"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.