​Last Thursday the thermometer approached 80.  Fearing it may be the last good summer day, I headed out with sketchbook in hand to one of my favorite places, the Thousand Acre Brook.  I ended up at the spot I’ve drawn many times, the falls below the Boy Scout Bridge.  Along the way I crossed to the other side of the brook looking for a rock cliff I thought I had glimpsed through the trees on a previous walk.  I didn’t find any cliff, but I did find a group of large boulders that was interesting enough to draw.  I did a pen and ink sketch and then decided to add some color with the watercolor markers I had used up at Millen Pond.  From there I went down to the falls and did a sketch of the river. 

​On Tuesday it was back to Rockport, bringing in a piece for the next show.  I left very early in the morning to avoid the worst traffic and to ensure I got a parking spot near the gallery.  I therefore had a couple of hours to kill before the gallery opened. It was a beautiful sunny morning.  I went out onto one of the piers, took a seat looking out toward the water and sketched the boats in the harbor.  There was a man there doing a painting, so when I finished that I did a quick sketch of him.

​I have a drawing problem and being at a beautiful place like Millen Pond only makes it worse.  I see a canoe on the water or the sunlight on the far shore and I instinctively reach for my pen and pad.  Perhaps that’s how I compensate for the shortness of our stay, by trying, perhaps, to take some of the beauty back home with me.  Anyway, we had great weather all week and I had plenty of time to draw and paint.  As usual, I brought a variety of different media with me and found time to give them all a try.
 
The red canoe is with a water soluble marker.

​The orange canoe was with Inktense pencils.  I’m always fascinated by the trees on the far slope and how you can pick out the individual crowns as they march up the hill.

​This is a sketch of the inside of the cabin with a dip pen.

​On Friday afternoon I toured the lake in my kayak with my sketch pad and artist pen.  It was tough drawing in a moving boat, but I was able to get these cottages and a passing loon.

​I did complete one painting and started another while I was there.  The first painting was a view from our dock that I first sketched with the water soluble markers.

​The two ancient pines on the far shore are still there and are still a beloved subject for my pen and camera.  Here are some of the sketches I did of them during the week.  I had a couple of days left after completing the first painting so I decided to start on another featuring the pines, but, as you can see, I didn’t get far.

​On Tuesday this week I travelled to Rockport, MA to deliver my picture for the upcoming show.  I was lucky enough to find a parking spot downtown but I had trouble with the new-fangled parking kiosk and only paid for one hour.  After I dropped off the picture I had only 45 minutes left.  I decided to sketch the famous building in Rockport Harbor that is a popular subject for artists.  I believe it is called Motif #1.  I was able to knock this off, buy some candy, and get back to the car just as the ticket expired.

​It is hard to believe that 8 months have gone by since I last posted anything here.  In that time I have been very busy finishing the last piece for my show at the Copley Society of Art as well as earning money to pay the bills, plus we added a new granddaughter to our family.  I have continued to attend the Amherst life drawing sessions almost every week, but other than that I have rarely had the opportunity to take out the sketchpad, and when I did the results were not very impressive.
 
But, last week I got a chance to leave the other stuff behind and finally get out the pad for some quality sketching time when we vacationed at Sagamore Beach.  It was our first Cape Cod vacation in 10 years.  The weather was great and I had the chance to hang out with our family, including granddaughters Lucy and Margaux.  I did one oil painting, which still needs a lot of work, and a bit of sketching.  Here are some of my favorites (clockwise from top left; Lucy; our cottage; the beach looking south; and, the beach looking north):

For obvious reasons I don’t do a lot of drawing outdoors in winter or at night, and I had every reason to stay indoors on Thanksgiving evening.  It was about 7 degrees out and there was a half foot of snow covering everything.  But there was a full moon too, and I was entranced by the tree shadows and the patches of moonlight that undulated across the snow beneath the woods behind my house. 
 
By now I have a good idea of what scenes would make a good scratchboard drawing.  Every now and then I’ll catch a glimpse of an image that I know is just right, and this was one of those times.  It would have been nice if I could have quickly run out there and taken a photograph, but I don’t have the equipment or the skill for that.  The scene was too good to pass up, so, I put on as many layers as I could, got out my warmest hat and gloves and took my folding chair out to the edge of the woods, and drew as quickly as I could.

​November is the time to start panicking about creating the annual Christmas card. I’ve been stuck on the idea of a mouse-based picture this year, in honor of the many small furry friends who visited our house this past year.  Here are some of the sketches I’ve made as I’ve been playing with the idea, arranged roughly in chronological order.

​I was in a good mood, I had caught up on all my work, and it was a gorgeous summer day, so I gathered my stuff and went out to paint.  I ended up in Sunderland, in a farmer’s field just below Mount Sugarloaf, a prominent outcropping on the banks of the Connecticut River.  I painted away the afternoon.  It was fun, but I was frustrated by the results.  I took a few photos and then decided to do a pen sketch as back-up for further work in the studio.  I had just about finished when a farmer came by and told me I wasn’t supposed to be out there and asked me to leave.  I didn’t tell him I was just about to leave anyway.

​Over the past few months our house has been beset with mice.  It started when my wife noticed mouse poop in our kitchen drawers.  We went out and bought some humane traps and, right away, we caught one.  I took him about a mile up the road and let him out.  The next day we caught another, and then another the day after that, then it settled down to about 2 or 3 a week.  They were also getting into our cars in the driveway, causing a flood in the passenger section of my wife’s car when they clogged up the air conditioner drain.  They also figured out how to defeat our traps, causing us to upgrade the design.
 
I began to suspect that the little guys were somehow finding their way back after I dropped them off.  I tried to find some way to mark them so I could tell.  I tried putting acrylic paint spots on their tail, but they cleaned it off before it dried.  We haven’t caught one for six days now, so maybe we’ve won the battle at last. 
 
Anyway, I decided to sketch a portrait of one of our last visitors.

​We returned to Millen Pond in mid-August for a week’s stay.  My plan was to draw with a different implement every day.  On Sunday it was felt markers.

On Tuesday it was a 4B pencil.

On Thursday it was a watercolor brush.

On Friday it was pastels (this was my favorite of the week).

On Saturday I ended the week with a black pen