We loved being at the newly renovated Friendly St. Market – open sheltered deck, pleasant surroundings, goodies nearby to sustain us.

The early birds busy at the table: Barb Sommers, Heidi Sachet and her friend Renata, Barb Shirk, Erik Johnson (& Jane with camera).

As always, we began by looking at what people have been doing:

 

Barbara Shirk brought the invitation she did for the celebration of the shelter at the small dog park – her dog & Jane’s are featured!

 

Heidi Sachet & Jane Harrison found sketching as a way to manage being at parties and gatherings – even ceiling lights were fair game!

Barb Shirk did it, too, sketching participants at the Groom’s Dinner.

Barbara Sommers had sketches from her back yard – so delightful!

Erik’s latest sketch in his unmistakeable color rich  style.

Then Hugh & Sandy Larkin showed up, and Penelope Youngfeather (who got to see Hugh’s sketchbook from the Camino walk).

Hugh with a Camino sketch, and Sandy doing on a vineyard sketch.

Jane brought sample of the cards she makes from her sketches, which Barbara Sommers looks through, with Jo Bogue-Hoffman.

Barb Shirk shows Erik the folding blocks trick she developed to do changing vignettes from her last trip to Italy – we want a lesson!

Then the stalwart folks got down to business.

Sandy put finishing touches on her vineyard, and Erik showed off his finished sketch of Sandy, sitting across from him.

 

Jane captured the deli wagon across the street, and Penelope captured all of us!

But Hugh topped it all off with a symbolic sketch of the group – whose artifact is whose? What a fun sketch.

We were so pleased to retreat up into the woods at Cortesia last week in the hot weather,  eager to repeat the visit, and happy to be welcomed back:

Anne joined us & was delighted to find a poppy to match her shirt. Meanwhile, Forest tells Hugh & Sandy about the property.

Erick starts sketching a tree, while Tricia and Hugh get set up, and Jane does a watercolor sketch of the glass assemblage on the table.
(You can see Anne on the other side of the table – knitting!)

Sandy and Tricia took on the glass assemblage challenge, too.

Here’s Sandy’s sketch, white gel pen on black paper.

Tricia added some background detail to her watercolor.

 Hugh’s trees quickly took shape, & life with color added.

 Erik’s tree outline begins to have depth & shading.

Meanwhile, someone asked Hugh & Sandy how their trip was, trekking the Camino in Spain, and out came their sketchbooks:

Here’s Sandy’s first page with an equipment sketch.

 

Tricia & Anne are entranced by the sketchbooks and tales of the trip.

Hugh enjoys giving Erik some highlights. Fabulous trip, fabulous stories – we’re so glad they’re back to share!

 

 

As usual, we start our sketch meetings by catching up on what people have been doing since our last meeting – here’s Barb Shirk’s sketch from her trip to Ashland to see the plays:

And here’s Heidi’s completed sketch of flowers & shells on her deck:

Barb Shirk shared her sketch of some of us sketching  last week:

 

And one of Penelope’s sketches of us, viewed by Barb A & Heidi (yep, that looks just like Joby!):

 

Here’s most of the happy crew from today (Penelope, Tricia, Heidi, Erik, Jan, Barb A, Barb Shirk – Jane behind the camera):

 

Jan and Barb A. adding water to pigment (Jan with markers, Barb A. with watercolor pencils):

 

 

Barb Shirk did a sketch of her dog Armando from a photo on her phone:

 

 

Jane did a sketch of the clivia in her front room (from a photo, too):

Erik’s sketch was from a sweet remembered scene in the medical clinic:

Tricia & Heidi sketched directly from observation today, as did Penelope (& Jan & Barb A, seen above):

 

Please let us know if you like this Blog format (where you can leave comments), especially compared to our website Sketching Events format – https://topdrawers.org/topdrawers/Sketching_Events/Sketching_Events.html

We welcome your comments and questions, as we venture into this new format.  Our weekly sketch meetings will be reported here starting with our June 24, 2014, session.

We think this will be fun for all!  From Jane, our editor: