Relearning Windows to Joy

Sketch by our newest member, Amy Hauser, at Community Thrift Store. Welcome, Amy! We love your energy.

Just $385

For just $385, you too can go back in time, risking life and limb and have this fantastic washer that might have cost $50 or $100 in the Fifties.  Does anyone have any idea what these used to cost?  Anyhow, the Community Thrift has this beauty and I wonder who kept it so nice for all these years.

The shadow is a Rocking chair!
Leave it to me to find a picture within a picture.

Sketchers' Tête-à-tête

I just liked the shapes and the feeling created by this huddle of two sketchers and tried to capture it as quickly as possible. Can you tell who they are?

Senior Thrift

Phyllis and I found the same spot.....Second childhood?

Senior Thrift, Oh Boy!

As Sue said, I just love to sketch stuff! And The Senior Thrift Store was so full of wonderful stuff to sketch I could hardly settle down, but then I became captivated by the toy section and had a wonderful time. The visit to The Roaming Radish was not only fun, but I also took home a delicious dinner of penne pasta and roasted carrots. It was a yummy day all the way around.

From Community Thrift to Tapas

What an afternoon in Freeland.  First to sketch at Community Thrift and then to Happy Hour at The Roaming Radish where we enjoyed the tastiest of tapas with local wine.  Fantastic combination!

Sketched the massive clothing and shoe racks at Community Thrift from above on the second floor.

Ms Cynthia - sketched at The Roaming Radish
 

Sherryl especially loved Community Thrift's artificial cactus.

 

Artist at Work

Phyllis paints a goofy get well owl for a friend

Blue Bouquet for a Gray Day

Whew!  Well we're not frigid cold like the Northeast, but we have been having a string of gray, dark Pacific Northwest winter days.  Yesterday I just had to paint.  I needed to concentrate on color... flowers.  So here is my bouquet for a gray day in hopes that Spring comes early to the Northwest.

Buddy Art, Part Deux

And here are the Buddy Art collaborations that ended up in my sketchbooks.  Participating Buddy Artists: Judith, Sherryl, Cynthia, Sue, Amy, Barb and the Gnat.

Buddy Art

We started with Dr. Ph. Martin's watercolor and passed the sketchbooks around the group. Everyone adds to the image. No one knows how it will turn out. They are so free, fun and fabulous!

Sketching at Sherryl's

Marmalade was basking in the heat of the fireplace. I was trying out Sherryl's green ink. Marmie is 19 years old. I think these may be his last two lives.

Marmalade x 2

Barb, on the other hand, appears to have many lives yet to go. She reinvents herself and changes her course regularly and with panache.

Barb working on buddy art

Midway Cafe

We sketched at Midway Cafe in Freeland for the first time. Nice sketcher-friendly venue with tasty food, pleasant ambiance and lots of room for us to spread out. I experimented a little with trying to keep it simple and using cheap paper so that I'm less invested in the results. The sketch seemed too boring so I tried to punch it up a little with some patterns, lines and crosshatching. Attempting to channel Faye a bit, but clearly I need to think more about where to put my hatching marks. This guy looks like he's eating his sandwich while encased in chicken wire.

Midway Cafe Lunch Crowd

Mosquito Fleet and Toby's

Mike draws the Coupeville Dock  from inside Mosquito Fleet Chili

 Look here to see his final sketch. It's incredible.

People in the next booth at Toby's

The guy on the left looks a little fakey because I had to make up his face in order to finish the sketch.  He seemed a little cranky about being sketched.

Blooms Taste for Wine..and Whidbey Telecom

Sketchy sketch of the Sketchers at Whidbey Telecom.

Bright sunshine coming in, cold staying out!

Cute little Chef at Blooms Tasting Room 

at Bayview Corner. Warm welcoming

place on a cold dark evening. Great wines!

Sue in color! Fortunately my last..... relaxed sketch

for the evening. 

                                                                                                     

Western Sketchin'

Just spent a few days in Arizona and enjoyed sketching a bit of the Old West local flavor!

My Butterfly

I received some very sad news this week.  So, all I could do at sketchers' on Friday was rework a butterfly I did months ago by adding more lines around the butterfly.   Thank goodness there are no rules with the Whidbey Island Sketchers....and this group feeds my soul.  There is something about putting yourself (my artwork) out there that makes me feel grateful to find within myself a simple kind of courage.    Mary Lawson

In loving memory of Christopher Scott Hobbs

Bloom's Taste for Wine

After a coupe of hours at the WiFire Coffee Bar a few sketchers had a taste for wine and headed for Bloom's Taste For Wine tasting room. We enjoyed the Whidbey Blend with an antipasti plate.

Faye sketches at Taste for Wine

Lookin' out the window at Bloom's

WHIDBEY ANIMAL STAR QUICKIES

Away from my painting studio for a week of hypnotherapy training, racing out the door for a 6 a.m. boat, I quickly grabbed old tubes of acrylic paints, brushes, and a pad.  An odd assortment of colors and lacking important ones, this is what I have to work with.  I decided to "debrief" after intense hypnotherapy sessions by doing fun "quickies" ... studies for my oil paintings of some of the Whidbey Animal Stars.  So fun to paint with the wrong colors, an unfamiliar medium, on cheap paper, in a loose carefree spontaneous style.  Nothing serious about it!  Thought I'd share it with the Sketchers as I missed sketching with them today.  The first, "Snickers" is half painting/half sketching.  The other two, "Wendy" the kitty and "Boofie in Snow" are acrylic Quikkie paintings.  A million thanks to the owners of the Whidbey Animal Star models.

LILA THE CONCIERGE

Sketching today with the WISkers at Whidbey Telephone, at the WiFire Cafe.

A fine day at the WiFire Cafe in Freeland, with new friends Amy and Kelly, and old friends Mary, Sherryl, Sue, Susan, Mike, Faye and Julie. And Lila, who didn't KNOW she'd worn a turquoise top today!

Coupeville via Island Transit

Life Drawing

I've begun going to Monday night Life Drawing. We had a wonderful red-haired model this week. I did all these in pen and watercolor on card stock. I also did more finished 20-minute drawings on watercolor paper, but I like these 2-minute warmups the best. Extra time is generally not my friend.

This is my favorite of the longer poses, but it was also done on card stock. I loved discovering the wonderful colors in the light and shadows on the model's skin.

Dreaming in color. And polka dots?

Loosening Up

My sketching has gotten so tight lately, so serious, so proper, so "in the lines".  This week I'm working on loosening up.  A lot.  Quick, loose sketching ending with some spatter and splash that several Whidbey Island Sketchers are doing these days.  Whew!  I feel better already.

Travel Sketches and Home

  Our family was fortunate to gather for Christmas in the land of sun! 

First Arizona then Texas. I packed a purse sized 3 3/4 x 8" sketchbook,

  small watercolor set and found time where I could. Five grandchildren

under age 5. Fun, chaos, and sporadic sketching! Good Memories!

                                                       
                                                         Then on to Texas!

More quick! sketching at Galviston Bay State Park.

Gray but warm day...kids played in the water and got

covered in Gulf sand!

            Our next trek was from Houston to Texas Hill Country and exploring Fredricksburg.

                                                 Side street in Fredricksburg

On our last afternoon in the Hill Country we hiked up Enchanted Rock, a huge pink granite rock

now a State Natural Preserve. it is gigantic!  This sketch was from an outcropping near the top.

Amazing place!

         And back on Whidbey!  This was looking across Penn Cove with our fun filled sketcher friends                  
          from Mosquite Flee in Coupeville.  Home!