New Hampshire and Wisconsin!

There are certain things I find I must draw. One of them is eagles. This is a bronze statue mounted on a large granite boulder. It is a war memorial next to the Fuller Public Library in Hillsborough, New Hampshire. Someone put a dried plant stalk in his beak. It seemed appropriate and I liked the look. As I’ve said before, I admire sculpture, and I enjoyed walking around it. And it’s about at eye-level which is nice.

I was driving through the small town of Richmond, NH, unsure of what to draw. I noticed all the flowers growing along the roadside. And I smelled the sawdust of the pine boards in the lumberyard in the rear. Something about the scents of the pines and the blooms brought me back to my childhood. The flowers are orange day lilies, white yarrow, wild grapes and wild roses. I don’t remember what the blue ones are.

I liked the architecture of this church, the United Congregational Church in Orford, NH. It is in the Gothic Revival Style, but all in wood. Originally grey, it is now white with grey features.
The architect is Moses Gerrish Wood. The architectural exuberance was enchanting. Orford is 2 towns north of Hanover. It is a charming place with homes stretched out beside a long town green.

I was driving through Hillsborough, and I stopped at this graveyard. I like the ornate cast iron and wrought iron gate, mounted on granite. Two thoughts went through my mind as I hurriedly drew this: I have never seen a beautiful gate like this, and I hope I can finish this before the electrical storm comes any closer. The thunder was loud. I just had pencil and paper with me, so it was easy to run for the car.

The grey stones are slate and older than the white marble monuments. I am the granddaughter of a stonecutter.

I found another eagle to draw! This wooden eagle is atop the Francestown, NH Academy building. This was a private school from 1801–1921, and it’s maintained today as a community meeting space. I plan to learn more about the many preparatory schools that abounded in New Hampshire from early on. Many still exist. The students came from quite a distance and boarded in the town.

I often draw things I have never seen before. This is the case here. The hayfield is so steep that the man on the tractor is cutting the hay in slaloms, as if he were skiing. This hill and woodlands are in Enfield, NH. The unusually tall rural grey granite buildings were built by the Enfield Shaker community.

I was not at all sure what to draw in Alstead, NH. This is the corner of Mechanic St. and Main St. I chose this busy little triangle in the road with the multitude of signs. The building on the far left was probably an Inn. On the far right is the very front of a Greek revival building. When we lived in England, Bishop’s Cleeve was a nearby town. It had two triangles like this, very close to one another. I think this one reminds me of those.

From what I can tell, this is downtown Langdon NH. I just loved the curve of the steep hill with the buildings on the left parading up the hill. And the white one at the top was partially obscured. So here, I knew exactly what and where I wanted to stop and draw. It spoke to me. Lately, I have been pondering on what attracts me to draw certain things. Usually I ponder after I have drawn them. That way the creative process doesn’t get bogged down with too much thinking.

Harrisville, NH is a rarity. It is an old mill town that still functions in its original purpose. It still produces woolen yarn in its mills. This is a view out of a window in the spinning building. Under the building, the mill stream roars through the granite lined course. The whole brick building seems to shake, yet also seems solid and safe. I was totally and happily overwhelmed with visual stimuli here. Brick wall, beautiful woven wall hanging, wooden spinning wheel, and view through the paned glass window.

As I turned around, I spied this view out another window in Harrisville. It shows part of a bridge and the mill pond. The turreted white building in the rear is the town library.

Look, another eagle. I am standing in the common in Jaffrey, NH. (The terms common and green are used interchangeably most of the time. They refer to commonly owned land where animal grazing was once allowed.)

On the left is a WWII memorial, made out of glazed ceramic. This is highly unusual for outdoor sculpture, especially in a cold climate where freezes can damage them. The figures depict a young woman on the left and an older woman on the right. Wife and mother of a soldier. This all seemed so unusual that I looked forward to learning about the sculptor. He was Danish and his name was Viggo Brandt-Erickson. He made this tribute to the Gold Star Mothers (a son killed in the war) in 1949.

The building at the right is a former mill and is now apartments.

Nelson, NH is not far off of a major highway. But when I pulled up a hill into this town green or common, I felt like I had arrived in Brigadoon. I hope the residents of Nelson will take that as a compliment. The small square green is a clearing in the forest. I wanted to think of a way of drawing all four sides. But I didn’t.

I have never seen a mailbox structure like this. I guess the local post office does not do rural mail delivery, but requires every resident to claim his mail from an individual metal box in one roofed location. Snow plows often knock over the roadside mail boxes, so this is an improvement for a town with a small population.

In the early part of October, I visited family in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. This is the view out of the window, looking across the lawn and some corn fields. The fields looked like puzzle pieces, behind the grid of the window panes. The buttons on the fabric chair form another grid. All the buttons are the same; all the wrinkles around the buttons differ. The brain is wired to find faces everywhere. I usually erase unintentional faces in my artwork if I can. Here I am leaving the funny faces in the upholstered chair.

While in Wisconsin, we took a day trip to the town of Mineral Point. Where we live in NH, all is brick or grey granite. Here in the upper midwest of the U.S., the building material is yellow limestone. I enjoy regional differences like this. I took the time to draw this scene because it literally stopped me in my tracks. My feet stopped moving forward, and I knew it was time to reach for my paper and pencil. But why? I liked the building that wasn't yellow set against the big flat side of the other one that was. I also like the sloping roof and the angled ladder. Also appealing was the open door with the paint buckets inside, as well as the large old shop windows that hadn't been modernized in any way.

I see this view of Pleasant Lake and its bandstand in Elkins nearly every day. Yesterday I got the idea to draw the blue lake and Morgan Hill looking through the bandstand. There are a few people and a dog at the edge of the lake. We are enjoying warm sunny late autumn weather with spectacular foliage colors. It is my favorite time of year.

New Hampshire and Vermont

I wanted to do a theme of ‘End of Summer, Beginning of the School Year’ and also a nod to Hurricane Irene. At the market every Wednesday, people kept asking me if I had drawn Twin Lakes Villa (or Village) yet. Finally one Sunday I drove to this area in New London, where we live. It is a one hundred year old resort that is thriving. And owned and run that whole time by the same family, the Kidders. That is unusual nowadays. Families have been coming to stay there for generation after generation. I was glad I got there and walked around and got a sense of why so many folks love it to bits.

I drew the main original building, but there are numerous large and small cottages surrounding this old hotel. And tennis courts and a nine hole golf course too. Don’t you love the colorfully painted rocking chairs on the porch? There is a bell above the door that rings for meals. (Or used to.)

We are looking across the golf course to Little Lake Sunapee, sometimes called Twin Lakes. There is a peninsula in the middle that nearly divides it in two. The chipmunk was eating a cracker right in front of me. So he/she got a portrait. The mountain is Mount Sunapee, a ski resort.

This is the Bucklin Beach boat house on Little Lake Sunapee. It is in New London, where we live. The sail boat arrived just as I was finishing the picture. Thank you for completing the scene.

I have many drawings from my Draw-NH! series which I haven’t posted yet. This is one of them....Hancock NH. I do love to draw band stands, and this one is of unusual construction. The brick Hancock Meeting House is on the left with its twin front doors. A meeting house means a building where any group of any denomination can gather.

Right in the center of the state is the town of Belmont. The former mill in the background is now a community center and preschool. And in the foreground is a very intricate bandstand, with lace-like white wooden trim and fancy patterns in the shingled roof. New Hampshire is full of brick mills that have been repurposed into new uses. The little children ran inside before I could draw any, but you can see their red climbing frame, or geodesic dome.

On Main Street in New London is the four year institution, Colby-Sawyer College. The most typical age range for students is 18-21. This enormous building is Colgate Hall. There is a small bookstore in the basement where I buy some art supplies. Town residents are welcome to use the gym and library as well as attend concerts and special events. Which we do. The trees are sugar maples which are tapped in the early spring for sap. It is boiled down into syrup.

About five miles away is the town of Andover. This building, Maxwell Savage Hall, is a part of Proctor Academy. It is a very well regarded private high school. Besides a fine academic program, it is well known for its ski teams.

Our town is on a mountain ridge. This town is in a sheltered valley. We go to a Fourth of July parade there. A fun but sweltering event.

The next four drawings all relate to water. Most residents of New Hampshire and Vermont do live near water...brooks, streams, lakes and rivers, and the 17 miles of New Hampshire’s shore line on the Atlantic coast. Some parts of New Hampshire and Vermont got off easy with the recent hurricane Irene of last week. And other places suffered terrible losses, of roads, bridges, private property and life.

This is my rendition of the Cornish-Windsor Covered Bridge. Its 450 foot span crosses the Connecticut River, connecting New Hampshire with Vermont. Even though it is a narrow, old wooden bridge, it is a very busy one as there are few bridges crossing this wide river. Some of these bridges are one lane and you just take your turn passing through them. This one has two lanes. It was not damaged during this recent flood, but has been washed away three times in its 215-year history. There is no longer a toll taker to enforce the two dollar fine. It is just kept up there for history’s sake. Mount Ascutney is in the background on the left.

Here is an old postcard view showing one of the earlier versions and more of the length.

This is a drawing I did in the car, in the rain, of the Historical Society on the left and the library on the right in Cornish Flat. The town borders the Connecticut River. The land along both sides of the river has wide flat fields of fertile soil. These fields show where the river bed has been over the eons of time...changing course and leaving rich layers of sediment. These fields are now growing corn, or maize as some parts of the world call it.

I am very fond of brick buildings and all the fancy trimmings that talented masons can accomplish. I so missed seeing brick when we lived in England. We lived in the beautiful Cotswolds where honey colored limestone is used for the building material. I learned that there was a brick town too far away to the north named Pershore. I liked to go there.

And another water drawing, this one of the Blackwater River, in Webster, New Hampshire. It starts at Pleasant Lake, where we live in New London. I tried to capture the corner where the quiet dark water meets the drop off, and flows over the granite rocks. The water is ale colored from the tannins in the water from oak leaves.

These two large impressive 19th century buildings are on Main Street in Windsor, Vermont. This town is just on the other side of the river from Cornish. The tree in front of the brick building is much larger and prevents a proper view of the facade. I do a lot of pruning in my art. We took the train from this town down to New York City when our family members were running in the marathon last fall. It was far better than driving or taking the bus.

Residents of the towns in New Hampshire and Vermont are either starting a new academic year, or trying to rebuild roads and bridges and houses. Or an uneasy mix of the two. We wish them all well.

Behind the Scenes!

We now have a very fine atlas of our state. This allows us to find some of the small villages, plus locate the commercial centers of some larger ones. Last week, when driving along farther north, I drove through two towns and never did find the settled areas, so that won't happen again. The atlas is 3/4 of an inch thick and has 148 double page maps and an index 55 pages long. Every street in the state!

I feel odd using the word ‘town’ when the settlement may have 1,000 or fewer people in it. (Some even zero!) But that is the nomenclature of New England. You are always within the borders of a town, even if you are in the wilderness. Am I making any sense? When we lived in Maryland, it took us a while to get used to being in no town, but always in a county.

It was a very rainy day here yesterday in New London, described in the news as a rare summer Nor’easter. We thought we would go for a drive, to draw, despite the poor weather. Our town is located on a mountain ridge and it often has rain, sleet, hail, or snow when the surrounding towns do not. But yesterday it was rainy everywhere. So how do you draw in the rain? Through a window of a house, or in a sheltered doorway, or from a car. I drew from the car, looking between the raindrops. My husband, the driver, had to do some fancy maneuverings to get the car in exactly the best position for the just right composition. This building is the Hall Library in Northfield NH, shared with the town of Tilton. I do so love late Victorian tour de force brick edifices! Such a combination of masterful solidity and frivolity with a dash of brio.

As with many buildings of this era, there is a new addition out the back. That way it doesn’t spoil the looks of the original architecture. And this one was done in a tasteful and harmonious fashion.

This is in Boscawen, a small town just north of the capital city of Concord. I felt like drawing the fire station in the center, with its brick tower, built for drying hoses and to provide a home for the fire bell at the top. Next to it on the right is mill housing. Any long building of that era with multiple doors was probably built as housing for mill workers. The square building on the left was most likely a boarding house.

The Merrimack River is at the bottom of the hill behind the trees. It was the engine that powered industry in the major cities of New Hampshire and northeastern Massachusetts. There were flour mills, textile mills, a tannery, and probably more types of mills too, such as lumber mills. As far as I know, all those here are closed and now abandoned. We drove around down by the river, and we saw no signs of renewal there.

The town center is located a few miles to the northwest. It’s more like the downtown of a New Hampshire country village. Among the offerings there is the best source of genuine southern barbecue that we’ve found since we moved here from Maryland.

Behind the Scenes!

I liked the unusual window treatments on this Community Church in Goshen, N.H. That is why I did a close up view. It is all white painted wood and clear glass.

This is the main square in Bristol, N.H. I drew this while sitting on a park bench. I liked the buildings, and enjoyed the mountain ash tree that partially obscured them. I have memories of coming to this town with my father and grandfather when I was a child. I had not been back in many a moon.

The circle is a business sign on the green Victorian building. I never pass up an opportunity to draw a large ice cream cone sign..on the left.

Today I drew this building at Bradford Center, N.H. It is the Congregational Society Meeting House, 1838. When the railroad was built, with the depot a few miles away, the whole town shifted to the new center of action and growth. But this building has been cared for and valued and occasionally used ever since.

I met a young couple yesterday who told me that they were married here. And asked if I had drawn it yet. And so I did.

The wood trim around the doors is ornate and unusual, but I will have to do a closeup to get that in. The white building is wooden clapboards, and shutters in green. The panes of glass are clear.

It was raining heavily as I sat in the car and drew the library in Grantham, N.H. It is newly painted, and renovated I think. And it looks grand.

Lately we have been attending a lot of craft shows, as vendors. People tell us all kinds of fascinating stories. And most have suggestions of beautiful places to draw, most of them unknown to me. So it is an enjoyable time for us both.

Massachusetts and New Hampshire!

We took a weekend trip out of the woods of New Hampshire and into the major city of Boston. It only takes about ninety minutes by car, but it is a total transformation of surroundings. We usually enjoy a walk through the Common and the Public Gardens and then a stroll down Newbury Street in Back Bay, a fashionable high end shopping street. Where we buy nothing except maybe a coffee. This time, in the heat, we bought ice cream. The brick row houses from the late 1880s are on filled land. It was once part a bay in the Charles River. I love the slate roofs.

To get this view, we sat on the stairs of an empty business space now up for rent. We were below street level, thus the railing. The modern era building in the rear is called the Prudential Center, named for an insurance company.

We drove into Boston to go out onto one of the islands in the harbor. We waited here along the granite quay for our boat. I like this view for the difference in scale. I could see where each chain link was welded; I could appreciate the window patterns on the tall buildings. The sun was warm, the air cool. I could smell donuts and coffee. All the senses were going full steam here.

On the lower far right is part of a steam boat named Samuel Clemons, the actual name of the writer Mark Twain.

And here we are on Lovells Island, with the skyline of Boston on the horizon. The many islands in the harbor are a National Park, and there is public transportation to reach quite a few of them. We were doing a service project of eradicating invasive species. I have drawn the sumac, the thistles, and some, unfortunately for us, unripe blackberries.

We had planned to view the exhibit of glass by Dale Chihuly in the Museum of Fine Arts, Back Bay, Boston. The line was around the block and the heat intense. So I drew the building and the crowds, and we never went in. We plan a return trip tomorrow.

Two weeks ago we drove up along the Connecticut River to draw a few towns. The Brick Store, the oldest general store in the United States, is located in Bath, N.H. I have never seen a general store in brick before. They are usually white painted wood clapboards, or weatherboards as they are called in the U.K. The columns were a touch of grandeur in the wilderness. I included the war memorial in the foreground, and the small yellow smoke house attached to the left of the store. I bought smoked cheddar. It was wonderful. When can we go again to Bath?

We used to live fairly close to Bath, England. There is no resemblance at all.

To add to our collection of New Hampshire Opera Houses, we stumbled upon this one in Woodsville, a part of Haverhill, dated 1890. It’s now divided into apartments, in contrast to some of the other opera houses in the state that are still used as performance space. We sat under a tree, with a small picnic lunch. And I drew this corner building. For fun, I included the digital sign of a local bank, giving the time and the temperature of 90 degrees F.

I do have a penchant for conical towers, I admit it. These three are part of the Maplewood Golf Course in Bethlehem, NH., built c1905. (And of course, the mountains echo the shape.) There was a grand hotel here too at one time, though it succumbed to fire in 1961 as have so many of the others. I was thinking that these summer resorts were built just before the invention of the automobile. That changed people’s vacation habits. But it is still a beautiful town in a lovely location.

The town hall, 1923, in Landaff, NH is on the top of a hill, surrounded by hills. The tiny settlement was very peaceful. No one came out to greet us, as we thought they might.

Now we are at the Riverwalk in Littleton, N.H. (Those people in San Antonio have really started something.) The Ammonoosuc River once powered the old grist mill, and the yellow building is now home to Fiddleheads Artisan Gift Shop and Miller’s Cafe.

I suppose there are covered bridges in cold climates worldwide. The roof protects the floor from heavy snows. But that having been accomplished, the bridge keepers then had to spread a packed down layer on the bridge’s roadway in order to provide a running surface for sleighs and sleds.  The pines are getting very tall and skinny here, a sign we are getting way up north. The row of cars are parked along the main shopping street.

This is the view from some senior housing. Very pleasant indeed.

June 2013 update: The grist mill is being converted into a brewpub.  What a great location!

I did a quick sketch of this rail road station in Lisbon NH because I just loved the roof line and the unusual windows and trim. The yellow flowers are called black eyed susans, such a fun name.

The station has recently been wonderfully restored, and is open to the public. And can be rented for private events.

And we will end this colorful journey with a view of cornfields, and some oddly shaped hills and mountains. They are very blue because of a heat haze.

It was the unusual shape of the hills that caused us to stop here in North Haverhill, N.H.

Behind the Scenes!

This is Lyme, New Hampshire, a town along the Connecticut River—which is the border with Vermont. In the background is one end of a building of 27 stalls for horses and carriages. It continues on for a long way! The stalls are no longer used, but a remnant of past times when the church goers arrived in this fashion. On the right is a church of the early Victorian era, and on the left of the curve sits a home built in the late Victorian era. And on the roadway is a car of my own style, indeterminate era.

This is part of our DRAW-NH!series. We drove along the Connecticut River, and stopped to draw at Bath, Woodsville, Haverhill, Orford, and Lyme. It was a great day.

Behind the Scenes!

This is the view of Mount Ascutney, which is across the border in Vermont. We are in Cornish, New Hampshire. And we are enjoying the breeze under the grape arbor at the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site. The sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens was enormously talented, and this building was his summer studio. I especially like his bas-relief sculptures, in clay, of young children.