Some Recent Sketches

For the past few months I have participated in an online sketching group called Everday Matters, and have made an effort to draw their weekly challenges. I'm never, ever caught up. Of course they started a couple years before I joined, and I face an apparently impossible self-assigned job of drawing every challenge. That isn't the point of the group, I know. The point is to draw as often as possible and to realize that ordinary objects in our everyday lives are worthy of being sketched.


I have a tendancy not to draw from life. Readers here already have seen my whining about being nervous when people watch me draw. Heavens, I admire other people's loose and breezy travel watercolors! Some day I'll be able to do them myself, but not yet. The first two pictures here are of the sketchbook work I did on our Thanksgiving week in Jamaica. It worked out well for me, because I was able to draw some things from the privacy of our room, with its balcony and comfortable chairs. At the beach I had to work fast, but so many people were reading or asleep that they were unaware of me with my sketchbook. My new Moleskine probably could have just as easily been a diary, I suppose. I gave up trying to do watercolor sketches on this trip for a couple reasons. First, it involves hauling the materials around, even though I have a very small case with a tiny set that works fairly well. But the kit itself draws attention, and the other reason is I don't really want a crinkly warped page in my sketch journal. So, I've been concentrating on pen and ink or pencil.


The drawing of the tree was rendered from a photo I took up in Door County. I photographed this tree with its wonderful horizontal branches and textured bark at The Ridges environmental sanctuary. Lately I have been combining colored pencil with my graphite work, and I'm liking the combination. In fact some of my favorite artwork has been done in this very small format. Part of me like a little book of detailed drawings like this, and part of me knows if I'm going to do detailed work I should probably do it bigger.

Thanksgiving at the Beach

I haven't posted here in a while because we decided to spend Thanksgiving away from home. Our parents are all gone and we have no children, so we booked a flight to Jamaica. We've been there before, but in the past our schedule was tied to my teaching. This time we were able to escape the most crowded days, and get off season prices.


We like the Grand Lido Braco resort. The last time we were there was in 2000, and we had nothing but happy memories of clean and pleasant rooms, friendly staff, delicious food and drink, and the beautiful blue Carribean. My husband loves to bake on the beach, and I like to find some shade and read and draw. At first I thought we had made a mistake returning on the off season. Monday through Wednesday were rainy and windy, making eating, drinking and playing Scrabble our most frequent passtimes. I did work out and get a manicure, but the wind on the beach made lounging there unappealing. To add to our displeasure, our room leaked. Water ran down the shaft of the fan, showering out on our bed. Water ran down the walls pooling on the tiled floors, making walking trecherous.


The resort had no control over the weather, but we hoped we'd get better accommodations. Sure enough, we were moved to a nicer room, perfectly dry. The same day the wind died down and the sun began to shine. We were able to swim and work on our tans, and we were thankful for the last little bit of warmth and sunshine before we had to return to wintery Wisconsin.