RAMBLING  SKETCHER

You may remember that last year, my sister and I went on a trip to Disneyworld. We had such a good time, and Hilary used her ticket ninja skills to work out an affordable trip so we could go again! And this year, she didn't have to work! I still couldn't resist a few sketches!

I spent the last two weeks of August in Connecticut working in East Haddam, painting scenery for Goodspeed Musicals. Aside from getting to work in a great shop with lovely people and see my friends who live up in Connecticut, it also gave me the opportunity to paint scenic East Haddam! Here's a couple of the opera house, one in the morning and one at sunset! This one of the Connecticut River I did while waiting for my burger at the Blue Oar, racing the sunset! These two of th

For the past few summers, I've been lucky enough to have my friend Anna invite me up to her family's shore house in the Thimble Islands. It's always a lovely group of people, and nice to have a mini vacation, not to mention it's so fun to sketch! I was able to meet her (and twelve others!) last month. I only did this one sketch, but we had a full spectrum of weather so I snapped some good photos too! I'm particularly proud of the panorama of the storm rolling in; I was standi

Sometimes I wait so long to post things I remember very little about painting them. This? I know it's Greenpoint, and I remember being cold while painting it. That's about it, though!

A sad side effect of being a busy scenic painter who also sells fine art on the side and who ALSO has a business making and selling watercolor palettes and sketchboards on the side is that frequently, my sketching has to happen between other things. I don't always have time to take a day out of my schedule and just paint, but I can usually spare 20-60 minutes for a sketch. Here are two I did between errands a few weeks back! The first I did while dropping a painting off with

Sometimes, I get to paint really fun things for really great people. My friend Joey contacted me about this commission for his wife; they met in New York and have fond memories of the apartment building she was living in at the time (especially since they had their first date at the since-closed tapas bar downstairs!). This one was a joy to do, and I heard it went over very well with his better half.

Accompanying the previous post, the same weekend I went to Longwood Gardens I also took myself on a little sketchcrawl of Philadelphia. As we had listened to the Hamilton cast album on the way to and from the Gardens the day before, I had our founding fathers on the brain and decided to start with Independence Hall! They get points from me for friendliest security guards. I was in the process of parking myself outside the gate (since 9/11 instead of being able to walk around

I love this view of Grand Central, as seen from Park Avenue. When you catch it at the right time of day, the iconic New York building is hit with half light, half shadow. Naturally, the clouds rolled in and it started to rain while I worked, but I think I captured the light just in time!

A few weeks ago I visited my parents in South Jersey for a weekend, and my Mom, sister and I spent a day at Longwood Gardens. Despite growing up in easy driving distance, my sister and I had never been! The grounds were beautiful, and naturally I couldn't go and not sketch anything. Luckily, my family is generally OK with me breaking off to do my own little sketch crawl. First up: I couldn't resist the light on these red cannas! Next I met up with the fam for a mid-afternoon