Industrial Patterns 9 Honda Garage

While waiting for my car to undergo long-needed upgrades, I drew this picture of the Honda dealership's garage. It definitely qualifies as an "Industrial Pattern" with its interlocking bars and planes of machinery and doors. As I drew, cars were brought in and out of this space and you can see parts of two of them in the open doorway. In the center a worker sits in an office chair, his legs up on a tire, taking a little break. 

Black tech pen ink on sketchbook page, 5" x 5", August 6, 2015.

Rocky Shore of Gloucester

In New England a lot of the seashore is rocky and rugged, though there are plenty of sandy beaches for those who want them. Some of my favorite places to go are Rockport and Gloucester, (pronounced "Glosta") in northern Massachusetts. These rocks are in Gloucester and I fondly remember sitting on the rocky heights with my big boxes of "Stabilayout" markers doing this study of ocean and granite. There was a brief moment in my sketching history where I used these markers and other water-based markers to do my on-site sketches. Now as you know I use colored pencil which may not be as strong a color but is easy to tote around and maintain. Markers fade in normal light which is why this drawing and the others I did remain packed away in my stacks of notebooks. I haven't been to the seashore in ages, I'd like to go but the logistics are difficult.

Markers on sketchbook page, 10 1/2" x 7 1/2", August 7, 1987.

Markham Station

One of my favorite places in Northern Virginia is not a vineyard but an old railway crossing. I  documented the tiny post office there in this post from 2011. It is in the town of Markham and there are historic buildings there. This used to be a stop for the trains coming in from Southern regions but now the train just goes right through. I sit there and wait for the Norfolk Southern freight train, one of my favorite sights. It uses three locomotives to haul its long line of unmarked (but graffiti-adorned) containers and tank cars towards the north, where it stops in Manassas. This drawing depicts Railstop Road, which leads to Chateau O'Brien winery and vineyard. I sometimes wish I could rent one of the 19th century townhouses near the tracks but do I really want the Norfolk Southern coming through my living room every hour or so.

Black tech pen ink on sketchbook page, 5" x 4", August 1, 2015. Some corrections in Photoshop.

July Twilight Cambridge

Weather conditions in July and August sometimes give us unusually colored skies at dawn and twilight. At twilight the sky can turn brilliant yellow or orange, often after a storm. I tried to capture this look with this color sketch, done while sitting on my front porch in Cambridge, Mass. The house you see there is where I photographed many of my artworks, balancing them on the porch railing. It belonged to a schoolteacher named Aileen McCarthy, who at one time lived there with her elderly mother. After her mother's passing Aileen kept the place and I never told her I wished I could buy it from her, not that I could have. The interior was like a time capsule from the 1930s or 1940s, just like my own parents' house looks like an installation from the 1960s. 

As you know, I love July and August as the only part of the year warm enough for me. I'd love to move somewhere where it is always summer but you then get the unpleasantness of the tropics such as large bugs, poisonous reptiles, hostile inhabitants, and disasters and floods. And no vineyards.

Markers on sketchbook page, 10" x  8", July 13, 1987.

No One Remembers This

I used to be the "artist in residence" at DarkoverCon. I would do the program book cover and the little logo which was used in the convention badge. Each cover illustration had a Darkovan theme. This one was done after my trip to England in the fall of 1987 where I viewed Stonehenge. This image is Stonehenge on Darkover, hence the giant sun and the four moons rising through the upright stones. Author Marion Zimmer Bradley included lost pre-human races of beings on Darkover, so they probably put up these stones. DarkoverCon and to a large extent Darkover itself has faded out of existence. What happens when an imaginary world is no longer imagined?

Ink on illustration board, 8" x 10", fall 1987.

New Vines at Winding Road

The cumulus clouds were billowing over the green and gold fields as I visited my "home" winery, "Winding Road Cellars." I delivered to them a framed painting of mine for their wall, and more of my "Earthly Paradise" wine books which had sold out! While I was there, a wine aficionado bought two of them and claimed she had visited every winery in the book. Well I was highly pleased by this and took my wine and went out onto their peaceful quiet wooden deck and did this work of iPaddery for the next wine art book collection. This depicts the back area of Winding Road and their pond. To the right is a section of their newest vineyard planted with young vines and protected from voracious deer by a high fence. Everyone is so nice at Winding Road, I keep going back there, and of course I continue to appreciate their spicy red Chambourcin.

"ArtStudio" app on iPad, with more work on Photoshop in the studio. I love the leaf and grass textures on ArtStudio. August 1, 2015.

Pennsylvania Lightning

On July 9 of this year I journeyed to the Philadelphia area to meet my friend and art client and deliver her Angelic Portrait to her. During the trip I had to pass through a violent thunderstorm with lightning and deluge. The storm passed over me and I drove through wet streets with large puddles, while the twilight scene was illuminated by vivid, flickering lightning. These were some of the worst conditions I've ever traveled in, but I managed to get to my destination.

This tiny drawing is a simulation, or an illustration. It is not the result of an on-site study. I used a generic Pennsylvania townhouse as a reference and the rest is from memory.

Brown tech pen ink and markers on sketchbook page, 3 1/2" x 2 1/4", August 1, 2015.