Deno's Playland

The teepee was a quiet healing retreat in the maze of Dean Petrich's Playland home.

Deans Birthday party

Please see my blog for the story.  www.patbrookes.blogspot.com

Dean's Birthday Tour

 Beautiful Savanah!  Delightful girl ... we had fun coaxing her to pose for us.  She agreed to sit should we give her a piece of paper and a chance to do her own painting, which she did!  I wish I'd taken a picture, I could post it here.  We delighted in walking your grounds, poking around your house, sketching whatever spoke to us.

Enjoyed myself thoroughly.  Thank you, Dean!

And then, I came across Sunny napping on your picnic table ... I couldn't resist!!!

We felt so welcomed.  Thank you.

Dean's Birthday Tour

Happy art by children who are now adults. Secret tunnels, twirling pools, zip lines, towers and quiet sacred spaces. And pianos....so many of them. Imagine the stories all those pianos could tell. Oh, the magic of it all.

Happy Hour Hair

It was all about the hair at Happy Hour yesterday afternoon.

 

(I'm learning that I can't get a decent scan with the sketchbooks with big spiral spines. You can't close the lid all the way. Blue shadows.)

Doodles and Dreams at Dean's

I didn't get any creditable sketches yesterday for the usual reasons --  I try to draw things that don't hold still, like small children and dogs, and I get too distracted by people. But I spent some time this morning noodling and doodling on some of my failed sketch pages. Kinda fun. Kinda crazy. Funny how the subconscious works. Maybe the dream theme was influenced by all the beds I saw.

Thanks so much to Dean and Tammy for sharing your magical world with us.

Sunny dreams

Savannah: A girl with  a lollipop, lots of curls and a big imagination.

Savannah dreams

Sketching at Dean Petrich's family compound

I have always been drawn to small, sacred spaces. The Sun Circle above a lake where I pitched a tent in Michigan, the stone circle at the Earth Sanctuary, the Zendo at One Drop Monastery and yesterday, this tipi where our hostess, Tammy, meditates daily and follows her own personal search for comfort and answers. I must find God in them. I know I always feel safe in them.

Froggwell

This sketch is from our day at the annual Art Forgers show at Froggwell.  I had fun sitting up on the hill in the shade making this sketch. Froggwell always seems to be romantic and dream-like.  I think this captures that quality.

Froggwell Art Forgers show

TONKAS, OTTERS, EAGLES AND GULLS

A breezy and chilly day in the sunshine down at the little public park at the Clinton Ferry dock. It was bracing, but the warming sun, as promised in the forecast, did come out and the day proved, in the end, rather lovely. So there is this large pile of sand, full of old Tonka trucks for the kids to play with, which overlooks the driftwood, the beach, Saratoga Passage on the Salish Sea, Camano Island, and (if the clouds part) the Cascades and Mt. Baker. There is also this magnificent Georgia Gerber bronze sculpture of a mama otter and her cub, who (I assume) is taking a break from playing with her truck to grab a little reassuring hug from mom that the eagles and gulls won't carry her off. 

IMAGINING PAT'S LANDSCAPING

So, Pat invited us over to her brand spanking new house in the Highlands in Langley to "sketch in new landscaping" for her. we have to imagine lush, green and verdant Pacific Northwest garden growth while staring at sand piles, dirt, rocks, wires, garden hoses, tools and trucks. Well, alrighty then. Here we go . . .