summer roamings

 
Here's my sketch of Saskia, the daughter of Madeline Sorel, who I visited recently while her family
was enjoying a stay on the lake in Wolfeboro, NH. We were classmates at RISD and used a bit of our visit to draw together, one of my favorite ways to spend time.

It's been such a hot week, I haven't accomplished much else. I'm working slowly on sketches for Portland Stage Company, for a poster for next season. It's fun doing lots of rough ideas but showing a lot of them invariably requires merging two or more favorites.

For instance, these are the two roughs in the running.

So, hmmm. How do I get the best of both of these into a single image? Not that easy.

But, I've got more work to do. This is just too busy. Fortunately, summer provides plenty of distractions from the drawing table.

My daughter was having a blast in Medieval Camp at the Peaks Island Fiber Arts Camp, where kids learned archery, made felted rats, sewed tunics....and made illuminated letters.

Here a pair of knights await their turn in the display of swordplay.  Both sides got into the drama of battle.

Besides hand-sewing tunics, campers made leather belts, velvet pouches, and leather bracers for their shooting arms.

It was magical! Lady Hanley treated everyone to a magnificent feast of roasted chicken, peasant bread, and honey cakes, telling us about the customs of 14th century England. Such as, they dipped their arrows in dung to inflict disease upon the enemy! And salt was hoarded like gold. I took enough photos to reference my next story idea......

Our imaginations leaped forward several centuries when we saw the invigorating performance of Circus Smirkus later in the day. This amiable Big Foot made regular appearances in the ring during the Wilderness Wonder show.

I wished I could have taken my illustration class at Maine College of Art to this circus! I brought them to the Shriner's Circus back in April as part of their last project, to create a circus poster. Regardless of how tacky that circus struck everyone, students brought in a fantastic variety of solutions. This one by
Tanya is the most Smirko-esque.

And that reminds me: I begin teaching again in only 3 weeks! Back in the classroom with the senior ninjas, a fine troupe of illo majors that have plenty of tricks up their sleeves.

But who made the summer disappear?

Now I've got to get ready for Art on the Porch. See me at the Fifth Maine this Sunday!

Daisy and I will be selling prints, originals, and books! Think sun....