My sketchbooks are a place of pure play for me. Sketching is a way to experience where I am, a way of relating to where I live, what I’m doing, and where I’m going. With a sketchbook available, I always have entertainment – sketching people while waiting in line at Costco or the back of a pickup truck when stuck in traffic.

My sketchbox has traveled to Japan, Central America and Europe, and I can look at these and I’m immediately drawn back to what it was like to be there. I can remember exactly what was going on around me, even though it was years ago.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

March sun on the Olympic Mountains!

Spring IS coming. As we say in the Northwest "The mountains are out today!"


This little Navajo chicken I found
in Tucson is waiting for spring too.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Sketches from Whidbey Island

The birdfeeder in our neighbor's yard is what
I look out at when sitting at my computer.

From North Whidbey, looking toward Mt Erie
on the left and across to the La Conner area.

Deception Pass bridge on the north tip of Whidbey.

One of my favorite places on the Island is Crockett Lake
near the Port Townsend Ferry. It changes constantly
with the light and the seasons, and is filled with a wide
variety of birds.

Greenbank Cellars Vinyard in the fall.

Greenbank Farms , many many great walking paths.

Chochokum is Langley's summer Arts Fair.
This was the view from Whidbey Island Fine
Art Studio's booth, a center of demonstrating
artists and much fun.

Lucy is a landmark at the Recycling Center
near Freeland.
Music for the Eyes in Langley. I sipped
hot mint tea as I sketched, surrounded
by rugs and fabrics of every color
from all over the world.
Bayview Corner is the home of our
summer Farmer's Market. Definitely worth
a visit if you are on the Island!
High tide at Deer Lagoon
Barns at Hedgbrook, a creative retreat for
women writers.

Summer dahlias in our front yard.
Scarlet runners in our backyard.


Oaxaca cricket on my desk.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Day trips from our house

Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo is fun in any weather. Almost...
The Primate House is always entertaining!
Colorful Kyaks, and a crow, on the Port Townsend
waterfront. This from one of our sketcher's trips!
Point Wilson lighthouse, Port Townsend.
The new ferry, Chetzemoka, makes this a relaxing
and scenic trip.
Looking toward the Cascades from the PT waterfront
Happy Hour at the Brick in Roslyn!
It is often more winter, and...summer on the
other side of the mountains. I sketched this from
the window of our friends' house in Roslyn.
December.
In motion, driving up Snoqualmie Pass.
Tulips near La Conner. This is an old sketch,
I hope it dries out soon for the crop of flowers this
spring!
Early morning looking west from Orcas Island.
From a sketcher's trip to Guemes Island.

Valentine's Day color in the Keystone
Center in Anacortes. With the
Anacortes Sketchers!

More rainy March sketchbook revisits....


By the pool in Cabo...
Picking bananas right from the tree in Alamos, Mexico

Cabo Bello view, Cabo san Lucas
Morning in San Carlo, Mexico
Superstition Mountain, Arizona
Sketch at the Grand Canyon
Closer to home, a view from our tent
camping at Second Beach, WA
Another tent view, Lyon's Ferry in the Palouse, WA
Elk River Falls, Idaho
Sketched on rice paper, not so close to home, on a visit to son Jake.
Tokyo, Himonia Park
Definitely not in any logical order,
a ginko tree and one of many
churches in Brooklyn.
I had a fabulous pastry while
sketching this. It was June, hot!
Coffee under the colorful umbrellas.
The Brooklyn Library is at the edge of
Prospect Park in Brooklyn.
Dupont Circle, DC. from a visit to son Sam while
he studied at SAIS.
Several years ago we went with friends
to see the John Singer Sargent show in
Boston. This is an early morning view
from Cape Ann, MA.
A painting trip with Stellar Arts took
us to Tsaravets Hill, the main fortress of the medieval
Bulgarian capital, Veliko Tarnova.
This hill was inhabited as early as the
2nd millenium BC. Many old stone
walls, layers and layers of history.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

In honor of so many



The Eternal Flame
Hiroshima, Japan
From a visit in 2000.

Sketches from where the Sun Shines


What is so marvelous about sketches is their
ability to take us back to where they were done,
even tho it can be years. We stayed in a
little cottage on Kauai six or seven years ago, surrounded by plants
rescued from the local dump! They were lush and
thriving and rich with color! I could go there now..
this record rainy March.....
Yes, and Ke e Beach!
Seven Pools on Maui, just past Hanna.
We will have colors like this here soon,
when the rhodies bloom.....

This was the early morning view from our house
in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. A mixture
of sounds came with the light, church bells,
roosters crowing, dogs barking and often fireworks.
Colorful doorways everywhere in San Miguel.


Some of our best trips have come from visiting my 2 sons
in their adventurous  travels.
While Sam  was in the Peace Corps in Guatemala,
we spent some time in Antigua.
 Each morning we   took our coffee and
sketch boxes to the rooftop of the hotel. This is
the volcano Agua. Somehow it is more impressive
in my sketch than in the photos we took.

The next morning we painted this direction,
Volcanos Fuego and Acantenango.

And then we painted this way.
This takes me back to sitting under
the Arch of Santa Catalina in Antigua,
waiting for yes, Frida's to open, so we
could go in and have a late afternoon beer.

One of the old convents in Antigua had been converted
to an elegant hotel. The courtyard was filled with scarlet
Macaws. Someone came in the evening with a long pole
and each bird climbed onto it and was carried in for the night.

Ambergris Caye, Belize. I could definitely go
back here now..
From the ruins of Iglesia y Convento de la Recoleccion
near Antigua, Guatemala, destroyed by an earthquake in 1773.