The evening of the first day of my trip was long, sunlit, and only in the low 80's (Chicagoans were complaining around me, but I was used to high 90's, so this felt great to me).I walked down Michigan Ave and decided to try my first street watercolor of the Blackstone Hotel and other buildings from a park near Congress Ave. I love the red brick and green roof.
The little teeny brush that came with the Cotman watercolor field set was excruciating to work with ("scrubbing the palace floor with a toothbrush" as my Mom would say) - but I got through that. The other WC I did on this trip I finally dug out another brush I forgot I'd brought and it was such a relief!
The result of the time spent is that I can recall those moments, the sounds, the smells, the sights, as if I were still there. Not in that much detail, of course, but the quality of the recall is amazing. Maybe it's the way it all had to pass through me onto the paper.
Click the image for a larger view. The original is in a spiral bound WC paper sketch book (called an "ARt spiral" - capitalization deliberate) - about 6 by 8 inches.
6 comments:
Bravo for having such a great art adventure. Looks like you made great progress.
I love the Chicago Art Institute... was fortunate to have the opportunity to visit twice this spring. I ALWAYS have to visit the Impressionists. They never fail to thrill me.
Thanks for sharing your journey.
Images from home. I once had lunch at the Blackstone with a writer for the Chicago Tribune and three legislators from African nations - Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. We talked more about my huge belly (Chloe was inside) than we did about our intended subject which was how government and the media interact in the U.S. I remember being really, really embarrassed. I think our visitors were tired of hearing about "democracy" and needed a break.
This is really interesting and I can tell that you were really there seeing, feeling, smelling, hearing - a street drawing like this always shows more life than a photograph to me.
When on holiday in Vermont when my son was little I did a number of sketches, including some watercolor ones, that still bring me more treasured memories than photos would have done.
This is very nice.
Thank you all very much! I loved all these memories of your own, brought up by my sketch experience!
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