Showing posts with label New Mexico. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Mexico. 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, July 10, 2007

    A sketching tool kit......for travels with a sketchbook

    This post is going to link to all the posts I've previously written about assembling a tool kit for sketching plein air.

    Pencil cases (for coloured pencils) and Sketchbooks (Daler Rowney and Moleskine)
    My sketching toolkit for day trips
    Photo copyright Katherine Tyrrell
    First off, everybody's idea of what they need is different - there is no one right answer. You need to experiment to find out what works for you. Different circumstances also require different kits - you need to think about where and how long you will have to carry your kit.

    These are just my ideas of the different ways I assemble a tool kit of materials when travelling with my sketchbook.

    Sketching toolkits
    The following posts include photos of my set-ups at different places in the USA during the summer of 2006.
    Art Materials and Advice on Sketching

    In addition, on my website I have:
    • a page dedicated to describing the art materials I use. Any materials I mention in the above blog posts can be found on this page - usually with a photograph
    • advice on sketching - which includes reference to the sketching toolkits mentioned above
    I'll update this summary as and when I write about items in sketching toolkits.

    Next I'll provide links to posts about individual items which are recommended for sketching plein air.

    Links: [these have been updated as sites have changed]
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    Thursday, August 24, 2006

    Plein Air Sketching - the Sandia Mountains


    You will recall that in my post about Friday 21st July Plein Air Sketching and a Banquet I said I was in a quandary because the sketches are still in California. Well - it's sorted as you can see above! Louise has scanned the images and sent them to me. I've arranged them as the images are intended to be when developed - you can click on either of them to see a larger image.

    So a recap and more details about approach and process, given I wasn't sketching on the run and actually had time to think about what I wanted to do and how to design the 'picture' before I started.
    • Just after 9am, after much walking around, I sat on a tiny patch of grass in a car park attached to the north of the Winrock Shopping Centre in Albuquerque looking across to the east at the Sandia Mountains over the tops of the trees. Nice and quiet and unlikely to be interrupted.
    • I was fresh from the slideshow the night before and my analysis of what gave a drawing impact and thought I should really try and apply a few of those messages if I could in the approach to and design of my sketches, so................
    • I tried both horizontal and portrait formats out in my sketchbook and plumped for the portrait as I began to realise as I sat there that the sky/clouds/light were a very big part of the 'story' about looking at the mountains. Also the portrait format just seemed to work better in terms of what I could actually see. I may have changed a landscape format if I'd had a better view of the mountains (given I also had Georgia O'Keeffe's landscape paintings at the back of mind eg Untitled (Red and Yellow Cliffs), 1940 and Black Mesa Landscape, New Mexico/Out Back Of Marie's II, 1930).
    • Having plumped for the portrait I realised that a diptych and maybe even a triptych might be possible. So I started with the intention of doing at least two in a portrait format to produce a diptych and also if I could get more done later in the late afternoon/evening I might get a triptych of the mountains at different times of day.
    • Sandia 'north' is the left hand one and Sandia 'south' is the right hand one. I've been trying to find the names of places on the ridge but can't. There is a small gap between them in real life as there would be if done larger and hung (I feel a pastel coming on!)
      • the light in Sandia 'north' is early morning - the mountains are still bluish purple and the sky is a very pale aqua blue with lemony pinky streaks near the crest of the mountain
      • the light in Sandia 'south is late morning/midday - the yellow in the light has moved out of the sky onto the land which is losing its bluish tinges while the sky begins to intensify its blueness. The clouds have also changed and there are fewer 'little fluffy clouds' and more of a white haze just above the crest
      • the third one - never happened - but the mountain would have got reddish mauve in the late afternoon/early evening and the pinkiness in the sky would have reappeared along the crest.
    • Having plumped for the portrait format and more emphasis on the sky I placed the crest line about a third of the way down the page - but actually tried looking at what it would look like with the two together - hence why there is a connection between one ridge and another and the tree line is in about the same place. I've done diptychs before and there is nothing more frustrating and irritating than forgetting to design the whole as well as the individual drawings.
    • Initial outline sketch to sort out cropping, design of main shapes and the nature of the value pattern in my sketchbook.
    • Followed by an initial pencil drawing of the main shapes using a mechanical pencil and then coloured pencils to develop the range of colours - generally going from light to dark and working the whole sketch at the same time.
    • I seem to remember I didn't try to finish the first one before starting the next one. What i did was finish parts of it with enough information to allow me to complete it later - which is what I did. In other words, once I've established what colour the sky is at different places on the paper, if it doesn't vary then I can just complete one part and then develop the rest later. I don't need to get absolutely everything to a 'completed' stage when I'm trying to catch light effects - I just need enough information before I move on to the next thing in the sketch, or as in this instance, the next sketch. I completed the blue part of the skies back at the B&B.
    Techie details: the sketches are 12" x 9" and are on Saunders Waterford Hot Press 140lb/300gsm paper in a block (which saves having to carry a drawing board).

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    Wednesday, August 23, 2006

    22nd July: The CPSA Artists' Reception

    Saturday evening saw us all at the CPSA Artists' Reception to see the exhibition and, in particular, Nicole Caulfield's piece ( 'Diner Reflections' 18" x 13" coloured pencil $1,100. A fine art print of this is available - for further details see www.nicolecaufield.com ).

    Nicole had been to see the 2005 exhibition in Chicago and, in comparison to that, was very impressed by the size of the gallery and the space it afforded for hanging the 152 drawings (from the 781 submitted).

    However, I personally found that the lighting in situ could have been better as not all works were well lit - including Nicole's. I couldn't quite work out whether it was a case of more spots were needed or they needed better adjustment but the lighting from the nearest spots hit the blank wall to the side of Nicole's work - which made it much more difficult to appreciate the subtleties of her colour mixing! We're always reminded of the importance of the quality of presentation when exhibiting work - the same might be said for the importance of the quality of lighting in a gallery so that work can be properly appreciated! I hope that having said that it doesn't scupper my chances for next year as, having now seen for myself 'up close and personal' the calibre of the work accepted, I may have a go at producing something for next year's exhibition.

    Here we all are next to Nicole's work - check the spotlight! We had a pact to decide which were the three works we liked best (without saying until we'd left the exhibition) and proved yet again that judgement about art is all essentially down to the individual eye. While we all agreed on the merit of 3-4 works, we also all differed as to what we would have given first prize to and why! It makes it so much easier to understand and accept the reasons why work that you believe has merit sometimes gets rejected and why a piece might win a first prize in one exhibition but won'necessarily win so much as a sausage at another.

    Cindy Brunk won one of the top prizes 'the Airfloat Strongbox award for outstanding recognition' for "Annabel Revisited" and is on the left in her husband's photo of her with Gordon and Kathy. I personally think Gordon's shirt should also have won a prize!

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    22nd July: Santa Fe and Georgia O'Keeffe

    "One paints what is around" Georgia O'Keeffe

    On Saturday, Louise, Nicole and I went to Santa Fe for the day. The landscape as we headed north acquired bushes and then trees and became greener. As we got to the outskirts of Santa Fe, we began to see a vista of browny pink adobe buildings inbetween green trees and set against purple blue mountains . 

    My personal aim was to see something of Santa Fe - to try and understand why so many artists go there to live - and also to visit the the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. I came away absolutely certain I shall return and stay awhile and paint - it was a very impressive place. I think most of all I liked the wonderful colours of the area, trees with green leaves, the weather (temperature was mid 70s with a slight breeze) and the small 'people-sized' scale of its central / cultural area. It seems to have been conserved without becoming too precious.
     
    The Georgia O'Keeffe museum was stunning. I've felt an affinity with the work of Georgia O'Keeffe and her approach to art (her focus on landscapes, macro flowers and colour) for some time and have been keen to know how she achieves such deceptively simple images. I've been wanting to go to the museum for a very long time - on the basis that you can't beat seeing art 'up close and personal' as an aid to understanding art - and was not disappointed. It was very busy but I think they keep a control on numbers so it doesn't become too unpleasant. All around the walls where quotes from Georgia O'Keeffe. I copied some into my Moleskine and these are mixed in with this post. I noticed that there was one book which she said had been hugely influential - "Composition" by Arthur Dow. I bought it! 
    "Nothing is less real than realism...details are confusing...it is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis that we get at the real meaning of things" Georgia O'Keeffe 
    The current exhibition on color and conservation continues to 10th September for anybody who can get there.

    Below are two photos of two more museums (have I explained that if given the choice between shopping and museums I generally choose museums?). These are of the exterior of the Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe in Cathedral Place (opposite St Francis Cathedral) which I didn't visit and the interior of the Museum of Fine Arts in - which I did.  

    The latter is housed in a Pueblo revival building. The exhibitions included another Georgia O'Keeffe exhibition relating to the legacy of her paintings of New Mexico - with the simply stunning image of what I presume is the Rio Grande River (which I thought I'd just seen up the road?). It also had an exhibition of drawings by Frederico Vigil - who works in 'aqua crayon' and goache and ink. His drawings illustrate well known sayings - and were rather thought-provoking in terms of artistic technique.

     

    We had lunch at the Georgia O'Keeffe Cafe, sitting outside under peacock green umbrellas. 

    I had a wonderful lunch - so nice I had to take a photo of it! I'd have done a sketch of it too if I hadn't already started my one of the cafe - see the sketch at the top of this post - and we had more time.

    Just a quick mention for the Artisan Art Supply Stores in Albuquerque and Santa Fe - again, art shops with a very wide range of stock (and a very impressive range of different barnds of soft pastels), good stock levels and knowledgeable and helpful staff. I also understand there is a branch in Taos and that they have just introduced a shopping cart and on-line shopping to their website - although this is obviously still under development. 
    "Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest" Georgia O'Keeffe 

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    Tuesday, August 22, 2006

    21st July - plein air sketching and a banquet




    On Friday, Louise and Kathy were in a workshop all day - with Cecile Baird, Gordon was on airport duty and I was determined to get some time for "proper sketching" in the way I normally do - which essentially means on a much larger piece of paper than my Moleskine.

    However, I'm in a slight quandary with this post - the reason being that the sketches in question are still sitting in California. I left my Saunders Waterford HP pad behind along with some pastel support - and that's being posted to New England rather than coming back to the UK and then back out there again.

    Unfortunately I 'd done my sketches on the Saunders Waterford and had left the sketches in the pad!

    So what we have instead are photos (click for larger version) of:
    • the view (rather limited by lack of car and how far I can walk carrying a chair and kit - this is the car park next to the shopping centre near the convention hotel)
    • the set-up - you see I really do take all that kit out with me when I go sketching!
    • and the initial stages - on the right is my Daler A4 sketchbook which I used to try out landscape and portrait formats (and the framing of of the content) for a slice of the view - plus, on the left, the first layers of the sketch. The yellow green is the background colour of trees - to be reserved for highlights as I continue with layers of darker greens. Then the blue mountains and then sky with clouds.
    • I was supposed to take another photo (in situ) when I finished - but I forgot!
    I rather enjoyed my location. I was under a tree which gave good shade for three hours while I did two sketches which were both 12" x 9", had my feet in the grass while I sketched and then got to go shopping afterwards!

    Nicole Caulfield - who had a piece accepted for the CPSA 14th international exhibition - flew in from New England and joined our group in the afternoon (L to R: Louise, Nicole, me and Kathy). We celebrated all four of us getting together in person for the very first time before heading off to the CPSA banquet where the prizes were announced.

    Each year entrants to the CPSA international exhibition are judged by an independent juror - in this case the Director of the Gallery where the exhibition was being held. For a medium which seems to be largely dominated by female artists, it was very interesting to see quite how many men were left in the last group of 6-8 people getting the bigger money prizes.

    The 'top' prize - the CPSA Award for Exceptional Merit ($1,500) and the CIPPY award went to Linda Koffenburger CPSA. Linda is an instructor in the Botanical Illustration Certificate Program at the North Carolina Botanical Gardens at UNC-Chapel Hill and teaches classes on colored pencil at the Sertoma Art Center in Raleigh, NC. She is a member of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators (GNSI) and is also a member of the CPSA Governing Board (as Director of Ways and Means). You can see her work and the names of the rest of the award winners and their pieces on the CPSA website here.

    We all got to meet a lot of people who we have previously only known by their coloured pencil artwork and their screen names. It's very odd having to take-in what people look like, their accents and then remembering who was who - because, of course, you 'know' all these people even if this is the very first time you've actually met them!

    And finally,
    • I've now posted a colour swatch and a commentary on the new shades of Prismacolor coloured pencil referred to in my last post

    • another hangover from the last post - this is the sketch of the corner of my room at the Mauger. We discovered that they were all decorated slightly differently from traditional and in keeping with the age of the house (like mine) to very contemporary. It's A3 in size (approx 11.5" x 17") which is a double page spread in my A4 Daler Rowney black hardback sketchbook
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    Thursday, August 17, 2006

    20th July - Old Town Albuquerque

    Early Morning, Alburquerque
    pencil and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook
    In Albuquerque we stayed in a 'bed and breakfast' called Mauger's near the Old Town. It was great - and now comes highly recommended by me!

    I sketched both my room (on tomorrow's post) and the view from my window early one morning. The clouds have a very different quality for about an hour or so in the early morning light.

    On Thursday morning Louise was up bright and early to attend her coloured pencil workshop at the convention hotel on drawing the figure with coloured pencils. She's an artist who's very experienced at drawing from life and says it was an 'interesting experience'.

    Kathy, Gordon and I went for a tour of the Old Town where there are lots of little alley ways with very small shops and galleries. I sat under the trees in the Old Town Plaza and tried to do a quick plein air sketch using pencil/coloured pencils in my Moleskine of the Indians selling jewellery on the sidewalk - very sensibly sitting in the shade as the temperature was just short of 100 degrees. Inevitably this is a composite of several people coming and going. I really don't think I did a terrific job of getting the value contrast right. I'm always perplexed by very light colours in very deep shade as was the case with this particular view. And it simply misses completely the bright, almost fluorescent, flashes of light on the edge of the castellations on the roof. Of course the photos are of no help as they always get the values wrong. But having written that down I'll now remember what's wrong with this sketch! I find if you make a notation on sketches about shortfalls and mistakes it can be really helpful if you want to work the sketch up later on.

    Panpipes in Old Town Albuquerque
    pencil and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook
    A chilli ristra

    At lunchtime, we mellowed out having a great meal at the Church Street Cafe. Check out the menu! This and other restaurants are listed in the link below. The building which houses it is located at the back of the church and was built in 1706 - around the time Albuquerque was founded . This makes it one of the oldest structures in Albuquerque and New Mexico. The walls are made of terrones (a type of adobe brick used before the swampy area around Rio Grande was drained in 1820). The walls are some two feet thick in places.

    The photo is of a ristra hanging at the entrance to the restaurant - the colours are looking rather good against the adobe wall. Kathy and I explored the Turquoise Museum in the afternoon which was simply fascinating and well worth a visit if you're ever tempted to buy any turqouise.

    In the evening Louise, Kathy and I attended the slide show at the CPSA convention which I've written about in my other blog, Making a Mark, here - "CPSA entries to the 2006 exhibition"

    Kathy, Louise and I had also been to the Convention reception in the hotel where it was based the previos evening. We duly queued and and received our name badges, an envelope of handouts and our freebie box of the new (and interesting) Prismacolor shades for 2006 courtesy of Prismacolor as a CPSA sponsor.

    We also had a good look at the exhibitions done by the southwestern branches - which were very good - and the blind auction of small works done by various CP artists. It must be very salutary for artists to see in a very visible way who rates their art and what they're prepared to pay. I seem to remember that Linda Lucas Hardy did very well with the bids against her piece.

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    Tuesday, August 15, 2006

    19th July - Chilis and a big elephant butt

    Kathy contrejour against the Cochise Stronghold (Tombstone, Arizona)
    pencil and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook
    copyright Katherine Tyrrell
    I laughed out loud when I came up with the title of this post. (Don't you just wilt at the extent to which we are sometime amused by our own humour?!) The explanation is further down the page..........

    The view from my motel bedroom door
    We woke on Wednesday morning to that sort of light high cloud you often get after a big rainstorm. From my open motel door I could see straight across to the dip in the Dragoon Mountains where the Cochise Stronghold is - and which is where, after he retired, Cochise lived, died and was buried.

    You can read more about the activities of Cochise and the local Apache Indians during the mid-nineteenth century of on this very informative website. Did you know that Cochise means 'Hard Wood' in Chirachua Apache language? I didn't realise until we got home that Tombstone is located in Cochise County.

    The air was very fresh at 6.30am and the humming birds were feeding on the verandah - and I managed to get a photo of one!

    Humming bird feeding from sugar water
    At breakfast, I sketched Kathy "contrejour" (which for those unfamiliar with the term term means 'against the daylight').  I really got carried away with the alliteration in the note which says "Kathy contrejour at Cochise Stronghold!

    Kathy wishes to point out that I've aged her and got the chin wrong and that it doesn't have any hint of a companion. I wish to point out that getting any sort of sketch done in 15 minutes while eating breakfast means you're apt to get it a bit wrong, especially when your involuntary model will insist on eating, talking and drinking her tea! :)

    I spent a lot of time in the car with the coloured pencils trying for an optical mixing effect to get the colours I wanted - with some success. I should point out that drawing contre jour means that her skin tone is supposed to be on the bluey purple side! There again I was trying for some unity of colour with the very bluey purple colour of the distant mountains!

    Into New Mexico
    pencil and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook
    copyright Katherine Tyrrell
    Soon after we left Tombstone (on I-80 and then I-10) we crossed the border into New Mexico and needed to adjust our watches by an hour for the change in time zone.

    This sketch, done in my Moleskine while driving, is what it looked like as we crossed over the border and travelled alongside more spectacular rock formations from a massive uplift millions of years ago. You get a new perspective on things when surrounded by so much evidence of ancient rock all the time.

    We left I-10 at Deming and travelled up Highway 26 to Hatch - the home of a friend of Louise and her husband - and the hot chili capital of the world with 30,000 acres of cultivated pods. It was very, very hot - over 100 degrees - but by then the record-breaking hot weather of the summer of 2006 had started so in retrospect that wasn't entirely surprising.

    Hanging Deer, Elk and a Ristra @ La Cocina in Truth and Consequencespencil and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook
    copyright Katherine Tyrrell
    After a visit with Louise's friend and armed with information about where was best to eat we headed up the Rio Grande valley on I-25 to Truth or Consequences for lunch at La Cocina. I can't remember what I had to eat but I do remember that I was asking less about what all the names of the different Mexican food items actually meant! Louise introduced us all to sopaidillas. I've included a link below for a review below which is pretty accurate.

    During lunch, I sketched the things hanging up in the restaurant that I could see from where I sat - a ristra of chilis, a deer and an elk. A ristra is a bunch of chilis which have been tied on to a string and hung up. They can be edible (rehydrated when popped in water) or treated for decorative purposes. They dry to this amazing deep purpley crimson colour. This was a really BIG one. I've included a link at the end to a place in Hatch which makes chili ristras.

    You might think hunting was a big sport in the area - until you saw the number of boats in town........in the middle of a desert area.

    Elephant Butte Lake, New Mexico
    I'd spotted what looked like a lake on the map and insisted we had a quick diversion to go and look at the view (I like views!) Our jaws all collectively dropped when we saw the size of the lake. It was huge and took six photos to get a panorama shot!

    This was Elephant Butte Lake which turns out to be the largest reservoir in New Mexico.  It obviously hosted a wide variety of water-based activities. I've always had a problem with the promunciation of buttes and mesas ever since I first learned about them in a geography lesson. Let's just say my pronunciation of butte in the UK causes much less hilarity than in the USA where it sounds like 'butt'. This is already a long post so I'll just make it a bit longer by quoting from the New Mexico Tourism people about the nature and origins of the lake
    The name "Elephant Butte" was derived from the eroded core of an ancient volcano, now an island in the reservoir, in the shape of an elephant. Elephant Butte Reservoir, created by a dam constructed in 1916 across the Rio Grande, is 40 miles long with more than 200 miles of shoreline. Although constructed to provide for irrigation and flood control, the lake is New Mexico’s premier water recreation facility.

    Over 100 million years ago, the area was part of a vast shallow ocean. Once the sea receded, the area was the favorite hunting ground of the tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur. Evidence of the Rex, the largest land-dwelling predator of all time, and other species of dinosaur have been discovered in area rock formations.
    We then headed on up the Rio Grande valley to Albuquerque - and the CPSA Convention.

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    Monday, July 31, 2006

    Sketching in the southwestern states of the USA - what happened next....

    Three road trips across SW States and a stay in Southern California
    Top row: (left) San Clemente (right) Sand Bank Mountains
    Bottom row: (left) Point Lobos (right) Ventura

    It's raining here in southern California on the last day of my trip so I thought I might try and do something really sensible(!) and pull together a list of the blog posts that I need to start creating when I get home to London (end of this week) and back to my computer/scanner/software/etc.

    As has been correctly surmised already, trying to post on the road has proved to be well nigh impossible. On the couple of days I've actually had access to a computer I've also had lots of other practical trip related matters to sort out.

    So - by way of a tempter - here's a summary of my trip to the south western states of the USA. I'll insert all the blog post links to this summary as I post the entry for each day.

    The preliminary indications of some blog post titles are given below - along with some brief descriptions of the journey and some indications of images to come! As you can see there are quite a few sketches and I've very nearly filled my new Moleskine.


    [1 October 2006: This blog entry has now been updated to include the final titles and posts relating to this trip and associated hyperlinks - plus a sample of images from the trip.]


    A short stay and a pastels workshop in Southern California

    I visited my friend Louise - she and her husband showed me the sights and then Louise and I took a weekend pastels workshop in San Clemente
    Road Trip #1 - Santee, Southern California to Albuquerque, New Mexico via Tombstone, Arizona

    This trip started because my friends and I decided to go to the Annual Exhibition of the Coloured Pencil Society of America.  The trip to get there from Southern California took two long days.
    • Tuesday 18th July "Breakfast in Yuma" and "Gordon drives Dome Valley with the boss" - Day 1 of the San Diego-Albuquerque Road Trip - starting from Santee to Tombstone, Arizona via Breakfast in Yuma, lots of desert and cacti, the Mission San Xavier del Bac and a major rain storm outside Tucson plus how to sketch on the move! (3 sketches plus photos)  Note: The latter updates the original which had coding problems when I tried to update it and hence could not be amended.
    • Tuesday 18th July "A Tombstone Epitaph" (photos) an account of an evening with the cowboys in Tombstone
    • Wednesday 19th July "Chillis and a big elephant butt" - Day 1 of the San Diego-Albuquerque Road Trip - involved Tombstone to Albuquerque via Hatch (home of the hot chilli), Truth and Consequences and Elephant Butte. (3 sketches)
    • Thursday 20th July - Plein air sketching in "Old Town Albuquerque"; CPSA slide show of all entries for the annual exhibition (2 sketches plus photos)
    • Friday 21st July - "Plein Air Sketching and a Banquet" Plein air sketching, champagne and the CPSA Banquet (2 sketches)
    • Friday 21st July (out of order): "Plein Air Sketching the Sandia Mountains" - a follow on from the previous process with a detailed explanation of the process re developing a diptych sketch
    • Saturday 22nd July - "Santa Fe and Georgia O'Keeffe" visiting Santa Fe and the Georgia O'Keefe Museum in blissful weather.  
    • Saturday 22nd July - "The CPSA Artists' Reception" - for the Annual Exhibition of the Coloured Pencil Society of America (2 sketches and photos)
    Road Trip #2 - Albuquerque, New Mexico to Santee, California via Prescott, Arizona

    The main challenge for the drive back was that in the summer of 2006 the USA had a major heatwave . It had started on 15th July and got hotter as July progressed.  There were extremely high temperatures in the deserts making planning for the route for the trip back rather critical.  The aim was to avoid major inclines for a fully loaded car with four people.
    Road Trip #3 - Pacific Coast Highway Trip from San Francisco to San Diego

    On this trip I found out that the marine inversions on the coast tend to accompany very high temperatures inland!
    As well as sketching details, my posts also include details of

    • routes I travelled
    • places I stayed and/or visited
    • descriptions of places where I ate meals (which often became the subjects for sketches) 
    • PLUS places to buy art supplies .


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