Mornings in Paris: A Delicious Memory

In Portland there used to be a most adorable, friendly & FRENCH café called 

Mornings in Paris. 

To see a post I made in 2012 about my old favorite café, 

click here.

The lovely & gracious  French owner, Isabelle,

eventually moved the café to Kennebunk.

One time we drove down to see her, but she wasn't there. 

So I spontaneously wrote her a letter in French 

with a little observational sketch & left it with the barista. 

I just learned online that she sold the business in 2017 to a British couple...

she is spending more time in France...

The only certain thing in this world is change, they say. 

But I don't always like change...

...Sketch souvenirs help. 

Recent Sketchbook Wandering

At LL Bean recently I had left my sketchbook in the car. Horrors! "Oh please, I asked the young woman in the café, do you have any scrap paper, I am desperate!" Yes, she did, so I was able to sketch out the window 

on that chilly morning while waiting for my breakfast. 

On a trip to Boston, I sat on a bench at the edge of the Commons, at Park St. to sketch. 

After years of Boston trips, 

I never before noticed a large fountain! 

A fast scribble sketch, just making notes, watching, listening.

Sitting there in the park, a great theater experience, 

with diverse characters & conversations!

 A mellow November day in peaceful Harvard Yard. 

Lots of chairs out, so I hung out after going to the Fogg Art Museum. 

(loved the museum, not as grand as The Museum of Fine Arts, but wonderful.)

People waiting for subways, and buses...

...are always favorite city subjects.

 Sketches at the Portland Museum of Art...They & the Fogg don't allow ink pens, 

so a lot of the sketches in this series are too light to post. 

 The last 2 are from the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland.

 ...which does allow ink pens. 

The Farnsworth: one of my favorite art museums!

Morning City Café Sketching

It's been a long while since I've been able to 

do my early morning city café sketching. 

Saturday I started as a sketcher,

but ended up as part of the group's happy energy,

as one of them caught me, 

and came over to see what I had drawn...Very fun!

The French Breakfast at The Language Exchange

My old school in my old city,

 The Language Exchange in Portland

 just celebrated 20 years of the weekly French Breakfast,

 Le petit déjeuner (no English allowed!). 

I was so sad that I couldn't be there for the party,

but I sent a birthday card.

My first petit déjeuner, 15 years ago, 

marked the debut, the beginning, 

of a new era in my adult life: 

My French studies.  

Today, they are still such an important part of my life!

Merci, Valérie, et Bon anniversaire!

Sweet Home Belfast Farmer's Market

At the Belfast Farmer's Market, as summer begins greeting autumn.

I arrived early & while watching vendors set up 

a woman near me said she arrives early each week

 in order to get in line to buy her elderly dad 

his favorite loaf of bread, before it runs out,

from Plymouth Pond Farm & Bakery. 

Eventually I also joined the line & while waiting

I started the above sketch.

I hung out at the market for about 4 hours. 

In between sketches I chatted 

with various friends & acquaintances 

at "my" centrally located picnic table.

Toward noon there were very few baked goods left 

at Plymouth Pond Bakery (sketch above).

Belfast Farmer's Market:

Less 

movement,

less quantity, 

less variety, 

less stimulation,
less noise 

fewer crowds

than at my old 

Portland Farmer's Market.

More 

conversations, 

more greetings,
more space,

more tranquility.

Same 

colorful, homegrown

produce & products
& vendors who smile as they
talk about their process & products
& as they exchange money
with people like me who also smile
& fill straw & cloth bags.

There was a time when I lived here 

but longed to be there.

But recently I have come Home 

to my small Belfast town,

including its Farmer's Market.

To market, to market, 

(not buying a pig)

Home again, home again

Jiggedy Jig.

Trying New Materials

Trying new tools: Rigger brush (love it!) 
Pentel brush pen
Arranging mini palettes in miniature homemade paint boxes 

(more on that soon)
...and...

Letting ideas flow for my February 2017 art show

at The Language Exchange in Portland.

Color Mixing Charts: Photos

I'm in a process of exploring color via my watercolors.

Everywhere I go, I see color mixing charts,

including at the Deering Oaks Farmer's Market.

As Jeanne Dobie says in her book (previous post), colors sing!!

Cafe Figure Sketching

 Trips to Portland always include 

early morning cafe sketching
and writing notes in the Old Port.

Costumed characters.

Great theater for the price of

a non-fat vente latté.
The notes are as important to me
as the sketching.

It is also my Figure Drawing class.

While so many others are on their devices,

I am on my sketchbook. 

Portland Sunday Morning: A park & a bakery

I don't get back to my old city as often as I used to. But I've been attending monthly Saturday French workshops at my old school, The Language Exchange. 

I still like to get up early to go sketching. Above, from my car, a Sunday morning sketch at Bug Light Park, South Portland. There are oil storage tanks behind this park, as SP is a pretty industrial city, but it has preserved some great shore front space for the public. 

Bug Light has lots of outdoor benches, but downtown does not. So next time I'm in Portland, I will try sketching from my parked car, before the meters kick in. This time, I found an indoor bench at Standard Baking Co., where I ate my raisin roll & watched a steady stream of customers.

Such animated comings & goings, interchanges & transactions! As in French boulangeries, which are the inspiration for this bakery, everything is created daily, right there, in the wee hours of the morning. Standard delivers to restaurants & cafés each day, but buying these pretty & fragrant works of art directly, along with morning coffee, is a fresh & energetic way to start the day! 

Portland Cafés

So I moved from a city that I love to a small town that I love. I've been tuning into feelings of homesickness, lately, mal du pays, nostalgia, longing, in Polish its called tęsknota.There are concrete aspects of the city that I don't miss: pollution, traffic, low flying airplanes. But I miss some places terribly: the cafés for example. Some of them moved away as did I: Cambridge Café, Portland Coffee Roasting, and Mornings in Paris. Above is a scene from 2000 at the old Portland Coffee Roasting that was on Commercial Street. Cafés are for many people places for conversation, for me, they are most often a place where I love studying my French and, of course, sketching.

Portland Farmer's Market with Maine College of Art

 I spent a day in my beloved old home city of Portland, 

at the downtown Farmer's Market, 

sketching with a Maine College of Art Workshop. 

Above, not the original, as the raw sketch was 

too full of fast, scribbly lines. 

 Also a sketch from the sketch. 

Sketching with a class gave me the bravado to plunk myself 

& my little stool down in the midst of a sea of 

moving people, colors, & sounds. 

What a great way to slow down & to focus 

on one subject at a time.

If anyone was peeking over my shoulder, I didn't notice. 

This is the actual on-location, raw sketch.

Our Lady of Victories, is the monument in Monument Square,      

created to commemorate lives lost during the Civil War. 

Every Wednesday she looks down on the market below. 

I was looking up at her while eating at a sidewalk café table 

on the edge of the sidewalk.

Also on the edge of the sidewalk was Myron 

playing blues harmonica & singing lyrics, 

some traditional, some invented on the spot. 

He played well to the young children

& made them dance. He made me laugh. 

That's a foot operated tambourine!

Portland (Maine) Wandering

My former city's Old Port Exchange, 

looking up Exchange Street from Fore. 

I love coming down here for coffee at 6 AM,

then wandering, 

before the crowds arrive, 

before the parking meters are operating...

Art in the Park

 The above photo is from my display at Art in the Park, 2011. This year I had nowhere near the variety. Most of the above had sold, & this year I've been working in some other directions. I went this year to visit my old home & friends. I did sell some works, and it's always a delight to know that they make people happy. I loved seeing my friends and it was fun to meet some new folks too!

Thanks, Portland folks for the visits! 

See you again soon, I hope!

Joy at the Farmer's Market

The Farmer's Market in Portland is, of course, about 

buying & sellling homegrown plants, person to person.

But it's so much more...

Music!! The Resonant Rogues from South Carolina:

"Gypsy jazz & tradtional eastern European music... 
American folk... old-time, blues & vintage hot jazz." 

Be still my heart!

I, oldish person, & young, toddler person are mesmerized...

As is this pair.

High school boys, playing folky pop tunes, 

grandparent-generation tunes! 

Young, perhaps girlfriend-of-musician person, admiring, 
on her market wagon bench, while I admire all three.

Baby persons! Going to the Farmer's Market, a good start in life!

 Happy family persons with their happy baby carriage,
 loaded with plants to take home. Along with little guy's scooter. 

The healthy, beautiful energy from the local farm stands
 sends out & attracts joy!
Lucky was I to have been a part of it on Saturday morning!

City Sketching

Portland view looking toward Congress from Commercial Street

Click on image to enlarge.

I was recently sketching city "environments" in Portland. Drawing architecture is fairly new for me. I understand the theories, but have been timid to try them. The "Portland Show 2014" at Greenhut Gallery  (Click HERE) has some brilliant cityscapes, especially "Portland from Munjoy Hill" by a former teacher, David Campbell. Such mastery of perspective & color, such provoking points of view, such focus he has as he works from observation over the course of several years on one large canvas!!  

My original sketch, with Uniball pen & Prismacolor pencils. Click on image to enlarge. 

Scribbly & rough, but, I'm motivated, because I love observing these scenes. I like that I'm more willing to make mistakes than I used to be.

This book fell into my sphere recently, at just the right moment! I'd seen it in a bookstore in Cambridge. Sketching taught by an architect!! Paul Laseau says we are like detectives as we explore scenes that attract us, scanning, continually seeing more. Our drawing process affects what & how we see.

Laseau says we must keep practicing to keep skills honed: eye-hand coordination, perception, concentration, relaxed awareness...And keep exploring the visual work of others, especially masters. It is what David Campbell has been doing, perhaps, throughout his life.

Passenger Side

A visit back home last week. A little vacation. 

Spent a lot of the week sketching in my book. 

Observational sketches, many rough. Many not to show. 

But I love the authentic connection that happens while observing/drawing.

Here, a moment from a day trip to Portsmouth.

The City, Two Views: Ink on Paper

Stopped at a Light , Looking up to Congress Street    5 X 11"  India Ink 

I'm still thinking about that show at the museum. Considering the role of repetition & obsession in human lives. So linear much of that art was, so human made. On my way there, stopped at a traffic light, I had snapped a photo looking up to downtown from the non-harbor side. So linear was that art work in the museum, &, I'm thinking now, so Urban. Such a contrast to the nature, the farms & seascapes that surround me in my more rural home. 

City Backyard at the Feeder,  8 X 10"  India Ink

 One bird & squirrel lover I know in the city has a little backyard sanctuary. I watched, sketched, asked questions, while he told me about his friends & their daily actions & interactions. He keeps a journal on many days recording his observations in pencil, sometimes with tiny sketches. It's on the back of recycled envelopes! 

Cardinal, 3 X 5"  India Ink

Funny how the slightest movement of an animal can delight us! Since I've been following The Run*A*Round Ranch Report, TexWisGirl's blog, I'm so in awe of the variety of creatures & their gestures & ways in the natural world. 

Observational Sketches in 5.5 X 8.5 Cachet Black Cover Journal  Prismacolor 03 Pen

 Two of my favorite published nature journal artists are Hannah Hinchman & Claire Walker Leslie. Even if you don't wish to draw, they're delightful reading & looking. For city drawings, there is, of course, the blog Urban Sketchers. 

Country or city, draw what attracts you, they say...