"Newbury and Clarendon" in progress watercolor & ink 9 x 12

During school vacation last week, I was so glad to have the time to get into Boston for a couple of days.  The first was on Patriot's Day to watch the Marathon, which I love, especially when hanging out with my daughter, a college student nearby.  The second was a day with my painting pal, Marianne.  We took the boat in, stopped and met my husband at one of the best donut shops around, Kane's, on the corner of High and Oliver streets. Just an aside, I grew up in Canton, MA where we were blessed with Charlie's Donuts.  If you bump into anyone from Canton of a certain age and mention Charlie's they will lick their lips and you will share memories of the most memorable donuts ever.  Kane's is the closest I have ever tasted, which means they are probably as good when you factor in the romanticized memory component of the Charlies' Donut 
experience. But I digress...

Back to Boston.  We meandered across Boston, down onto Newbury Street and found a place in the sun.  I like to sketch the street, concentrating on the physical structures, and dropping down into the people on the street occassionally when someone catches my eye.  The result is often a street that looks more crowded that the day actually presented, but feels right to me because it represents the coming and going and shifts and changes and the human pageant.  I began to add watercolor later, from memory of where the sun and shade were.  
Eventually, the sun motivated us to move along.  We hung out for a while on the stone benches at the Boston Public Library and watched the human drama that Boston always provides; lots of pedestrians, business people, tourists, a drug deal happening 15 feet from us, street theater, about twenty police converging around the corner from us for reasons unknown, and the Boston Opera Guy singing beautiful arias.  My daughter came to meet us for late lunch, we wandered back into the Public Garden and did a little more drawing before heading home for the boat.   Great day!  Thanks for looking!  I'll post a final when I complete the painting soon.  See below for more photos of the work in stages.

 

Marshfield Fair observations - watercolor

Every student in our K-12 school creates two Exhibitions of Mastery each year.  Exhibitions of Mastery are long term projects that involve research and public presentation.  The students from our school are terrific public speakers as a result.  My arts project is collaborating with the Marshfield Fair (our local Agricultural Fair) this year, its 149th.  My students are going to work in groups to research some of the Fair's offerings for visitors, including horticulture, 4-H, vegetables, artisans, quilting, etc, and make educational displays that will be moved around the Fair during its 10 days in August, the goal being to inform and entice families to see all that the Fair has to offer during their visit.  We'll begin in earnest after vacation, but the students did some research this week and painted their choice of images.  I am impressed by their sense of design.   As always, the midway rides are a big draw.

"Monhegan Harbor" after Aldro Hibbard, pencil and ink

This past weekend, I spent a few hours at a fascinating conference on hunger and homeless.  Very interesting, packed with information from the Southeast Area Missions.  I bring my sketch book wherever I go, and found the time to do some sketches of lovely Monhegan Island, including the lower sketch which is my copy of Aldro Hibbard's painting of "Monhegan Harbor" of which I carry an image in my sketchbook.  It's so beautiful, and I love that I sit on the same rocks that Aldro Hibbard, Rockwell Kent, Winslow Homer and many, many others painted so well, so long ago.

 

Aldro Hibbard's "Monhegan Harbor"

"Saint Sulpice, Montreal" pastel and ink 18 x 12

A couple of weeks ago, we spent a quick couple of days in Montreal to listen to our daughter speak at a linguistics conference.  We hadn't been there in years, so it was a treat to get back, albeit quickly.  The weather was gorgeous, sunny, crisp, beautiful, creating great contrast in the streets of Old Town including this view up Saint Sulpice Street to Notre Dame.
I don't work in pastel,  but decided to give it a shot.  I drew the image using a bamboo stick dipped in black ink, and am in the process of painting in pastel.. sort of an exploration.  It's a bit of a mind bender for me because I usually work with a limited palette whether in watercolor or oil and create the colors I need.  This is a different process, and I'm trying to find my way... so exciting!  The painting is in process.  I chose toned paper that matches the undertones of the old town granite buildings.  We'll see where it goes from here.  Thanks for looking.

Turtles - Four views and New England Wildlife Center

Along with teaching 7th, 8th, 9th grade math, I also teach four hours each week of what we call "project".  I call my project Global Graphics, which involves some art, some exploration, some community service, etc.  Project time at school is intended to be service learning, with the students getting behind an idea or project they want to learn from and explore.  We have done a variety of things so far this year, one of which has been to collaborate with the New England Wildlife Center for some lessons about animals; how to care for them, how to establish a baseline so you can know when they are deviating from that baseline and perhaps ill.  I asked my students to remember several of the animals we have encountered, and to paint one of the animals on the front of what will be a set of thank you cards for NEWC.  We met a red-tailed hawk, giant turtle, python, skink, more turtles, screech owl, goats, saw a bird undergoing surgery (including an oxygen mask and anesthesia), watched a swan swimming in a big bathtub as part of his rehab  as he recovered from lead poisoning, watched a bearded dragon receive a calcium and vitamin D injection, and even saw a baby bat in the "super quiet baby ward".   BTW, all those lead fishing weights that are lying on the bottom of ponds and streams are a threat to water fowl who ingest them as they scoop muck from the bottom.  Never occurred to me.

 New England Wildlife Center is a great place... so impressive, very generous with their time, and dedicated to caring for a huge variety of local animals. 

Bearded Dragon