Sketchbook entries May 7 - 13, 2020

I think it's hard to make time to draw until I look at what real artists do, and I remind myself that this is both a discipline, and for me a vital therapy. The past seven days.

On an early evening walk around the block, I stopped and sat on the side steps of Marietta Borough Hall to take a call on my phone, and took this rather distorted first stab at drawing the old hotel in my pocket sized sketchbook.

Heavy rains brought local streams to flood stage, and the waters of the Susquehanna inundated parts of the river trail last week.

Saturday's excursion, wandering narrow country roads in the southeastern part of the region. Huddled in the freezing wind staring at a big sycamore tree.

This roadside cascade just south of Columbia that I'd never noticed. A pair of pocket sized sketches as the northwest wind blows snow flurries into a May afternoon.

My favorite bicycle route loops down along Little Chiques Creek below a big farm. Usually too busy pedaling in the other direction to have ever focused on this view. A quiet Mothers Day morning walk.

Later on Sunday afternoon up on Pinkerton Road. Reducing the farmscape to a few gestures on paper.

A gap between the gable ends of two barns right next to Route 23 in Silver Springs reveals a picture waiting to be seen. Like standing in front of a painting that nobody knows is there.

Trying again to draw the old hotel. Mostly ticking off the box for sketch-a-day.

On the way to a jobsite near Hummelstown, this barn sinking back into the earth.

And before starting work today, another shot of the (former) hotel at East Market and New Haven Streets..