Susan

Life drawing this morning at Waterfall Arts. Today we had a new model - Susan. Watercolor in my 9x12 mixed media Strathmore Journal.

Chess detail

A painting in progress...

Little Jenny

This is my sister. She's a rock star. No, really, she's a rock star. This is a painting of  Jen Foster, done by our mother when Jen was six or seven years old. She never finished it - the mouth was never painted in. She either gave up on it or put it aside thinking she would come back to it later. I don't know. I never asked her about it. I was thinking I would finish it for Jen and give it to her but I haven't been comfortable painting over my mom's work - sort of like walking on sacred ground. So I took a picture of the painting and worked on it digitally in Artrage. I just had to guess about what her mouth looked like as I don't have the photo my mom worked from. It was kind of fun collaborating with mom on this painting. I think she would like it.

Brooklyn

Josh Schurr covers Joni Mitchell songs like nobody else. I heard his original song, Brooklyn, on YouTube and was inspired to do some art. I was thinking of  the album art on the cover of the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young album, So Far, when I came up with the idea. Coincidentally or not, Joni Mitchell did the artwork on that album.

Sarah

I've been going to life drawing sessions twice a week this month. This is one of my favorites from the past month. It was the first drawing I did yesterday and, for a 1 hour drawing, I did well. 

"The water met its Master, and blushed"

Sketched from a portion of a mural on the ceiling of the Ayasofya Church in Turkey. 

Santiago

I walked across the street to Parque Forestal after checking out of our hotel to sketch our hotel before departing to Valparaiso but found the building next door to be far more interesting so I sketched that instead. This one is in my 8x12 Moleskine watercolor journal.

Tea

Tugboat in Tigre

My friend, Jorge, picked us up at our hotel in Buenos Aires and drove us out to Tigre where we stopped at a market on one of the many canals. Valerie wandered around the market and Jorge and I sketched this scene in the late afternoon light. The temperature was perfect and tango music lofted to us from a houseboat downriver. 

Glamping with Bio Bio

Valerie and I went rafting a few weeks ago. To get in the raft, we had to fly 5000 miles south to Buenos Aires, Argentina, then another 300 miles west to Bariloche, then a 6 hour bus ride south to the Bio Bio base camp on the Futaleufu river. This is a trip 3 years in the making. Ever since we rafted the Toachi river in Ecuador ,Valerie has wanted to do this trip. When she first told me about it she enthusiastically said it was a "glamping trip". Glamping? I wondered aloud. "Yeah", she said, "you know, a cross between glamour and camping - glamping."

Well, it was way worth the effort to get there. The Futaleufu is an amazing river, the scenery spectacular, and the food, facilities and staff were extraordinary. Our days were full - not much time for sketching on this part of the trip. The last day I managed to get some time in the afternoon to do this sketch of the "parilla" - a type of grill used for cooking Asado (barbeque).The camp store is on the left and the dining/kitchen area is on the right. This is 8"x20" pen and watercolor.