One afternoon shortly after I arrived in Chicago, I sketched the house my wife grew up in. Fifteen years had passed since I’d last visited here, and drawing helped to get my bearings. As I sat on the far edge of the lawn with my art kit balanced on my legs, I watched as squirrels collected nuts for the winter and rabbits hopped through the yard. It’s amazing how much wildlife inhabits this big city.
Marilyn and I stepped off the Blue Line metro at Washington in downtown Chicago to visit Millennium Park. Rain had already dampened the streets but ominous clouds were still filling the gaps between tall buildings. With no umbrella in our bags, we were caught off guard. The closer we are to the Lake, Marilyn reminded me, the more unpredictable the weather. As we walked towards the Park, it began to rain so we ducked into an enclosed stairwell. Luckily, it wasn’t long before the rain paused enough for us to face the elements once more. Our first stop, “The Bean” sculpture as it’s nicknamed (real name: Cloud Gate) is quite spectacular. I watched as people laughed and smiled seeing their reflections twist and turn in the sculpture’s mirrored surface. Looking up into the interior of the sculpture gives an otherworldly view, with light and shadow playing off one another to make unusual, twisted shapes. I parked myself away from the crowd to draw this view of The Bean’s northwest side.
Watch out Chicago, The Artist on the Road is coming your way! I’ll be in the City of Big Shoulders for six days starting tonight, visiting my wife’s family and sketching as often as time permits. What else do I want to do while there? Mostly I’d just like to hang out in the Loop and environs, and try a sampling of all the Windy City has to offer. Cafes, coffee houses, parks and beaches along the lakefront, the art district. No matter what we end up doing, as long as I can sketch, I’ll be happy!
My dad was nice enough to loan me his Rick Steve’s travel bag for the trip. While packing last night, I stopped to sketch his bag along with my own messenger bag that holds all my art supplies. Both bags are great to travel with.
Walking back from a recent Charlie Musselwhite concert in the Plaza, I noticed two plastic flamingos placed in an empty lot. The lot is on the site of the old Healdsburg’s post office that burned down in August of last year. The birds’ metal legs had been firmly stuck into the ground, and their heads faced a television propped up on a chair. The oddball set-up brought a smile and I reached for my sketchbook to capture the moment. I admit using some artistic license in my drawing by adding rabbit ears to the small box sitting on top of the TV. While sketching, I wondered what the flamingos were watching on TV. The first thing that came to mind was the classic 1946 movie “The Postman Always Rings Twice.â€
While on summer breaks from art school, I usually visited my mom in Scottsdale, Arizona. One of my favorite things to do there was to sketch the desert landscape on the north end of town. My mom and I avoided the heat by rising before dawn, then drove to East Dynamite Boulevard in north Scottsdale, to some of the most beautiful desert I’ve ever seen. With foldout chairs and plenty of drinking water, we planted ourselves in a comfy spot, and as I drew, we would talk away the morning.
After we sat fairly still for a time, little critters like lizards and roadrunners would emerge and scurry past us, and we kept aware for the occasional snake or scorpion. Daytime temperatures often soared past 110°F (43°C), leaving precious few hours in which to draw before the eventual retreat to air conditioning.
The afternoon heat sometimes gave way to thunder and lightning storms that first brought a wall of dust, then drenching rain clouds that flooded the area. I love the smell of the desert after a rain storm because the wet dirt and plants emit their own unique scent or fragrance.
I’m not the only one who appreciated this part of the Arizona desert: Frank Lloyd Wright built his home and studio, Taliesin West only a few miles to the south from where this was drawn.
This sketch was one of many I did nearly 20 years ago. It was drawn in pencil on a Grumbacher Omni sketchbook with natural tone pages.
My great grandfather built this quirky, little two bedroom house in Carlsbad, New Mexico in the early 1940’s. Its ceilings are only seven feet high, giving it a cramped feeling, and the flooring was fashioned from WWII bomb boxes. Even my dad, who retired early to become a full time writer in the mid 90’s, lived in the house for eight years.
While visiting my dad in Carlsbad ten years ago, I sketched several of the rooms of the old house including the kitchen and living room. The kitchen perspective is off but that’s ok; it gives the drawing character and shows the house’s off-beat personality.
There are two attractions worth visiting while here and neither are located in the town of Carlsbad. The first is an out of this world experience: visiting the UFO museum in the nearby town of Roswell. On the drive into town, a string of billboards clearly informs visitors about aliens who crash-landed there in 1947. Supposedly, their bodies’ and space ship were removed by government authorities and eventually ended up at Wright Field in Dayton Ohio.
The second experience is more earthy, or more literally, in the earth, Carlsbad Caverns. These hauntingly beautiful caves were carved deep beneath the limestone foothills of the Guadalupe Mountains, when sulfuric acid within the hills leached down to dissolve the limestone. Not only are the caverns awe-inspiring in size, but their limestone formations resemble a landscape that might as well be from another world. Nearly 400,000 free-tail bats also live in the caves, and in the summer months, swarm around the cavern eating several tons of bugs each night.
After visiting with my dad for a few days, I flew back to Healdsburg less than a week before September 11, 2001. It was good to be safe at home with Marilyn and our two Australian Shepherds.
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More information on the events at Roswell:
Edward R. Murrow reads:Â Segment 1: From the Archives: “The Case for the Flying Saucers.” (1950).”
Over the weekend my wife Marilyn and I headed to a birthday party in the coastal town of Inverness. After a beautiful drive through the Sonoma countryside, we met with company on the patio of Priscilla’s Cafe. After greetings and birthday wishes, lunch began with a round of raw oysters, pints of ale and fresh squeezed lemonade. Afterward, I dove into fish tacos made with fresh local snapper and stacked high with avocado, salsa fresca and crunchy lettuce. What a treat.
After lunch, we drove out to the Point Reyes Lighthouse on the tip of the nearby peninsula. On a previous drive some years ago, Marilyn and I had almost made it to the lighthouse at sunset, only to end up turning back to make our dinner reservations.
This time we were determined to see the lighthouse. After a forty-five minute drive and one wrong turn, we arrived at the gate. From here, a foot path led to the visitor’s center located a half mile away. Stoically, we decided to hoof it.
Unlike the sunny skies of Inverness, here a cold wind blew thick fog that dampened my glasses, limiting vision to about 20 feet. I wondered if we would see the lighthouse or just bump into it. The wind whistled through twisted, windblown cypress trees lining the path.
At the visitor’s center we learned to get to the lighthouse itself, we had to descend a 308 step staircase, and that closing time was 10 minutes away. Racing down the first 200 steps, we finally saw the lighthouse come into view. Marilyn stopped, saying she’d rather wait for another time to go on, another day when we’d have time to explore. I felt disappointed, but had to agree. This turn of events gives us a great excuse to continue the adventure soon.
With only a few minutes to spare, I decided to do a quick sketch from my place on the stairs. Since the lighthouse was partially covered in fog, I chose not to use pen and ink, reasoning that the softness of watercolor would better represent this moody weather.
Running out of time, I walked back up the stairs and found Marilyn at the visitor’s center looking at guidebooks. Together, we headed home where I put the finishing touches on the painting.