New Hampshire and British Columbia!

While I was outside drawing this beautiful brick library in Kensington NH, my husband was inside getting a deluxe tour from the librarian, who clearly loved the building and the history it represented.  The sign above the door says in white letters The Kensington Social Library.  The building was a gift of Joseph C. Hilliard in 1895.  It has a modern wing out back (nicely concealed so as not to detract from the original architecture), and it is next door to the elementary school.  That must be handy for the students.  I just love the conflicting architectural devices of this era, e.g. the symmetrical and the asymmetrical windows and columns.

 The term ‘social library’ is a holdover from the early 1800’s when libraries in New Hampshire were private book collections.  If you joined as a member and paid a fee, you were allowed to borrow.  Ironically, libraries are now evolving into more social centers with meeting rooms, and clubs such as knitting.  My sister and her husband have recently posted photos of themselves at their library in Wisconsin...one while enjoying a Death by Chocolate cooking competition and another at a costume party.

My drawings and watercolor paintings always indicate the weather and the season as well as the architecture.  The trees in spring are yellow-green and pink.

When I am driving around in my project of drawing every town in New Hampshire, two thoughts are usually floating around in my head: “Oh, I have never seen that before”  and “Oh, that building really looks like the one in such and such a place”.  If the towns are close together, I sometimes feel I am following around a local architect/builder.  And I know that pattern books and mail order trimmings were readily available, so that could explain many of the similarities. 

This is Bedford Center, NH.  The town hall is in the center, which includes the Narragansett Grange No. 16.  The yellow building is a private home, and just to the left of that are small views of the end of the town library. And the white building on the far left is a home.

Granges were established a in the mid 1800’s as a social movement.  This was an era when half the population left to move to better farmland in the midwest states of the US.  Those who stayed behind suffered from the lack of man power to keep the land in agriculture.  Most fields quickly reverted to woodland, and New Hampshire slid into a severe economic decline.  For decades.

 The yellow shrub is called forsythia, which cheerfully blooms early.  It blooms before its leaves pop out so the color effect is dramatic.  Since this has been a cool spring, they are still in bloom a month later.  The odd brown shape to the far right is a vine on an arbor.

If you should go to Bedford Center, you will not see this exact view.  I drew it as I was walking up the road, adding new details and sightlines as I went around a corner.  That is the fun of drawing on location.

These are the main cross roads in Gilmanton, NH.  The tallest building in the center is the home of the town offices.  On the left stands the Gilmanton Community Church, and on the right is a small scale public library.  I didn’t check to see how many copies of the novel Peyton Place (Grace Metalious, 1956) may be inside.  It was always said that she based the plot and characters in her scandalous novel on this town, where she was living when she penned it.

The town office, grand in scale but built of wooden clapboards, has an unusual window. It is circular and resembles a globe in an atlas. Tricky to draw.

Notice the granite pillars along the roadway.  There were too many to count, but they seemed such a part of the place that I had to fit in three.  They were once part of a fence.  I wouldn’t want to meet one with a car fender.  New Hampshire is the Granite State.

My historical advisor tells me that the ‘traditional’ white New England buildings date only to the 1930’s.  A conference was held and sponsored by Yankee Magazine.  The attendees discussed how to get more tourists to come to New England, stay longer, and spend more money.  It was agreed that painting all the buildings white would have a unifying effect and successfully convey quaintness.  The paint companies were most happy to assist and encourage this thought.  (Up to this point, the buildings were left unpainted or painted with whatever was the least expensive color available.)  No harmony at all in other words.  Litchfield, Connecticut was selected as a trial town. White paint was slapped on all the buildings in the town center.  Then the owners were required to attach black or dark green shutters.  Voilà, instant charm.  (The plague of shutters with no function continues to this day.  Don’t get me started on shutters that don’t shut.)  It worked. Tourism picked up, and paint brushes and buckets emerged all over the six New England states: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Fremont is a small town in the southeast part of New Hampshire.  I decided to draw their town pound viewed from the inside.  In earlier days, wandering livestock would be corralled into this enclosed space until the owner could come claim them.  It is made of small granite boulders and upright granite posts.  It is kept as a relic, and somebody must be restacking the stones from time to time because these kinds of walls do tumble down.  It is not easy to draw rocks.  I try to draw the idea of rocks, if you see what I mean. In behind is the Poplin Meeting House, 1800, in white clapboard, and a graveyard across the road.  

My paternal grandfather and his parents and brothers came south from Quebec, Canada to work in the granite quarries of Concord, NH.  I think they may have been stonemasons in Quebec as well.

Fremont has an historical marker about the town’s Mast Tree Riot in 1734.  This was a little altercation between local tree owners and the English Crown.  It seems the Crown reserved the tallest and straightest pine trees as masts for the king’s ships.  And some folks objected.

And here we have another stone town pound in the tiny town of Windsor, just west of Hillsborough.  It has a population of about 200 in about 8 square miles  It was known as Campbell’s Gore originally.  A gore is a wedge shaped piece of land, sort of a leftover. The sign in the center notes that the fee for claiming an impounded animal was 50 cents per day—quite a large sum by the standards of the time.  Little volunteer evergreens are sprouting in the center. I like how I could see through the woods to a lake and a mountain.

I decided to gather a few of my drawings of schools, in honor of the winding down of the school year. Schools in North American close for the summer, in early to mid June.  The summer camp industry has grown to fill in the gap of time in the summer.  I am a volunteer at our local elementary school, where I talk about art history once a month.

To make this drawing, I peered in through very dusty windows.  It is the Bow Center Schoolhouse, 1894, in Bow NH, and is no longer in use.  Of note, the black slate writing board. The lettering above this chalkboard is called the Palmer Penmanship script.  I think it is still taught in North America. It is a distinctive style that does not resemble that of England, Europe, or anywhere.  Most people evolve a simpler form as soon as they leave elementary school, age 10. Most of my letters look like printing, although some are still loopy.

To continue with the school theme, here is the former high school in Ashland, NH.  It sits high on a hill and is a Victorian era gem.  My father had his first teaching job here, in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s.  He taught all the mathematics and science classes for ages 14–17.  As a first teaching job, it sounds very challenging.  I was about 4 or 5 years old. 

My memories include my pet hamster, and the five and dime store down the street.  It was not a Woolworth chain store, but similar in concept.  The counters and shelves were so low I could see all the assortments of lipsticks, frilly handkerchiefs, and fake pearl clip-on earrings.

The next year we moved to Massachusetts, where the starting salary for teachers was greater.  We lived in Westford, moving into three different houses, until I was fourteen. 

Brookline, NH borders the state of Massachusetts in the south.  I seem to be drawn like a moth to yellow buildings.  This is the large square building of the town offices.  It is the former home of the Daniels Academy, founded in 1905 for girls and boys.  It looks dignified and solid, and well worth repurposing.

New Ipswich is a small town along the Massachusetts border. I bought a coffee and a cookie at a small store, for a break.  The coffee shop was next door to this elementary school, the New Ipswich Center School.  I really liked that green awning that shelters the students from the weather.

My father-in-law was not a very hard working student in high school.  He was sent off to the New Hampton School in New Hampton, NH for a year after he graduated, for the purpose of bringing up his grades so that he would be accepted to a university.  This was accomplished through enforced study halls.  And the lack of female students in his classes helped too, I’m very sure.  My father-in-law had a facetiously pompous way of speech. Right now I can hear his voice, from the hereafter, urging me to use the word ‘pulchritude’.  Which is a very awkward sounding word meaning beauty of females.

Anyway, this is Lane Hall on the campus of the New Hampton School, built in 1919.  The planter has a date of 1890 on it.

This building has what I call cowboy style architecture.  It is the Deadwood Junction in Greenwood, British Columbia, Canada.  It has wonderful coffee, pastries, and rooms of arts and crafts.  And very friendly owners and staff.    

I read that Greenwood, Canada’s smallest city (a form of government distinct from that of a town), with about 700 people as it says on the sign, just won the top award at Berkeley Springs, West Virginia—the international competition for the best tasting municipal tap water in the world.  This is one reason why their coffee is so good, no doubt.

We happen to pass through Greenwood when we drive from Spokane, Washington to Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada to visit our family, including our three grandchildren. We got a recommendation from some people walking down the street in Grand Forks, a mere 40 miles or so east.  Even though it is spring time, the climate is very dry here as indicated by the yellow hills in the background.

Sometimes we do a bit of exploring on our own while we are visiting family in British Columbia.  One sunny day we decided to explore the Father Pandosy Mission.  In 1859 a group of Oblate priests made a home in the Kelowna valley, the first group of white settlers.  My quick online research tells me that Father Pandosy was born in Marseilles. France. And that the word ‘oblate’ means sacrifice.  I believe the fathers started farming and planting orchards.

So I decided to draw this barn, as I had never drawn a saddlenotch log construction before.  And I drew, or attempted to draw, the complex farming mower or reaper on the right.  It was just one of many highly mechanical farm implements on display there.  In the background is Black Mountain. I moved it slightly to the right. (Yes, I move mountains.)

And now there is an upscale shopping district in Kelowna called Pandosy. The building on the left is not old at all.  Just a funky, contemporary nod to the old, which houses the Marmalade Cat Café.  I can’t resist yellow buildings.  And yellow, blue and rust colored buildings really hold my attention.  I can’t explain this and that doesn’t bother me. There is still snow on the high hills.  

We sat in a lovely coffee shop while I drew this.  And knowing that the new building will block the view.

And one more last one, including our grandson playing in a toy train. It is a stationary train.  Only imagination makes it move. We go to the park often when we visit. It’s a grandparent thing.

 The climate here in eastern British Columbia, the Okanagan, is semi-arid.  It is the northern end of the Sonoma desert which starts in Mexico. So the ground is dry with desert type plants and animals.  But it has lots of lakes and beaches too. We get ourselves there as often as we can.  Which is often.

New Hampshire!

I was unsure what to draw in Alexandria. Several scenes appealed to me: a building, a vista, a field, but I kept driving for some reason. I had not noticed on the map that the northwest edge of the town borders Newfound Lake.

Suddenly I was out of the woods and staring at the water and islands as the lake came to view on my right. I parked the car immediately. The blue waters were clear of winter’s ice, except for this eastern end of the lake. The strong wind and wave action had broken up the ice into minute pieces, all uniform in size. and sparkling like diamonds. And floating on the waves like a blanket of jewels. I am forced to describe in detail because that sort of sight is not possible to paint, draw, or even photograph. But I saw it and will remember it.

The white area just above the fence is the floating jewels. Squint and imagine.

A few miles to the east of Alexandria is Bridgewater. When I drew this I had driven entirely around the lake, without any intention of doing so, really.

This is another view of the eastern end of the lake with the last remnants of ice floating and considering melting. I just love the soft purple shades of the hills at this time of year. The new leaves are still tucked away, waiting and being cautious. The greens are the pines, firs, and hemlocks.

I have long time memories of this diner in Milford, the Red Arrow, on the Souhegan River. My husband and our dog took naps in the car while I walked around and found this spot to draw. A lot of my earliest memories include riding around with my father and grandfather when they were doing work in the cemeteries...cleaning the stones and carving in names and dates. I didn’t go in to the diner this time.

The small building on the left hangs over the river. It is a dining room part of the diner now, but maybe it was a mill structure to begin with.

The gold eagle is atop the Odd Fellows Lodge, a world-wide fraternal and benevolent organization. I read that the phrase ‘odd fellows’ refers to the origins in England. Members were from minor trades that didn’t have their own guilds, so it was a collective place to be. It is not a guild anymore. And women can belong, so it’s not just fellows.

We had lunch in Goffstown Village in a restaurant on the banks of the Piscataquog River. I can’t draw on an empty stomach. Too distracting. After a nice lobster salad, I stepped outside, walked a few feet, and drew the river and the mills reflected on the very calm water. The colors are those of early spring.

New Hampshire is the second most forested state in the U.S., by percent.....85%. This is why the houses, churches, and other buildings are usually made of wood, as it is the most abundant local resource material. And the trees grow back quickly I’ve been told. Something about the mineral soil is just right for growing trees. We have a small clearing behind our house in the woods. Little trees try to sneak in. Some might become Christmas trees!

Many of the buildings along the rivers are former saw mills, as well as textile mills. There is a dam at the far right of the picture. I saw in an old post card that this bridge was once a wooden covered bridge. But now it is modern concrete with quite decorative lampposts.

It is quite an adventure driving to every town in New Hampshire. I study maps and take along an atlas in the car, and sometimes GPS. I (sometimes we ) bump along back roads. Back roads is what we mostly have of course. This month the ‘Frost Heaves’ signs go up to warn of roads even more bone rattling than usual. The signs come down and the bumps flatten out, usually by themselves and mostly by summer.

The drawing above is the town common in Hebron. I had just bumped out of the woods from Alexandria into this open space. The common is surrounded by smallish, white, wooden buildings. No building was very unusual or large, the town offices (former Hebron Academy) being the most ornate. But a harmony existed and a pleasant feeling of shelter in configuration of the 360 degree arrangement of the structures around me. And this makes it a challenge for me in deciding what viewpoint to focus on.

So I went into the general store, bought a coffee and apple turnover. And a USA Today. And read that, which we know doesn’t take long. Then I brought my coffee outside, and decided to take shelter from the wind in the band stand in the center of the common. I drew an old maple tree, the structure of the band stand that resembles the tree, the library, and the office of the town clerk/tax collector. There are fewer than 700 residents, so a large library isn’t needed. NH has no sales tax, nor state income tax, but it does have a property tax.

Any town library user can borrow books from any library in the state now, so that is good. It evens things out.

After drawing the small scale library in Hebron, I had an idea to pull out my stacks of drawings of a few more libraries for compare and contrast.

This is the large, solid looking library and town hall of Dunbarton, with under 3,000 in population. This large ornate white wooden building is right in the center of the town common. It was built in 1908 to replace an earlier one that burned down. I believe it was rebuilt to look the same. The large twin doors with roof railing were lovely, and the bright sunshine and shadows helped me to draw them. Surrounding the doors there are complex leaded windows in clear glass. That much detail was beyond me and my little pencil.

I loved the looks of this dignified structure. There is a fund raising effort to restore the top floor for public use. And an elevator needs to be added. The librarian was very friendly, was interested in my DRAW-NH! project, and said she’d buy my book when it’s published!

There were several monuments on the lawn honoring veterans.

The library in Lempster is the building at the far right. The center one is the town offices. This town has decided to use its topography to generate electrical power. The 12 modern windmills (or windfarm) on Bean Mountain are a first for this state. They have been in operation since 2008.

The unusual name of the town is thought to be a spelled out version of the pronunciation of the town of Leominster (‘Lemster’) in England. The town of Leominster in nearby Massachusetts is pronounced ‘Lemenster’ with the accent on the first syllable.

Here is another library that I drew in the autumn. This is the Reed Free Library (not a misspelling!) in Surry, in the southwest corner of the state. In the background is Surry Mountain, once mined for copper, gold, and silver. I love historical markers that tell you these things.

You see the fall colors on the hills...yellows and reds of the maples and birch trees. The pink is my vision of a copper beech in full sunlight.

I was focusing on the southwest corner of the state last autumn. Here is the Silsby Free Library on the left and the town offices on the right. They are on the main street in Charlestown.

It was a very warm day when I drew this last September. When I look at one of my drawings I can almost always remember the weather, and usually what I ate for lunch. (A sandwich on a bench.) And other things like what music I was listening to, or other little details which are all wrapped up together in the memory files. That is one reason I like to draw when I travel.

Amherst has a lovely harmonious village green with dozens of Federal style (or Georgian) homes, churches and town office buildings surrounding it.

And that makes it really hard to choose one view. So once more, I chose the library.

It is off to the side of the green, and it’s a fine stone structure first built in 1892. And it was enlarged in 1911, 1971, and 1987. The front door is especially attractive with its copper and green glass details. Mexican tile roofs are a rarity in New Hampshire. The modern addition is off to the left.

The girl on the bench is enjoying an ice cream cone. I think there may have been an ice cream social at the library that day. It was very crowded.

The weather has been very odd this spring: unusually snowy, then exceedingly warm and dry, then wintery and colder than average.

We drove to Merrimack one Sunday when the weather was hot, and like summer. But there were no leaves yet on the trees and the grass was still hibernating. Twin Bridge Park in Merrimack was absolutely full with happy families enjoying the sunny warmth. The baseball diamond was still waiting for the season, but look at the castle-themed playground. And the kids on the swings! I felt their joy as I drew them.

British Columbia, New Hampshire, and Maryland!

We are all starting to have a hankering for spring, so I’d better get these snowy pictures out to you. This is a view drawn in January of the ridge in Kettle Valley, a neighborhood in the southern part of Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. Our grandchildren live here, and this is the sight as they walk to school. The turreted buildings house a coffee shop, gym, and pre-school among other necessities.

The climate is dry, and the stubbly trees are remnants of an unfortunate forest fire in 2003. A part of a natural cycle they say. Many houses were destroyed, but everyone evacuated safely.

I drew this looking west from the top of a sledding hill behind our grandchildren’s house. Parts of the scenery include the west bank of the Okanagan Valley and Lake Okanagan. There are vineyards and orchards near the lake on both sides. And on the lower left I drew two children’s parks and the tennis court. Do click on the image to enlarge it. The houses are actually crayon-box colors like this.

One day after running a few errands, I stopped at this beach for a quick sketch. I call it Apple Beach, but I believe the correct name is Gyro Beach. The apple is a concession stand, selling snacks in warmer weather. This region is apple growing territory. It was a hazy day and I tried to capture that in watercolors. The hills in the background were very indistinct as the long lake bends around to the left.

The serpent-like shape in the lake is my imaginary version of Ogopogo. Sort of the Loch Ness Monster of British Columbia, but friendly.

I was visiting during sledding season. Here is part of the school that our younger granddaughter attends. Most of the students carried their sleds with them to school. The fashionable sled this year is lightweight, and decorated to look like a surfboard. The children sped down the hills before the school bell rang, during recess, and after school was let out. And then we walked home and they went sledding some more.

After our younger granddaughter gets out of school, we wait for her sister’s bus. Here she is in her pink and purple coat with a friend also dressed in the same colors. You can see the incredibly rugged terrain here, and see too the small house on the top of the hill. Actually, it is most likely a large house with a great view.

Higher up from the valley is a community called Joe Rich. This is the view from a dining room, on a very snowy day.

Our grandchildren love our iPads and have figured out how to do lots of things with them. Here is the three year old, sitting on the bed, being creative. The cats are watching, and keeping warm. And one is listening to the pencil sounds on my paper.

On my way out of town, I experienced a 12 hour delay. Oh, joy! I ate (three times), I read, I shopped, and I pulled out my watercolor set. Here is my corner with my purple coat, sketches, water bottle, red suitcase and grey duffle.

I usually don’t care to draw people who are waiting or traveling. But I had to do something to fill the hours. Here are three waiting people, my red suitcase, a red coated airport greeter. (Who didn’t greet me.) And the little sparrows that live in every airport.

It is very foggy out. That is why my flight was cancelled...the incoming flight the night before couldn’t land in the thick fog.

On our first day back in New Hampshire from a trip to Baltimore, we drove to the town of Lempster to hear Rebecca Rule speak. She is a story collector and a story teller. Both orally and in book form. It is a good idea to go to one of her presentations first if you can, before you buy her books. Then you will be able to hear her talking when you read! It makes it even better.

We have heard her speak several times. But this time I was inspired to draw because it seemed so very New Hampshire-ish for the speaker to be sharing the stage with local historical artifacts....like a black wooden hearse, set off with yellow fringe curtains. Note the iron runners for winter transportation of the body. I’m guessing the two vertical objects behind the hearse are part of the horse pulling part of it all.

One day I decided to drive the short distance to nearby Andover (NH) to draw the ski hills which are right off Main Street and part of the campus of Proctor Academy, a private high school. The building in the foreground is the old carriage house according to the sign.

And now for something completely different. This is the southwest corner of Calvert Street and 31st, in the Charles Village section of Baltimore, Maryland. It is not too far from the campus of the famed Johns Hopkins University.

I knew when I saw the roof lines that this is what I wanted to draw on that day. I drew quickly with the sheer joy of allowing myself to get lost in the complex architecture. There are little bits of accuracy here and there. Hopefully enough to convey the spirit of the block....the ornamented brick facade, with tile roofs and a vaguely Dutch shaped repeating roof folly. Thanks, A.G.

New Hampshire!

We make greeting cards for our local hospital gift shop. Floral designs are what sell best there, so it gives me a great excuse to buy flowers. Actually, I buy them anyway, especially in the winter. It is very cold today, way below freezing. These tulips may have been grown in Holland. They were a vibrant orange-red edged with yellow. All that remains of them now is my drawing and the memory. I hope you find them cheering.

On New Year’s Day, we drove to Keene, NH, in the far southwest part of the state. This building, Colony’s Block, is a landmark on Central Square. It is brick with granite trim, with a decorative slate Mansard roof. It is in the Second Empire style, a French architectural style which became very popular around the world. I just love how it seems symmetrical at first glance, but not so. It was built in 1870. after the original one burned in 1865.

Of course, I just imagined the scene of people and horse and cart in front of it. And I put back the roof railing which had rusted, fallen off, and not been replaced.

The Colony family were early settlers to the Keene area, and they still own businesses there and in nearby Harrisville.

I stood on the square and drew this. I had to start over twice which is a bit unusual for me. I just kept wanting to include more of the building. I did the people and horse in the comfort of my studio.

This dignified white clapboarded building is the Mount Caesar Union Library in Swanzey, NH. I don’t know anything about the unusual name. It is also the name of a local school and a cemetery.

Another library, this one in local dark grey granite. It is the Frost Free Library in Marlborough NH, named for the Frost family. The word ‘free’ of course means that it costs nothing to go in and use the books. Until the mid-1880s, there were ‘social libraries’. The elite of the area would pay a fee to become subscribers. As a move towards democracy (what was called republicanism at the time), towns began to establish the free library system. Now there is never a fee to use a town library. But there the word is, literally carved in stone. And in modern parlance, it makes it sound like the building has a very good heating system. You see the new addition to the right of it.

We had a similar chuckle when I drew the Reed Free Library in nearby Surry. It almost looked like a misspelling! But it’s very common here to have the name of a local philanthropist on the town library, and for a very good reason.

Behind it is a New England style farmhouse that is attached to a smaller building, and then attached to the barn. All with a unified wooden siding and yellow paint.

The town of Troy, NH has a very nice common with a granite post, double iron railing. The bandstand has presence with its bell curve and top ball and spike. To the right in the rear is the town hall and offices. It was formerly a meeting house, meaning a place for various religious groups to gather. I have noticed a lot of this re-use of buildings. New Englanders have always been thrifty, and appreciative of our past. The obelisk is a monument to the men of the town who served in the Civil War. I like the brick buildings to left rear.

The little granite stone next to the bandstand explains that this land was once part of neighboring towns, and was annexed into the newer town of Troy. These historical facts are important enough to carve into stone.

We needed an atlas to find the town of Roxbury. According to the 2010 census it has 229 residents. I read that at one time in the 1800s it was much larger and had a very active quarry industry. The Civil War decimated the male population, and many of the remaining farmers headed to the mid-west.

We came from the direction of Marlborough, up steep hills, onto dirt roads. Then we met a few beautiful pheasants in the road directly ahead of us. We admired them; then we noticed the sign that said that the road was closed due to a bridge washout. We turned around in a person’s driveway. We waved.

Then I immediately saw this vista of Mount Monadnock. We didn’t even notice it coming up the hill before we turned around. Funny about that. It’s not the first time I’ve found that I have to drive through a town in both directions (sometimes four) before deciding what to draw. Anyway, since we were still within the town limits of Roxbury, and it looked so majestic, I decided to draw this.

I stood about three feet away from the town sign and took out my pencil and paper. You see the winter colors of the bare deciduous tree branches, a few yellow fields, and several people on the frozen pond at the lower left. This day there was yet to be any snow on the ground. It has been late coming this year, but it’s here now as I write this a week later.

The elevation of Mt. Monadnock is 3165 feet (965 meters). It is an isolated peak so looks higher than that. It is said to be the most climbed mountain in the world. I don’t know how anyone would know that for sure. But it is popular.

Here we have a pot of primroses. I nearly always buy one in the grocery store in the cold month of January. The first time I ever saw primroses was in San Francisco in 1974. I thought they were astonishingly beautiful in color and shape. Isn’t it amazing how some memories are strong and clear. And thinking of them brings back a whole past time and era in our own lives.

New Hampshire!

This month’s theme is verticality. As you drive around the state of New Hampshire, mostly you see trees. Sure, you also see mountains and swiftly moving waters, but they are covered by or surrounded by trees. (OK, three major exceptions in the largish cities of Concord, Manchester and Nashua. But the water is there.) Hardwood forest, evergreens, mixed woods.

Recently I have been thinking that the architecture wants to be vertical as well. Towers and turrets abound. Maybe it is to echo the shape of the trees, or perhaps to get a view up and over the foliage.

New Boston is a town that I glimpsed often in my childhood, if I looked to the right at just the certain moment as we traveled from our house in Massachusetts to my grandmother’s in New Hampshire. We never stopped, nor made the one block detour to view the main square and wonderful Victorian buildings

One of the wonderful aspects of my project of drawing every town in NH is the part where I stop the car, park, and get out. I read historical markers, and I walk around to see what’s what. The lay of the land as they say. Sometimes I find nice shops and I wish I lived closer. Sometimes I do shop, or have a snack. I almost always see a fast moving stream and mills, or signs telling how many mills were once along these waters. Sawmills, gristmills, tanneries, cooperages (barrel making) woolen and cotton mills too. Mills that made toys, clothes pins, and yokes for ox teams.

In New Boston, where I at last stopped and got out, I was attracted to this old fire station. It is so ornate that I got all bogged down in the details in the complex woodworking. When I returned home to finish my drawing I couldn’t decipher all my notes and color coded charts and arrows. (I often finish some of the color in my studio.) So I returned a couple of months later, all determined to capture the energy and essence of the building including the tower, and let the minute details go hang. The second time, the small parking lot in front was full. So I drew the cars (as only I can draw them) and was much freer about the tower part.

As soon as I finished, all the cars left! But I think I captured the feel of it. The blue sign says New Boston in white letters. I do need to buy a white ink pen so I can fill that in.

It was a dark, gloomy, rainy day when I pulled in to Wilton. But I liked it there. Along the main street was a yoga studio, small restaurants, and a shoe discount outlet. (It is a sad thing to have size 7 feet, the most common size. They are usually sold out.) Along the Souhegan River was a mill with a sheep as a weathervane, some mills repurposed as housing, also artists’ studios and a bead store. I bought some beads.

And then I stood under an awning to draw this enormous building across the street. This is a side view of the Wilton Town Hall. And this is the door to the theater that was there in the building from day one, 1886. Travelling shows stopped here as well as vaudeville entertainment. Then it was converted for silent films. Now it is sort of an art house theater. I wanted to go in, and if I lived closer I would surely go to the films there! The little sign out on the sidewalk indicates the upcoming film.

Since the towns in New England are governed at the most local level, it is the town that does the work of record keeping, and taxes, not the county as in most of the United States. Every town, no matter how small, has a library, a historical society building or museum, and a town hall and town offices. As well as schools, and most often police, and fire and rescue.

This is the town hall in Greenfield in the southwest part of the state. I am impressed with large old wooden structures, especially in places where the population is very small. According to the 2000 census there are under 2,000 residents here. It is just a lot of upkeep...think of all that white paint on the wooden clapboards. I drew in a little figure I saw leaving the building. Maybe he was paying his taxes.

This town is well known for its Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center, initially started to help children with the residual effects of polio.

Ooh, I loved the looks of this small town, Temple, near the border of Massachusetts. Again, we are looking at the town hall. A white wooden building. The white birch trees in the town common add to the charming effect.

In addition to the town hall, circling around the town green are: a church, a general store and post office, a pub, an inn, a restaurant, and a graveyard.

Acworth was the one hundredth town that I drew in my Draw-NH project. This project takes a lot of drive. Ha! Here is the elementary school. And another tower, of sorts.

It was so cold when I sketched this. The snow was crunchy, the air still, and I had forgotten my gloves.

The first time we tried to get to this town, we drove in a circle and never got there. That was before we bought our atlas. Even then it was a challenge, as the atlas doesn’t have a special symbol for narrow dirt roads that look like they could just peter out into nothingness.

Mason is the name of this town. I was curious to get there as it is a family name. I have drawn once again an elementary school. It has a new wing addition to the right. The two doors have beautiful windows surrounding them. It was dusk by the time I got here, so they were all aglow with interior light. You’ll have to imagine it. A sign of an old building here in NH is two front doors...one for males and one for females. A long abandoned tradition of course.

This is the main drag in Dublin, NH. I had a compositional problem: how to draw the lovely church steeple on the right, and also include the horizontal sprawl of the red building on the left. Which is the headquarters of Yankee magazine. My solution: cut off the street and have lots of sky to play with. I have to say that it looks OK to me now. An artist’s lament...no one knows the trouble I’ve seen. Said with a twinkle in the eye.

All the buildings are constructed of wood. The middle building is an unoccupied house, with signs that it may become a community center soon.

I had a little trouble connecting with Grafton. Since it is located close to New London, two towns away, I could turn around and come home again if I didn’t feel sufficiently inspired to draw. But this time, I spotted a sign that said Grafton Turnpike Road. When you see the word ‘turnpike’, you know it is one of the older roads in the town. The word means a private road where a toll was collected. When you paid your money, the wooden pike was lifted or turned aside so you could pass though.

So I turned a sharp left and ascended the hill. On my left was a swiftly moving stream, so I knew mills had once been here. A lots of mills went into decline in the late 1800s but still hung on until the hurricane of 1938. Then they were washed away by the floods. One mill remained here that I saw, a building in poor shape with a sign that said ‘Carding Mill’ - a mill that dealt with the early stages of the textile manufacturing process, preparing raw cotton or wool to be spun into thread. That indicates that there probably was once a weaving mill nearby as well.

I turned around when the road became dirt. But as I went back down the steep hill, I saw this church, with the sun glinting off of the white shingles.

The entire building was covered in white wooden shingles. Where I have drawn the zigzag lines is where the shingles went into an even more raised and crazy eye catching pattern. And the late afternoon, early winter rays of the sun were caught too and had a mesmerizing effect. Think of wind ruffled dove feathers.

I am very sure that when this building was shingled, it had a fashionable brown stain. Somewhere along the lines of time, it became even more fashionable to have a white painted edifice. Sunlight on natural colored shingles would have a more subdued effect.

I read that this church was moved twice. Such expertise that takes.

This very long brick building is the Monadnock Paper Mills in Bennington, NH. New England used to be full of paper mills, but this is one of the few left. It has over 300 products and an excellent history of green practices. And I discovered that the paper we use to print my designs onto notecards is made here. The Contoocook River flows under the bridge.

Monadnock is the name of a nearby mountain, and in native language it means an isolated single peak.

We are looking at a canal in Somersworth, NH., built along side of the Salmon Falls River. On the other side of the river is the state of Maine. When the mills were first built, most of the workers walked over the bridge from Maine. As more workers were needed, they were hired from Ireland and from Quebec Province in Canada.

The yellow mill in the background is the General Electric Company, which manufactures electrical meters.

It was a salmon colored sunset on the Salmon Falls River.

These last two drawings don’t fit in with the vertical theme, but they are seasonal so I shall toss them in.

Early in December we took a ride north to Meredith. It took us a while to find the holiday shoppers, free food, and general gaiety. This drawing was done in a little kitchen supply store called “So Little Thyme”. This shop was formerly an old time pharmacy. I do like to draw a street scene looking through multi-paned windows.

The yellow wooden house across the street now belongs to a cafe with its wavy red awning. This may be the only time I get to draw 3 ceramic roosters all lined up in a row.

This stone horse trough sits on the town green in Mont Vernon in the south central part of the state of NH. In the background are 2 granite benches, and an unusual looking bandstand.

I was really taken by this winter arrangement, made for public enjoyment. It showed real style, solid design, and fine knowledge of plants. The three purple rose-like plants are kale, which loves cold weather. The grey is dusty miller and the yellow-green is a golden cypress. The rest is evergreens and berries.

I added this image from last year, in case you thought no one lives in New Hampshire. It is our town skating rink, set up each winter on the green here in New London, NH. In the background are the skaters’ warming hut, the town offices, a college building, the gazebo or bandstand, the brick town hall, and the Baptist Church. Set out of the way at the far corner of the rink are a couple of plastic milk crates, used for support by the little kids just learning to skate.

I saw that many kids and families were out there today as we drove past.

Happy New Year!