Sketchbook Skool classmates who discovered they all happened to live within a few hour's drive from one another, decided to descend upon Port Townsend and get to know one another.  And sketch the town.  We all arrived from our various points on the compass, had coffee at 10:30 AM at Better Living Through Coffee, and scattered to pick our fave subject.  Linda Tennant, Diana Jackson and I found a good area we settled into.

This is a view from the parking lot where The Upstage used to be, a wonderful venue that had many fabulous entertainers come and perform while folks dined on great food.  So sorry I never got to see Maria Muldaur perform there before they shut their doors.  Now it looks like a ghost town, other than the bicycle shop still in the complex. Off to the right was also the back door to The Undertown, one of our fave hangouts, sketches of which I've posted on this blog.  Also closed now.  

Rocky's Theatre

Jim and I attended the 2014 Port Townsend Film Festival last weekend, Jim as a volunteer photographer, and me as a tag along sketcher. The heart of the events centered around the Rose Theatre on Taylor, one of our most fave places to hang out. Rocky Freidman, the owner, happened to be sitting out front in the sun, enjoying the crowds, when I spotted him. How often does one get a chance like that, to sketch Rocky with his venue as a backdrop? He glanced over at me now and again, and then got up, disappointingly, and walked away down the street. Oh, well, no matter, I worked on the building facade a little. Suddenly, there he was, squatting down on my right, exclaiming, "Oh, my God! That's me!" He was excited, even though it didn't look like anything but chicken scratches at that moment. He flipped through the other pages of my Moleskine, and decided he would pay me whatever I wanted for that drawing, when I was done. I told him I couldn't tear it out, but would make him a print. He grinned, and I said, "My husband and I have had so many good memories at your theatre. I couldn't charge you, it's my gift to you." Well, it's done.

Papa's Handkerchief

I have been reflecting on my father, my relationship with him when I was a young woman (he died in 1977), and wondering how to honor him with my current work. The only things I have of his are this handkerchief, and a navigator's pin (?) he wore during WWII, when he was stationed on an aircraft carrier. 

My mother had done her best to raise me to be a good housewife in the '60s, so I was in charge of ironing and pressing all of my dad's shirts and his endless stack of freshly laundered hankies when I was ten or eleven. I felt so abused at the time, thought that was my mom's job, not mine. Funny the way an old, threadbare hankie can bring back such vivid memories.

Fat Cat Lavender Farm

This was my result from the other day Judi and her friends and I sketched in the Sequim valley.  The ducks kept passing back and forth, giving us a sideways glance, wondering what the heck we were doing.  Maybe they'd never seen a sketcher before, and I had never seen a duck with a pompadour.  They were Peking and Mallard mix, and the one white one had a white puff ball of feathers on it's head (sorry, I added it after I scanned this image).  Strange, alien bird!  Judi had started quacking at them, and they each tilted their heads, like dogs, to listen.  After awhile, when I was done with the swing, Vicki came and sat in it.  I wish she'd done so earlier, as it would've been great to sketch a seated figure in the chair!  

When I sat to begin sketching, I decided that no matter what I did, that ancient, twisted, writhing apple tree had to be pivotal for the scene!  Judi is the silhouette under the tree.

This sketch was done with Daniel Smith watercolors in a travel palette, Staedtler black Pigment Liners, with a touch of Derwent Inktense watersoluble colored pencil details, on a watercolor Moleskine.  And some sweat.  

Railroad Bridge Park Outing

A dear new friend and fellow Sketchbook Skool student, Judi Nyerges, spent some time with her fellow painter friends here in Sequim, last weekend.  They popped over from Whidbey Island, and stayed at the John Wayne Marina for a few days, a particularly gorgeous spot on Sequim Bay.  They were SO gracious as to invite me a couple of those days to hang out with them, all of us putting on to paper (or canvas) our impressions of some of the scenery this area offers.  It takes out-of-town artists, sometimes, for me to really see the place Jim and I call home! 

This is an hour's worth of my efforts of Dungeness River (well, not counting the time I worked on it at home), at Railroad Bridge Park.

Thank you Judi, Vicki and Chris, for a wonderful weekend!

Not With Hands

The more I play with this wonderful kraft paper (stonehenge), the more I am in love with it.  Such a far cry from the paper bag material we used to wrap postal packages in, back when I was a kid!  I can even watercolor on this, though it does wrinkle a little bit.

This is another homework assignment for Liz Steel's klass in the second semester of Sketchbook Skool.  An object around the house that has meaning.  Most of the students were sketching and painting family heirloom china teacups, but as the ones my mom had disappeared decades ago before I could even inherit one, I used my stoneware sculpture.  This is titled "Not With Hands", as there is no door handle.   She is one of the few sculptures I hadn't sold in the mid-'90s, and is precious to me as a result.  She's become one of the family, now, and stands on the island in our kitchen, all 20 inches of her.

The sketch is done with watercolor, with some white gouache as an "opaquing" agent, mixed in.  Details were done with a Staedtler Pigment liner (black), and Inktense Watersoluble pencils.