New Hampshire and Wisconsin

I stopped for a sketching session in Sutton, NH last week, just a few miles south of our town. This grey house has very unusual white wooden trim that looks like icicles. So I have been waiting for a day when actual icicles were hanging off of the eaves. The icicles made of frozen water are at the far right and far left parts of the wooden clapboarded house; the wooden ones are along the front roof peak.

Being a very cold day, I drew from the comfort of my car. And I included the bell tower of the white meeting house in my mirror. The residential house and the meeting house are on the town common. Both structures were built in the first half of the 1800s.

Sometimes I spend a little time in our town library in the reading room. There is a fine selection of magazines in neat piles on the central table. Our town library, the Tracy Memorial Library, is based in a former private home. At one time it was the town hospital.

 On this day I drew the view across Main Street. The yellow shingled store tempts us with displays of spring clothing in the windows. We are still in the throes of a very snowy winter, but we can dream.

I thought it would be fun to draw through the wavy glass of the old window panes. It was. The upholstered chair is new. Or at least the covering is new. And also entertaining to interpret.

 I had never once noticed the details on the wooden moldings around the windows. The designs of the circles are drilled holes in the wood. It is similar to the pattern on the moldings in the town hall. Same carpenter?

When I was drawing the chair in the library, I suddenly remembered the last time I had sketched a chair in front of a paned window. This composition is from four years ago at my sister and brother-in-law’s house in Wisconsin.

The weather was reasonably mild the other day, above freezing. So I took a little drive to Sunapee Harbor to see what I could see. I found deep snow on the frozen lake with a group of friends sitting around their bob house. I have never been ice fishing but it looked like a fine social event to me.

The snow is so deep that the docks are buried with only the posts sticking out of the frozen lake.

One of the vendors at New London’s Market On The Green (held indoors in the town hall in the winter months) is Faye Graziano of Bradford. Her business is called Sew There! and features her creations using very colorful fabric. I own many items made by Faye.

 

It has been a good month for publicity for my new book. Here is the cover for the spring issue of our wonderful regional magazine. The town is Springfield, NH. The building with the bell tower is the town meeting house.

 And here I am in our state’s largest newspaper, the NH Union Leader. The article is written by the very able storyteller Melanie Plenda. She and I have talked about my art three times, once on the radio. 

 

There are links to these and other stories about my art in the sidebar on the right of the blog page.

 I have been using this publicity photo of myself for about five years. The drawings are small because the plan is to have them reproduced at approximately the same size. I have no trouble drawing mountains on tiny pieces of paper.

 Click here for larger, readable version