teresa painting, christmas 2009

This has been a season of peaceful holidays, spent painting! It's been years since I had this freedom.

On Christmas Day my friend of many decades gifted me with her presence and suggested a portrait party. We set a limit of 20 minutes but failed to set a timer, I think it was 30! This sketch is in acrylic on canvas, 8 x 8 inches.

Bardens' garden

Here are a couple small plein air oil sketches from yesterday's "Secret Gardens of Lake Forest Park" tour! Many thanks to Carolyn and Chuff Barden for inviting Frances and me to paint in their garden! The upper image was painted on gold-gessoed hardboard, 8" x 8". The lower one is painted over a red acrylic base on canvasboard, 12" x 12".

So -- here are a few sketches from the past few days. Lake City Farmer's Market (today, with a couple other "urban sketchers"), Rockler -- the Woodworkers' Store -- (two days ago) and Darrells Tavern (yesterday). Funny what the hot sun makes us do.

view from gas works

Here's a little sketch (4 x 4) of a piece of a photo looking east from Gas Works Park, sgraffito in oil on black-gessoed hardboard. I wanted to see if I could scrape out a line drawing from previously massed-in color. Don't know if it worked as such, but I sort of like it anyway!

more from fishermen's terminal

Here's a little sketch I began at Fishermen's Terminal but continued from a photograph. Don't even know if it's done yet.

boats and sun

A great day painting with Frances and Sue at fishermen's terminal. Imagine a studio with ever-changing scenes of workaday industry, and sunshine (or rain)... here are the day's oil sketches, 6 x 8 and 8 x 8, respectively.

storm at decoursey park

A terrific week sketching in Tacoma and Puyallup; At DeCoursey Park we brought out the rain! Sketched this in a big hurry before the drops started splatting!
Here's Frances at her "easel," painting the factory behind Freighthouse Square.

ballard locks

Saturday we met up at the Hiram M. Chittenden locks. Fun, windy and cold out on the locks themselves! Here are a couple little sketches:
First, ink and gouache in my little Moleskine watercolor book, 3.25 x 5, looking southeast: Then a 5x7 oil sketch looking west at the railroad bridge, from the west end of the large lock:

community space!

Friday my friend-the-longest (43 years!) Teresa and I went to Third Place Books to look and paint and drink iced tea.
Here is Teresa's painting of the table where the poems are made.

There was a gentleman working in this area, whom I sketched as if closer up.











Lots of people using the Commons there as their third place -- just as intended!

Then we moved on to the windows facing south. Teresa captured the tree-lined path along Bothell Way:

Here is her photo of me sketching the scene.












Thank you, Teresa! I'm so lucky you're my friend!

22nd Worldwide Sketchcrawl

What a great day in the cold and grey! Here are a few images from our crawl.

blue star cafe

Today we met at the Blue Star Cafe, where some of the Seattle Plein Air painters will be showing work in July! The whole time, it snowed -- April Fools indeed! Frances and I stayed and sketched a while afterward. Here are our little idylls. Frances' wonderful sketch of our fellow diners is at the top -- many thanks to her for letting me share it! Clearly some of us are just not able to wait until 22nd WorldWide Sketchcrawl, coming up Saturday, April 11!

third place books

Here are my sketches from today's Seattle Plein Air meetup at Third Place Books. What a great place to watch people unobtrusively!

spoon before breakfast

Here's today's small painting. Painted it this morning. Maybe I was hungry. 6 x 8, oil on canvas panel.

coming soon

the weekly moment, at least one new painting each week.

later to become the daily moment!

In the meantime, here is something from last fall, a little oil sketch of downtown, near the convention center

A windy day and I was visiting Utrecht