Summer in the City

Prentiss Street is a quiet little curving street on the border of Cambridge and Somerville, Massachusetts. If you didn't know it was in a densely built-up area, you'd think it was a country lane. These wonderful old houses are on Prentiss Street and I wish I owned one, though it probably has all sorts of old-house problems. There's a porch with plastic chairs on it, and some scrubby foliage as well as the old tree. OK, this isn't the best of neighborhoods but you can be sure that even these old wood-frame houses would be worth a million dollars each if not more. From this location you can walk to anywhere in the Harvard area including most of Harvard, and across the street are numerous stores and restaurants.

I did this drawing on location, on one of those silent serene hot days of summer, hoping to catch the "country-in-the-city" feel of that moment. I added the watercoloring in the studio when I got home. 31 years later, a little bit of blue-tinted Photoshop in the sky. Klik for closer view.

Prentiss Street houses are ink and watercolor on sketchbook page, 8" x 10", August 15, 1984.