Despite few downpours on Sunday morning, Draw: Madison enjoyed an lovely afternoon in Mount Horeb. We started out at Schubert's, which did have delicious homemade pie, as Pat promised. I did the drawing at left, while enjoying an apple raisin cinnamon roll, which must have been freshly made that morning by hand, it was so good. The atmosphere of Schubert's on Sunday was perfect for sketching -- relaxed and cosy, yet energizing and very social with of all the artsy types there due to Cynthia Quinn's art opening.




We progressed outside after the weather cleared up. We didn't have to go far though -- the building in this second sketch is right across the street from Schubert's. It's very old-worldish with detailed brickwork and masonry all over.








I take the bus to work most days lately. Some days I miss my earlier bus and have to wait for another that comes 20 minutes later, so my sketch book now has a number of bus stop drawings in it. Since I was sort of rushed, I didn't plan the composition of this one too fully, but I kind of like how it turned out anyway. I used a fine tip Sharpie pen to draw it.

Gretchen asked me to post this drawing from our visit to the Arboretum. I found the site, a marsh with a boardwalk through it surrounded by forest, to be very challenging to draw because of all the complex textures. Using charcoal helped me simplify the textures a bit, but I'm still not entirely satisfied.

Mt. Horeb

The weather cooperated  for sketching in Mt. Horeb this afternoon and  we also enjoyed the opening of Cynde Quinn's new oil painting show at Schubert's restaurant where I had some great homemade rhubarb pie.  Lots of interesting architecture in that small town.  I don't know the name of this building on the main street but the bottom floor houses the Prairie Book Store.  Today was my first sketch day using Noodler's Lexington Gray ink in my Lamy Safari fountain pen.  I had been using Noodler's Bullet proof Black and like it alot but have read recommendations for the Lexington Gray which is also Bullet proof and will not bleed once it is dry so works well with watercolor.  The gray is more subtle and I love it.  Nina Johansson (Swedish Urban Sketcher) who I greatly admire uses it for her wonderful pen and watercolor sketches.  You can see them on her blog which is well worth a look.  Two more "new" sketchers came today which made a total of 8 of us for the day.  Many thanks to Dana for getting the ball rolling a few months ago and making sketching with Draw: Madison a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Here's a little sketch of the reflecting pool at Olbrich from last Sunday.  I painted this in a new 7"x7" sketchbook from Stonehenge with their heavy duty drawing paper.  It seems like 140lb hot press paper and did not bleed through and was very nice to draw on with ink.  The covers of these sketchbooks are very firm and are plain brown and ready to be decorated to taste.  I used a couple coats of acrylic paint which also makes them fairly waterproof.  Very nice sketchbooks for pencil or ink.  Nice to see a couple new sketchers this week, too!  Sorry I missed Amber but I got there a little late and did not find the group until 3pm.  Hope to see everyone next week in Mt. Horeb.