Monday, September 7, 2015

New Hampshire, Maine, and Alberta

I liked the backlit view of Mount Sunapee from the veranda of the grand summer house called The Fells, in Newbury, New Hampshire. The old fashioned word veranda appeals to me too.


A childhood friend of my husband sent us a whole lot of great food items from his adopted state of Louisiana. We were very thankful and of course I was taken by the colorful packaging as well.


Most of the time I am not overly aware of shadows. And I often omit them if they confuse the eye rather than clarify space. But I was taken with these late afternoon shadows on the window box at Spring Ledge Farm in our town of New London.


A funny story....I went to pick blueberries and I planned to draw the berries on the bushes too. When I got to Bartlett's in Newport, I realized I had grabbed a handbag that didn't contain my change purse. I couldn't go in to pick my beloved berries! But I could peek through the netted fencing and make a drawing. 

  Later I returned with cash. And picked twelve pounds of berries. Blueberry pie is a family favorite.


 See?  Yum.


We are subscribers to the New London Barn Playhouse. One intermission I leaned just a little over the balcony to draw the pit, where the musicians make their magic.


Once at home I then redrew the sketch by hand onto my iPad with my drawing app. You can compare the two. The first drawing is the usual pencil on white paper which has its charm.

  The second is done digitally. It is painting with light and enormous fun. My drawing tool is my left index finger. I made a book of 44 ‘behind the scene’ drawings at The Barn this summer. Almost all of them were done on site with my iPad.


We like to visit Warren’s Restaurant in Kittery, Maine, from time to time. On this occasion we were waiting for other friends so I took a little time to draw the view out the window on the tidal Piscataqua River.

I was explaining to my ten year old granddaughter, who lives far from the ocean, that had it been low tide, the boats would be tilted and I would have been drawing mud.


Sometimes we are in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, spending time with our family which now includes four grandchildren. This is a sunset view from our condo in Edmonton. There are three long condo buildings, all of which have these reddish structures that provide sheltered balconies and a modern look. Canadian sunsets are so gorgeous.