Showing posts with label New Hampshire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Hampshire. Show all posts

Monday, November 26, 2007

Interior landscapes with food - a Sketchbook

Lots of my sketches on my travels end up being done in restaurants, cafes and tea rooms. One day I may do a book.........

In the meantime, this summary post:

  • lists all the sketches by title, with their locations. I've organised it geographically in case anybody else fancies having a go at sketching the same view.
  • links to the locations in the title of the place

I'm also planning to post more of my sketches in various restaurants and other eateries which have already appeared on my other blog - see 'Making A Mark' - Interiors. While most of the sketches are of interiors (hence the title), a few involve facilities where the eating and drinking frequently takes place on a terrace outside eg Kew Gardens. Some are purely are of my view while I was taking refreshments.

Also ...... a post about my tips for people wanting to sketch in restaurants and other eateries.

10 "Dos and Don'ts" for how to draw people while eating


An Orangery Afternoon Tea
Kew Gardens

London (from west to east)

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Chelsea

Kensington Palace

Rex Whistler Restaurant 
Tate Britain, London

Tate Britain

Piccadilly - Royal Academy of Arts

St James Restaurant
Fortnum & Mason, London

Piccadilly - Fortnum and Masons

Mall Galleries

National Gallery

The National Cafe
National Gallery, London

National Portrait Gallery: Portrait Restaurant and Portrait Cafe

    Tate Modern

    "Fish! Restaurant, Borough Market
    Bankside, London

    Bankside


    City of London - Smithfield

    Northern England

    The Ferry Inn, Cookham
    Berkshire, England

    Southern England


    Europe

    Menu du Terroir, La Grillade Gourmande, Épernay
    Auberge du Terroir
    Servon, Normandy

    France

    Italy

    Trattoria alla Madonna
    Venice
    Venice:


    USA

    USA - California
    Tommys
    San Clemente, California

    USA - Arizona

    Cafe on Route 66
    Grants, New Mexico, USA

    USA- New Mexico

    USA Massachusetts

    Burdicks, Walpole,
    New Hampshire, USA

    USA - New Hampshire

    USA - Vermont

    USA - Maine

    In Good Company,
    Rockland, Maine


    More travel sketches 


    You can see more of my travels with a sketchbook on my website or by clicking the links to the summaries of blog posts for different areas in the right hand column. These are the links to my travels with a sketchbook in London; England; Venice and the USA.

    This post will be updated as new sketches are added to this blog.
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    Tuesday, December 26, 2006

    Monday 25th September: Portsmouth NH and Strawbery Banke

    On my journey back to Massachusetts I stopped off to visit Portsmouth, New Hampshire - just across the state line from Maine. I was very impressed with the preservation of numerous historical sites and the quality of the exhibitions in the town and stayed a lot longer than i had planned!

    Portsmouth was settled in 1623 and the colony was originally called Strawbery Banke after the berries which blanketed the banks of the Piscataqua River. It later changed its name to Portsmouth and became a hub of maritime commerce in New England - reflected in the grand colonial houses around the centre of the town. Anybody who enjoys history and colonial architecture should put Portsmouth on their list of places to visit in New England. You can park in the centre of town and also explore easily on foot.

    I started off by visiting the Moffatt Ladd house - a three storey mansion which is a National Historic Landmark. I was given a personal guide of its fascinating interior by one of the colonial dames from the National Society of Colonial dames of America (NSCDA) who own and run the house. It was built in the mid eighteenth century for a wealthy maritime trader and you can see the site of the old port very easily from the house. The top of the house has one of the walkways where people could watch the comings and goings of ships.

    There are a number of other fine houses. Most are only open in the summer months but are typically not open every day. Visiting all of them would occupt at least a full day if not more. Apparently there is a Portsmouth Harbour Trail which takes you past most of them.

    After lunch, I visited the Strawbery Banke Museum. This features an extensive collection of restored Colonial, Georgian, and Federal style architecture, saved from urban renewal by the efforts of historic preservationists. You can see a map of just how big the site is here.

    The museum is dedicated to the study of the lives of people who left their mark on Portsmouth's history and the site is designed in such a way that you can gain an insight into how houses were built, developed and were lived in over the years since the settlement was created.

    Not every house is open every day. Guests learn local history from guides dressed in costume appropriate to the 'age' being represented in each house and who help to make it a living museum. This photo is of the street towards the top of the site and the guide is linked to the Marden-Abbott House and the family-run grocery store which is set out in the era of World War 2.

    One of the places I enjoyed the most was the garden of the Goodwin Mansion which had some wonderful planting - both in the garden and also in the 1870 Hot House exhibit. I have however completely forgotten what this plant is called although I keep thinking it's linked to chocolate!

    There are no sketches for this day although I did start a couple. The weather was chilly and kept threatening to rain.

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    Monday, October 23, 2006

    Wednesday 20th September: A friendly warning from the local police!

    Sawyer Crossing / Cresson Bridge, Swanzey 20.9.06 midday
    8" x 10" pencil and coloured pencil in Moleskine sketchbook
    copyright Katherine Tyrrell

    On the Tuesday evening, after drawing art cards of apples on Monday night, Nicole and I then drew pears. An account of the fascinating experience of drawing the same subject next to one another on the same support - with different results - is set out in New Hampshire Pears on my other blog.

    Then on Wednesday morning, after a good look round the delights of Keene with Nicole and Lizzie (and a visit to yet another art shop which unfortunately is closing down its art materials section) I left Keene to drive to the coast of Maine.

    However I decided that before I left New Hampshire that I should try and visit at least one of the covered bridges in the area. There's a whole bunch of them just south of Keene round about the Swanzey area.

    Sawyer Crossing or Cresson Covered Bridge in Swanzey was built in 1859 or so it says on the sign on the entrance to the bridge. According to the New Hampshire Covered Bridges website the 1859 covered bridge in fact replaced the original bridge built in 1771 and is situated near the site of an old Indian community.

    This is what Cresson Bridge looks like from the side. People started to cover bridges to protect truss work and planking from harsh weather in the early nineteenth century. Most bridges were built by local people and consequently had design features local to that area. You can find out more about covered bridges and covered bridge societies in the north east of the USA/New England on the Covered bridge website and the National Society for the Preservation of Bridges.

    Now for the story behind the title for this post! I parked my car in a small car park off to the left of the bridge and then did my usual "walk around / look at a subject from every angle / decide what is the best composition" study prior to starting the sketch. I finally settled on a head on shot which gave me good contrast between the darkness inside the covered area and the light on the far side - plus a few sightlines to help the eye travel through the picture. This was possible because the road bent round just before the bridge and had a stop line (so cars could check whether anything was coming through the bridge before proceeding) and I could sit on the grass at the side of the road next to the stop line. Very few cars passed so I felt very safe.

    Part way through the sketch another car pulled up in the car park, a lot of teenage boys got out, pulled up the hood (I'm really getting into the 'local' language!) and started playing music very loudly - which, as you can imagine, I was just ecstatic about given my nice peaceful spot. When I realised that they were playing some very aggressive rap music - which made nasty comments about women - I started to get quite concerned but stayed sitting where I was. Then a car zoomed through the bridge very fast with one of those "I've got a bigger more powerful engine than you have" noises. So parked car packed up very fast and I then had 5-10 minutes of cars driven by youngsters zooming through the bridge backwards and forwards very fast. Well I was nearly finished and there was no way I was moving - so I continued to sit there.

    Five minutes later - just as I was finishing a police car pulled up. I guess one of the houses in the neighbourhood had alerted them to the silly and noisy antics of the juveniles and they were checking it out. A policeman hung out the window and said "Nice drawing - but it's not very safe sitting where you are" (which I guessed referred to the antics of the boy racers). I think I told him that I kept an eye on cars coming towards me and just stared straight at the face of any driver going too fast!

    On the drive across to Maine (Route 101 then I-95), I stopped to take a few photos of trees which were on the turn. These were taken from the side Route 101 across Dublin Pond with Mount Monadnock in the background. The latter is reputedly one of the most climbed mountains in the USA - or the world depending on the perspective of the website author!

    I wish I could remember what was the name of the small store I stopped at to pick up some lunch - it had great sandwiches and some really 'knock your socks off' wasabi peas - which I decided that, along with yoghurt covered cranberries, were my "snack of choice" for munching on long drives in New England. I don't suppose they did anything for my waistline though!

    Links:
  • Sawyer or Cresson Covered Bridge, Swanzey, New Hampshire
  • New Hampshire Covered Bridges
  • Covered Bridges of the Northeast USA
  • National Society for the Preservation of Bridges
  • Mount Monadnock State Park

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    Saturday, October 14, 2006

    Monday 18th September: Apple orchards, maples and a chocolatier

    Burdicks, Walpole 18.09.06. 1.45pm
    8" x 10" pen and sepia ink and coloured pencil in Moleskine notebook
    copyright Katherine Tyrrell

    On Monday morning I crossed the border into New Hampshire to visit with Nicole Caulfield who lives on the outskirts of Keene with her husband Mike and their delightful daughters Katie and Lizzie. Nicole is a fellow founder member of Fine Line Artists. and we have been corresponding for over two years although we only met for the first time in Albuquerque in July this year when we went to the CPSA Annual Convention - and saw one of her works "Diner Reflections" in the annual exhibition.

    Keene is probably most famous for being the home of the record for the most pumpkin Jack-o-Lanterns in one place (ie 28, 952 - the next record-breaking attempt is Saturday 21st October!

    The morning was sunny and Nicole drove Lizzie and I north to a hill high above the wide Connecticut River that runs north/south and forms the border between New Hampshire and Vermont. The hill was home to an extensive apple orchard with many different varieties of apples I'd never heard of before. Needless to say we picked apples!

    We then went to Walpole, a perfectly delightful rural town dating back to 1736, which is home to the Burdick Chocolate Shop and cafe. We had lunch in the cafe (see the menu!) or rather Nicole and I had lunch and Lizzie toyed with various offerings but was very well behaved for a 3 year old!

    The sketch at the top of the page is of the interior of the cafe and was done from our table. The floral centrepiece included some amazing colours purple / crimson / orange and lime green! There were lots of really interesting coloured reflections going on - however I had to colour this one after the visit due to the need for us to be back in time for Katie getting in from school. To my right of where we sat were the doors through to the chocolate shop which we visited afterwards - primarily so all my very kind hostesses could have a token of my appreciation! I did get to try one or two later and I have to say they were really scrummy!

    New Hampshire is the second most forested state in the USA after Maine. When we got home I had another go at trying to workout how one does sketches of extremely tall trees in back gardens - in this case Swamp Maples. which were just beginning to turn. Lizzie entertained me with her toy teaset while I scribbled away at my plein air sketch in a somewhat 'impressionist' style - all I can say is Louise has been showing me too many images of works by Wolf Kahn !

    Back garden, Keene 18.09.06. 6pm
    10" x 8" pencil and coloured pencils in Moleskine sketchbook
    copyright Katherine Tyrrell

    In the evening Nicole and I both had a go at doing an art card from the apples we had picked earlier in the day. Nicole has started doing art cards and smaller works as a way of making her work more affordable for new collectors - and they're selling well!

    I was particularly interested to try out the properties of the Grafix drafting film which Nicole uses and am now of the opinion that this is the nicest of all the types I've tried to date. I produced two art cards but can now only find one - which is on the left. It is in fact slightly larger than the required 3.5" x 2.5" of an art card.

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    Thursday, October 05, 2006

    Travels with a sketchbook in New England, USA



    (From top left, clockwise: sketches from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont)

    This is my provisional summary of the next set of entries relating to my trip to New England in September 2006 and the resulting sketchbook.

    Besides the links to posts for individual days (below), you can now also see galleries of my sketches done while on my travels in New England on my website:
    The main purpose of my visit was to take a 5 day Pastel Workshop with Sally Strand on "The Colour of Light" (which will be covered in my other blog 'Making a Mark' as it's not really about sketching). This meant that my first week (11-15 September) was spent on Cape Cod - based in Chatham.

    As I was in New England, I decided that this was the most wonderful opportunity to see as much of New England as I could within the usual constraints of time, budget and the different locations of people I knew. It makes such a difference when you travel to the home areas of people you know. I always get a much better understanding of a place when I do.

    My main base was the Massachusetts countryside, northwest of Boston, with my cousin and her husband. As it turned out it couldn't have been better positioned for my different trips. Consequently I was able to see a bit of Massachusetts on the first and second weekends either side of the workshop. Then in the second week I travelled to see Nicole Caulfield in New Hampshire and Bert Dodson Vermont before travelling on the Wednesday across to Maine where I spent the next five days visiting with Kathy Ellis and her husband, before returning via Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

    The itinerary went something like this:
    The last sketch - at Logan Airport (note the wifi laptops!)
    8" x 10", pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Moleksine sketchbook
    copyright Katherine Tyrrell

    Before I start I'd just like to say a big thank you to all the people who offered me hospitality - and most especially my cousin who had her washing machine and dryer on overtime for me on two weekends on the trot and my mother who got up very early two mornings to ferry me to and from the airport and provided a mother-substitute services for my two cats!

    For animal lovers, unlike the last trip this trip seems to be completely swamped by animals from start to finish. It's got four moggies and a miniature poodle in Massachusetts, two Labradors in Vermont and three more Labradors in Maine. I even acted as the midwife at the birth of a new blog about Labs!

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