We have a church across the street up a small hill. Tonight I looked out the window (the window with our crazy santas on the sash) and saw the church outlined in the last light of dusk. I completed a quick sketch, then blacked in the church silhouette with india ink, then laid in the blue dusk with pencil and pastel.
The crazy santas on the windowsill are made of a couple of silver christmas balls, some red felt, and white cotton and glue. I found them years ago in a bag in a consignment store. Someone put a lot of effort into their creation decades ago. I'm a firm believer that somethings are so tchotchke that they become beautiful again. Many times it has to do with the time and effort expended. The crazy santas are the product of a lot of time. I intended to put them on packages, but couldn't let them go... they are too sweet.
This is my 86th daily drawing. Thank you for looking.
Across from
Monhegan's Library sits tiny Pitkin Cottage. The Library and cottage
are part of one of Monhegan's two street intersections, if you could
call them that. Theirs is the more northern of the two intersections.
The church sits in the other. As visitors stroll into the Pitkin
intersection, they pass the Library, gaze shifts to the left and the
Monhegan Schoolhouse, then to their maps, then to the decision ahead at
the fork in the road: up to the right leads to the Lighthouse and
Museum, and up to the left leads to the Ice Pond and/or Cathedral
Woods. Because of this rhythm, I believe most people don't see the
Pitkin cottage, though it is certainly in plain view. My theory is
actually based on empirical evidence. I have painted and sketched in a
number of spots on this path, amid the pedestrian traffic.
What's the point? So. The Pitkin cottage used to have these beautiful (and worn) windows filled with a collection of blue bottles on both sides of its tiny kitchen. I loved looking through the kitchen at the bottles in front of bottles with the sun-filled interior sandwiched between them. The windows have since been replaced with more practical new ones. Here are a couple of takes on the lovely windows, or as I call it, "an interior painted from the exterior". In both cases, after asking permission, I painted standing in the yard, right on the edge of the intersection I described above. No one saw me either time. Invisible in plain sight. It's a skill... maybe a superpower if you could invoke it with intention.
Thanks for looking. As always, I love your comments.
