Paper and Threads

One of my sons and his wife just bought an East Capitol Hill row house and this weekend all 4 parents joined them for a marathon painting session.  Although I travel to Washington DC on business at least yearly, I wasn't familiar with these charming rowhouses and immediately wanted to do a quick sketch.  I did take a break from taping walls Saturday afternoon and here is both my sketch and a photo of me sketching while sitting on a brick ledge (ouch!) which my son took from an upstairs window.  This sketch was done in my 5 1/2 by 8 1/2" sketchbook so I don't have many  architectural details.  However, I did more sketches of individual details over the rest of the weekend - and hope to do many more sketches when they finally move in.

Posted by Shirley at 2:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

I have sketched several computers in the last few months, so I added two of the old images to the new sketch that I did for the EDM challenge.   All of the images can be enlarged further by clicking on them.

Computer 1: I use this old laptop on the desk because my husband and I spend alot of time in the library and I have the most extensive collection of bookmarks on this list of favorites.  It has never been used on battery and rarely removed from the library. 

Computer 2: I spent many hours preparing a course exam, both at home and in my office - carrying the textfiles between sites with my trusty flash drive.  This sketch of the keyboard and flash drive was done during lunch.

Computer 3: We just got a new laptop which is much better prepared for travel to London and back.  A camera has been added so hopefully we will be able to communicate with our family and actually see the children daily!  My husband was unpacking it when I did this sketch.

Posted by Shirley at 3:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I'm still completing one sketch per day (usually pen with watercolor wash) in 2006.  This week the sketches all were inspired by my two oldest grandchildren (ages 2 1/2 and 16 months) as they prepared to move to London for at least one year.  Last night I did this sketch as they were boarding their overnight flight, and at 5AM I got up to check for their email that they "landed and were leaving the airport" to go to their new home. 

October in London is a month-long celebration of drawing at multiple venues and I will definitely be there to enjoy it!  

Posted by Shirley at 8:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Danny Gregory organized a sketchcrawl at the Rubin Museum of Art in February 2006 and I have several journal pages with some design elements that I sketched from the paintings.  I have one drawing of a beautiful stylized fish - that was my favorite image.  For some reason the scan  looks fuzzy after I changed the size!

Last Saturday I saw a very small exhibit at FIT (The Fashion Institute of Technology) in New York City which was entitled The Power of Paint.  I loved the transformation of all of the images and objects in the exhibit by adding color and wanted to use brighter colors on my fish to remember the transformation that is possible.

Posted by Shirley at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I was very fortunate and absolutely delighted that I was able to spend Mother's Day with my three children, their spouses, and my 3 grandchildren.  My 87 year old mother Margaret lives in Texas so we had a celebratory phone call, but no visit.  I decided to honor my maternal lineage for this challenge: my mother Margaret, her mother Bernadine, her mother Margaret, and Margaret's mother Mary.  Mary was born in East Flanders in the early 1800s and immigrated to the United States with her parents in 1854 as a young married woman.   The letter "M" was inspired by a Dover publication entitled Alphabets and Ornaments. 

Posted by Shirley at 7:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)