Spring break in the UK

Train ride to Stirling outside of Edinburgh, to visit Stirling Castle. Spring break coincided with a business trip my husband had to make to Aberdeen. So my son and I went to the UK to visit my Urban Sketcher friend Isabelle, in London and then meet my hubby in Scotland for a little exploring - and of course sketching.

My sketch shows just a part of the gallery at Holyrood House Palace in Edinburgh, Scotland. 

The Great Gallery at the Palace at Holyrood House, the largest room in the palace, links the King's Closet with the former Queen's apartments in the west range. The gallery is decorated with 110 portraits of the Scottish monarchs, beginning with the legendary Fergus I, who supposedly ruled from 330 BC. The portraits were all completed between 1684 and 1686 by Jacob de Wet.  The palace as it stands today was built between 1671-1678 in a quadrangle layout, approximately 230 feet (70 m) from north to south and 230 feet (70 m) from east to west, with the exception of the 16th-century north-west tower built by James V. Sir William Bruce designed the 3-storey plus attic Baroque palace for Charles II upon the restoration of the monarchy. 

NY state of mind

A brief trip to NY solely for the purpose of sketching with my London friend. We had a busy weekend of walking, sketching and refreshments. The Ace Hotel put us up in hipster style and we could walk or subway to every location on out list. Of course, our list turned out to be more ambitious than we could possibly cover. But trying was fun. Pictured here: taxis in front of the hotel, Madame X and Dr. Pozzi by J. Singer Sargent at the Met., and yet more taxis. Yes the Guggenheim is a wonky sort of building, my rendering adds to the effect.

Back from Honduras

 Found this piece of wood on the beach and used it to document our trip to Honduras.

 A lot of people in our group means a l-o-t of luggage.

A few years ago when I was last in Honduras I had some fantastic sopa de pescado (fish soup) and have been searching for the same flavor ever since. At last one of the first restaurant stops was at the original location of the soup I was seeking. Almost as good at the original visit. Lots of bones in a whole fish.

Southern Makers are southern awesome

Southern Makers in Montgomery Alabama - May 2-3, 2015.

Live music stage with seating made of hay bales. You end up straw britches after sittin' a spell.
Food demo and tastings: honey, moon shine, craft beer, pickles, pimento cheese, etc. Makers of: brooms, clothes, letterpress art, painters, re-purposed stuff like speakers made from suitcases, boats, jewelry, furniture and more. Road trip was worth every mile traveling with my D.

Camp bike repair

This weekend we took S out for a short Spring Break camping trip. With 4 bikes strapped to the back of the truck along with all our gear we headed out early-ish on Sunday morning headed up to Tyler State Park. That site was chosen for its hiking/biking trails and the fact that it had a spot open. S had fun ripping up and down the hilly trails and both of his bikes were in need of repair by the end of it all. Hardly anyone in the park and once the clouds cleared a pretty nice day. I caught this sketch from my hammock, hanging in the shade, while the guys did a little bike repair.

More S!ngapore!

Just a quick post on my return from Singapore. Tagged along with D on a trip to Singapore. My first trip to an Asian country. Sweet people, tasty food and colorful sights. Lunar Chinese New Year was going on during our stay, celebrated by lots a big family gatherings. And just like home, lots of traditional family holiday favorites. Here is a sketch done at the Sri Mariammam Temple. A nice teen girl, dresses in jewel-toned silk dress, from India came and visited with me. She wrote the name of this goddess on my sketch in English and Hindi. I stayed a few hours at the temple there was a lot to see and far to much to draw.

S!ingapore sketches

I started a fresh new sketchbook (Stillman & Birm Beta) on a trip to Singapore a couple of weeks ago. I am happy to say that it was almost completely full when I returned. I made a connection with Urban Sketchers in Singapore thru their Facebook page and spent a day with them sketching in the Arab St. area. Chris shared her lunch of bringal and treated me to the local ginger tea. The perfect way to go out sketching with locals off the tourist track. Here are just a few from my book - movie time on the looonggg flight, lunch, and a view from a very modern library located above a mall on Orchard Street. The library was a great quiet place to sketch the view out the window.

My busy work schedule keeps me from posting more frequently. I will try to get more active with posts.

No beer for me, just a trip to the ER

This summer I made a short trip to Seattle, Washington. Ha ha trip. The city was fun, lots to explore and good food and drink. The weather was even brilliantly sunny. The afternoon before we returned home we were out in Fremont, Earth and I tripped on a curb and almost completely knocked out one of my front teeth. It happened about 10 minutes after I finished this sketch. And no, I hadn't even had a beer. I have to report that the folk in the ER took great care of me, and after shuttling over to an ER with a dentist on call, I was out of there in less than 4 hours! With my tooth wired back in place, and my dignity cratered by a swollen and scraped face. BUT I did not break my sketching (and work) arm or do any worse damage. 

Dorky dads and movin' mommas

From the top of the bleachers I captured some of the action at yesterday's homecoming pep rally. 

It is a tradition for the parents of senior football players, cheerleaders, band and dance squad to performed. The dad's of the cheerleaders dressed up as repulsive cheerleaders with the hairy legs and overstuffed shirts...they were particularly scary. I think the kids were somewhere between delighted and mortified. Gyrating moms and dorky dads made for a pretty entertaining show.

Awesome Oxford

Just a week ago I was in Oxford, UK. I believe they filmed parts of Harry Potter movies at some locations there. The whole place looks like a fantastic movie set. Lucky them, for the Oxfordians (?) it is just where they live and to me, super cool movie set. Anyway, a few sketches on location at Radcliffe Square and in the Vault & Garden Cafe´. The last is of Half Moon Pub in Putney section of London. 

Just a couple from Spring Break road trip from TX to GA

Going away on a spring break means work will be super busy when I return. Here are the only two images I have managed to scan since we got back. One is my boy and the other a Red Tail on display in Mobile AL at the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park.

New Years Eve - games, fire and fireworks

What type?

The local AIGA chapter is hosting Design Week here in Houston. A different activity each day. Speakers and presentations etc. On Thursday I went to the Houston Museum of Fine Arts for the Design Week presentation by Jonathan Hoefler. He is a type designer, specializing in web fonts. Since I am a graphic designer mostly working with print media, web fonts are relatively new to me. Now I know - print fonts on the web are bad, don't do it.
At the end there was a Q&A segment. One of the Q-ers was pretty enthusiastic, her comment, "I'm not a designer, so I'm like WHOA…is this Sci-Fi?". She cracked me up. A theatre with a couple hundred people to hear this dude talk about pixels and letter spacing. Nerdville and I'm a resident.

Jonathan Hoefler at AIGA Houston Design Week

Last year in Santo Domingo

Another sketch from last year. This was from the very busy steps in front of the Mercado. Lots of life going on in this area.  Two 7 year old boys kept me company while I drew this. Although we didn't speak the same language we had a nice visit.

Hanging out with Picasso in Barcelona

Barcelona side street

The show must go on…

High school band is back in full swing, and has been since the first of Aug. At the end of summer just before school starts back up, they put on a little exhibition for the parents. Wouldn't you know it starts raining on the performance field just before the exhibition was due to start. All the instruments were wheeled back into the small gym. The band has 300 kids, so you can imagine how many parents and family members were on hand. Way more than fit comfortably in the gym. We ended up sitting on the floor around the edge of the basketball court. We had an up close and personal view of all the horn section. You could even say we had "smell-a-vision". August - Texas - afternoon practice. You get the picture. The first sketch is of the warm up that the kids do to loosen up. Then the drum line and all the kids listening to the band instructors. This was about as public as I have sketched in "real life" not a sketchcrawl or off to the side somewhere out of the way.

Pink shoes, pointy churches and parting ways.

The Cinderella Shoes Store was a severe departure from its gothic surroundings. Old stone walls surrounded this hot pink shop full of extremely high platform shoes. I did see women teeter tottering down the street in some very high shoes that weren't a good choice for the uneven walking surfaces in Barcelona.

The architect sketchers in the group drew much more anatomically correct versions of this beautiful cathedral. 

 Last sketch before leaving 4th USK Symposium. boo hoo.

Pickin' and eatin'

Easter weekend we took a trip up to visit one of my sisters and her family and stayed in Denton, Texas. It was perfect spring weather.
Downtown  Denton is centered around a large country courthouse and is lively with bars, coffee shops, restaurants, and funky old antique shops. Every Saturday morning a group of musicians gather on the courthouse lawn for a little pickin'. My uncle is the one playing the big bass. They play a range of country and bluegrass music.
One evening we went to eat at Rooster's home of the Hell Burger, a burger doused in ghost pepper sauce. (Only the hottest chili in the world, as recognized by Guinness Book of World Records. According to the Scoville scale of pepper pungency, the ghost pepper (aka India’s Bhut Jolokia chili pepper), is 300 times hotter than a jalapeno and 10 times hotter than a habenero). I wanted to survive the weekend so skipped the blazing burger. The mash up of neon and cheezy decorator touches gave me plenty to sketch.

Face Hair Pair

Sadly these guys passed before I could get a better sketch of them. As noted on the page they were sporting striking facial hair configurations.