Sunday sketching & Cloudstone

It was a warm day at Cloudstone, but it was so relaxing to wander through the trees and visit the many earthworks and sculptures set in the Trees.  My sketch was done in the shade of a bulldozer.

This Sunday was another one of those special days where you want to "just be out there enjoying the day".  I started to drive somewhere and got around the corner from my home and decided heck, the Dahlia house looked like a good subject.  Crazy perspective on the back of the bench but ....eh!

Sue and Case

I did this one from a photo after I got back home. This is our warm-hearted Sue walking with one of the little ladies that she checks in on regularly. Her visits clearly mean so much to so many. Thank you Sue for being who you are.

Sketching Weekend

It's kinda cool when I look at my sketchbooks and think of all of you.....who I was sitting with, the wonderful sharing and connection. I miss you all! It was GREAT weekend visiting Whidbey Island!

Madrona colors

Thanks to Missy for a shared blop of Transparent Pyrol Orange and to Sandra for a shared blop of Lapis Lazuli. We also found some new pencils with 3 colors in the lead, but they weren't water soluble. 

But the cold day made my Anacortes madrona grove story more haphazard than Sue's -  fresh wet colors in my paint box and no testing before it touched the page. I was balancing all my gear and dancing around on a hill to stay warm, then oops, touched the wrong blue and I had "midnight in the grove."

Madronas on a Cloudy Day

A few of us sketched with the Anacortes Sketchers at the Madrona Grove in Anacortes last Monday. It was an overcast day, chilly, breezy, no shadows, no sunny back lighting.

Very different than last year's sketch at the same location:

Poetry (and Hula Hoops) in Motion

She was hula hoop dancing for tips on a sunny Saturday afternoon in Port Townsend, right next to the tarot card reader in the gypsy wagon. Drawing her was impossible, but what the hell. Her name is Alex Eisenberg.

ASIATIC LILIES AND LAVENDER AT FINE GELFAND'S HOUSE

It may have been Friday the 13th, but we, the Whidbey Island Sketchers, were having very GOOD luck, because we got to visit Fine and Jerry Gelfand's home in Greenbank. Set on high bank with a majestic overlook of Puget Sound in the Salish Sea, textile artist Fine has crafted a fantasy, secret sunken garden reached only by a meandering brick path down, down through lush vegetation and colorful flowers. At the bottom it all surrounds a glade, in the center of which stands an ancient Island boulder of epic proportions. Fine discovered on the hill, dug down to its base, then had it pushed with dozers down to its present location. 
From an artist/gardener's visionary eye and a tremendous amount of hard work the Gelfands carved all of this magic from the tangle of blackberry bushes they inherited with the purchase of the land.

Pat's Garden, Then and Now

in August of 2015, the sketchers met to draw member Pat's new house, with its promise of gardens to come. She invited us to image what her plantings might look like. Now here it is, three years later, just before the fourth of July holiday, and her garden area has gone from sparse but full of potential, to bursting with colorful fulfillment.