New Hampshire

 

Early in the month we drove about an hour and a half to the east to meet up with a friend for dinner and then hear New Hampshire humorist Rebecca Rule entertain us at the South Eaton Meeting House.  The day was very warm and the space unventilated, so we each were handed a paper plate as we passed through the front door.  They served as fans.  Becky was impressed and took a photo of all her ‘fans’ before beginning her talk.  It’s a joke.  Afterwards, we used them as plates for our desserts at the social hour.

The building, constructed in 1844, has beautiful curved plaster walls. The official name is the First Free Will Society Meeting House. In Greek Revival style, it is a simplified rural adaptation.  The town is very proud of it.

Becky does look like a preacher as she stands there retelling old New Hampshire stories.  And, as is her customary procedure, shamelessly soliciting contributions of new stories from the audience, which she will add to her marvelous repertoire and perhaps retell over in the next town.

 

The long curved shapes are two of the greenhouses at Spring Ledge Farm, here in New London, NH.  

A word about art materials: this drawing was done using soft charcoal for the lines and the darks, and watercolor for the tones. It has an entirely different effect from an ink line.

Beets come in many colors, not just red. Like yellow and orange. We eat the greens too. I have always loved fresh green beans, and yellow ones too.  Yellow beans are often called wax beans, although they do not seem any waxier than the green.

And the stems are so colorful.

 

At our weekly market we have farmers and also crafts people like this potter, Anne Boisvert.  These hand thrown pots have a lovely mixture of blue and green glazes. And some nice bumpy slip texture.

 

Uptown, as we call Main Street in our little village. It’s on a ridge—you have to drive uphill to get there.  Here you can rent kayaks.

Then you can drive down the hill to put them into the waters of Pleasant Lake.  Our two kayaks are on storage rack to the right.  Mount Kearsarge and Black Mountain are on the far side of the lake. The public boat ramp is over there too.

This drawing is five years old. But nothing has changed. Except that our grandchildren are now old enough to play at the volleyball net.

A week ago Saturday we drove to Concord, New Hampshire, the state capitol. I was there to draw on location at a meetup of sketchers—a sketchcrawl. An artist named Bobbie Herron has started a group there called DrawingAttentionNH that meets on the third Saturday of the month.  You can follow them on Facebook.

We are in a small courtyard in front of the Hamel Center and the New Hampshire Historical Society’s Museum.

Through the iron arch is Main Street, with its summer street fair. The illegible red sign says ‘Fries’.  The crowds hadn't really shown up yet when I drew this. That is OK, as I was focused on the arch, and on the ornate stone building behind.

In Eagle Square you can find a lot of granite. Big piles of blocks of it. (Residents of New Hampshire are called ‘Granite Staters’.) The stones in the foreground are granite, as well as the building behind. So, how to get some color into the scene?  A three member band started to play.  While they themselves were not personally colorful, their music was loud, cheerful, and echoed in the space.  I am attempting here to use color to indicate music.

In the spring, I taught a drawing class.  Here is a demonstration drawing/painting of a croissant. I am judging it a success by the fact that it makes me feel hungry.