Sketch

I never got a chance to post this week's sketch from my Wednesday sketch outing....we went to the new Queen City Cupcake Shop.  This little shop has a lot going on including some interesting items to purchase that make this shop an interesting place to hang out and sketch.  I liked the sentiment of this sign so it was an easy choice for sketching.  We only had an hour, so in between chatting with the folks of Queen City Cupcakes, I managed to pop this one out.

Head on over, the place has a great atmosphere and some seriously amazing cupcakes...my 16 year old daughter loves the whoopie pies.

My final part of my Paint Annapolis Report

The bottom painting is from day 3 which was Saturday, Dueling Brushes Day.  I woke up feeling under the weather and to make matters worse, it was cold and damp.  There is an Italian restaurant down by the dock that has this awesome balcony that I want to paint every time I am down there.  I started to sketch out the entire building, then scrapped it because what I liked was the balcony so I should paint what I like, right?

I enjoyed doing that painting so much I "forgot" about not feeling well.    But I was sooo cold.  I couldn't warm up after that.

Saturday night, John and I popped the paintings into frames, then we lined them up and with Steve Rum's assistance, we picked the two for the main gallery and the four extra paintings to sell.  It was tough, we kept going back and forth and I almost changed my mind at the last minute when we got there on Sunday.

The Exhibition was fun.  Lots of great paintings and great prize winners.  Overall, it was a totally amazing experience and I felt honored to be a part of it all, and best of all, I made a lot more friends.

Paint Annapolis Report Part 2

Friday morning had a little bit of sunrise to it so I went out by the water and painted this...by the time I got there the sun was a little higher in the sky and the rays of the sun were coming down, almost like something out of the movie "The Ten Commandments.  When I finished, I was going to move to another location, when I looked to the right I saw this scene below

With all these little sailboats.  As I started the painting and getting my sky going, there were people coming out to get the sailboats....so what started to be a painting of a lot of little sailboats, turned out to be three by the time I got to them.  They were all that was left...I could have painted more in, but I thought the story would be more fun told in the way I painted it.

After these two paintings, I took a break and in the afternoon.  While my husband away golfing, I painted this sailboat.  I am not a boat painter, but I enjoyed the different challenges and had fun painting them.  That evening, when we got back to the Rums house, I also did a little night time study with sailboats on the water.  I'll leave that one to my private collection, LOL.  More on Annapolis to come...

Paint Annapolis Report

John and I arrived in Annapolis late Wednesday afternoon.   We had to stop at the Maryland Hall for the Arts to check in.  One of the first people we ran into was David Diaz, it's always good to see David and the banter that goes back and forth between my husband and I, and David. We always have some good laughs.  I've known David for a long time and he's always cheerful and funny.  David stamped my boards so they had the official mark of Paint Annapolis 2011.

They were serving wine and tidbits for us, the memorable wine of that afternoon is a wonderful red called The Culprit.  We tried to find that wine in between painting that weekend and had no luck but it's on our "grail" list of wines.

We scouted locations and met with our host family, Carol and Steve Rum, who my husband, for some reason, kept calling Steve "Jim."  (John has Star Trek on the brain.)  We had dinner with the Rums that evening and packed it in for the night.

Thursday, we ventured out and I was looking for a nice landscape to warm up the weekend with.  It's nice to use something that you know well and puts you on auto pilot for painting.    The painting above is that painting and is the one I eventually gave the Rums, thanking them for opening up their home to us.

After that nice warm up, I moved on to a little Flower Shop.  This one took a lot of time and I was exhausted and hungry by the time I was done.

After lunch and taking a break we moved on another landscape.  I was trying out this new pastel board and I used it to paint masts.   I am fascinated by the Annapolis skyline and all the sailboats.  So I felt a painting of mast were in order.  This painting is hard to see, I didn't get a chance to take a photo of it out of the frame.  (Top one below.)

The last painting of the day, my husband and I sat by the water to relax.  It was getting breezy and chilly but the sky and clouds looked awesome, I had to paint them.  This is my personal favorite of the day and it has a little story behind it...when I painted this one, it was near waterfront condos in Eastport and a woman was walking a Chihuahua.  Of course we fawned over it because we have two of our own.  A little while later, as I was painting, I heard the girl shout as the Chihuahua took off like a shot.  My husband went to help while I finished the painting.  They didn't find her so I packed up and went off to help.    It turns out that little Chihuahua bolted blocks away.  Someone found her, she almost got hit by a car.  We were looking around her neighborhood when someone told us where she was...the night ended with a happy ending, anyway, and here is that little painting....

More to come about my weekend in Annapolis.....

New Sketchbook

Yesterday I posted that I completed another sketchbook.  This evening I started another one in a totally different format than before.  It's a small square book.  This photo isn't clear but this is the first page...

In the next day or so I will be uploading my Paint Annapolis paintings...

'Til then....

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

Today is a sad for those of us that love Apple.  Steve Jobs has passed on.  Tonight, I was out sketching in, of all places, the local cemetery.  This sketch isn't finished.  I still had more work to do but I lost the light and decided to call it a night.  It's a quirky sketch, the tree was very fascinating and was very appropriate for a cemetery... My husband was home for only a few minutes before he had to go out and I wanted to spend those last few minutes with him. I figured I'd finish it when I got home... At this point, it's more symbolic to leave this one unfinished.....

Today, I had read a passage in a book I was reading about a woman who wrote a few pages in her sketchbook after her husband passed away.  I sketched in a cemetery...and an or so later, the news of Steve Jobs became public.

Facebook is flooded with folks and their musings about this genius of a man.  He never let anything deter him from his dreams, he just picked up his boot straps and got moving, even when the chips seemed down.  I always admired him.

I listened to his 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech.   He talks about our journey toward death.  Upon getting up in the morning, if you ask yourself if this was the last day of your life, is this how you would want to live it and you if say "No," it's time to change that.

 It's never too late to live your dream.   Stay hungry, stay foolish, my friends.