Category: Sketches

My Mom died ten years ago this month. For the last several years of her life, she was in a wheelchair. Here’s a pencil sketch I did of her as she talked on the phone to one of her many friends.

Here are two quick sketches I did the week before Labor Day at Sandy Island, the YMCA Family Camp on Lake Winnipesaukee, NH where we have gone for over 30 summers. The first is the water taxi for people to get on and off the island. The second is of the dining hall porch. Sandy Island is a great place to vacation! Check it out here.

When my friend Brenda and I went on a painting date recently, she suggested we try to sketch the Allen House, a historic site in Newton, MA near where we live, which was once a station on the Underground Railroad. We sat in the front yard of the house for an hour, me cursing repeatedly  over the problems of perspective. Later at home, with a photo to jog my memory, I painted the sketch. This is a Moleskine watercolor sketchbook which folds out into a double landscape format.

The newly expanded waterfront at the YMCA’s Sandy Island Family Camp on Lake Winnipesaukee, NH, has both areas of sand for kids with shovels and sunbathers, and areas of grass with Adirondack chairs for readers (and sketchers).

Sandy Island Camp is a family camp run by the YMCA on Lake Winnipesaukee, NH. If you’re looking for a place for a family vacation, its wonderful! We are here for the week before Labor Day for the 33rd year in a row. Here’s a quick sketch of the waterfront.

In the middle of the Boston Common is a large shallow pond which is a kids’ wading pool in the summer and a skating rink in the winter. Last weekend, in the sweltering heat, it was full of little kids, and here is an impression I did of it.  Sketching people just requires some little marks — the mind of the viewer fills in the rest.

You can learn a lot by copying. Here’s my attempt to copy a street scene originally painted by Shari Blaukopf, a fabulous artist and art teacher from Montreal. You can see Shari’s work and subscribe to her blog at https://shariblaukopf.com.

Not until we looked twice down this Greenwich Village street did we realize we had an unexpected view of the Empire State Building.

Making informal sketches of these complex city scenes is daunting. My attempt at a sketch of Grand Central Station was so frustrating it ended up in the trash bin. I painted this from a photo I took on location. The only way to handle the scene was by simplifying and editing out a lot of detail, and I’m still not very happy with it.

When we were in Brooklyn last week for the birth of baby Maggie, I went to a cafe near the hospital and did this sketch of the buildings outside the window. Such a meditative way to spend a few minutes. Next Friday I’ll post a photo of the supplies I used, with links, in case you’re interested in creating a portable watercolor kit.

We have returned from Brooklyn to Boston, and sadly are not there to celebrate (and sketch) Maggie’s one week birthday. On to more mundane topics.

New Englanders try not to complain, but the weather for the last two months has sucked. Spring is a figment of our memory and hope. On Monday during the Boston Marathon it was 43 degrees and pouring cold rain. The only popular place outdoors was our thistle feeder, and the goldfinches are molting into bright yellow their breeding plumage. As I sketched, I added a blue sky, which — if you live in Boston — you know was pure imagination.

As we await the birth of our granddaughter, I spent this morning looking through some of my older art. Here are some sketches of Sara, a lovable Dutch dwarf rabbit who lived with us for nine years. When we bought Sara, we were told she as a girl, and she looked incredibly feminine. Then one day, we babysat for a friend’s rabbit, and within seconds, Sara mounted the visiting rabbit. A month later this rabbit had babies. Thus we learned that Sara was misnamed, but it was too late for a name change.

Since the invention of the smartphone, we no longer feel we have the time to be bored and stare into space. There’s always email, news and Facebook to be checked. This time, as I waited for my order, I resisted the temptation to grab my smartphone and instead took out my sketchbook to draw the other people waiting to order or pick up their food. Sketching has much in common with meditation, because it brings you back to the present moment.

In his charming book “Everyday Matters,” Danny Gregory suggests we draw our meal before we eat it. This took more willpower than I had at L’Aroma Cafe today, so I ate some of the toast before sketching and a lot of the breakfast before adding paint to the sketch. Watch how Gregory does it on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPYmVBTrpK0

The Newton Watercolor Society hires models to pose every other Saturday through the winter, and this week there were 20 people there to paint. What a privilege! The model starts with 2 minute poses, then 5, 10 and 20. Here are two of my sketches of 20 minute poses. You can see the pencil lines as I tried to get oriented. The skin color is a mixture of red and yellow.

We have about 30 houseplants, a variable number depending on which ones I’ve killed or bought lately. Yesterday I noticed the little string hanging from this one and decided to sketch it. In case you are interested in the process: first there’s a drawing with waterproof ink, then a wash of variable greens, then two layers of darker greens to show the variations of shadow. Drawing shadows is a learning edge for me. Some people would be bothered by the mistakes on the pot and shelf, but I like the “happy accidents” of watercolor.

Meditation teachers advise us to change our attitude when we can’t change our circumstances. In this case, irritation because of a flight delay morphed into interest in observing carefully when I got out my pencil and paper.

Last weekend, hundreds of thousands of women and men marched in over 100 cities, from Boston to Las Vegas to Juneau, to protest the Administration’s policies and rhetoric. Some cities topped last year’s Women’s March numbers: in Chicago officials counted 300,000 marchers, in New York 200,000, and in LA 500,000. Protests also occurred in dozens of international cities from Uganda to Frankfurt, and from Buenos Aires to Bejing. In Washington , we listened to speakers in front of the Lincoln Memorial, and then marched to the White House. The signs were impressive, including the one on the right, a reminder that Trump lost the popular vote by two million votes, or 1.5%. It was a beautiful day and the march was peaceful and inspiring.

Thanks to Rick Paddock for sharing his photo which inspired this sketch.

Across the country today people showed up at events honoring the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, who was assassinated 50 years ago in 1968. This holiday is a reminder to fight to change the conscious and unconscious racial barriers and prejudices in ourselves and our society.  Here’s a sketch of today’s MLK event in Newton, Mass., attended by over 700 people.

I haven’t written a poem in years, and perhaps six poems over my entire life. Last Thursday, when a foot of snow was falling on Boston, there was plenty of time for writing and sketching.

As the snow falls

Hordes of juncos and goldfinches bicker at the feeders.

The losers wait their turn

on the rhododendron branches with their drooping leaves.

Abruptly every bird disappears.

A hawk cry?

In my cozy chair, with a cup of hot tea

and a view of the feeders and snowy trees

Cold and danger seem far away.

We finally have just about everything done except some wrapping. It felt good yesterday to sit in the living room with my sketchbook, Sharpie and watercolors and sketch our Christmas tree.

Here’s hoping you and yours have a loving and peaceful Christmas.

It’s late fall, and most leaves are off the trees and the migrating birds are long gone. The colors are subdued and the days are short. A friend who moved back to New England told me that in southern California he had really missed the seasons. “Putting away your summer clothes, and taking out your winter clothes — you don’t realize how important the rhythm of the seasons is until you live in a climate where the weather is nice, but pretty much the same all year.”

Here’s a fall sketch of a nearby pond.

Why do we take our own city for granted until visitors come and help us see it with new eyes?

Last week our sister-in-law Jerry visited from Kentucky, and we went on the Boston Duck Boats. While we waited for the tour to start, I did this sketch of the people sitting in front of us with a Sharpie in my Moleskine watercolor notebook.  Later at home, I added the color, which allowed me to paint whatever colors I wanted. I can’t remember, for instance, the peoples’ hair color or whether the vehicle (which drives like a bus and then floats in the Charles River) was actually orange inside. But in art it’s important to simplify (there’s a lot left out of the sketch) and to free yourself from being a slave to reality.

The days are starting to get shorter, so it’s important to seize the day!

This little sketch was done at Caspian Lake near our cottage in Vermont.

Many people spend a lot of time waiting at airports. It’s more interesting if you have a pencil and paper in your hand. You can make a variety of darks and lights with a simple office pencil, rubbed with a kleenex for shading.

Charley was one of the world’s great family dogs. He was a best pal to our kids, particularly our two sons, when they were growing up. Even though he’s gone to the great doghouse in the sky, we often talk about him. He’s a quick sketch I did of him when he was with us. His tail illustrates the problem with working in spiral sketchbooks!

In Colorado at Mona’s cafe, “Amazing Grace,” the wood-burning stove is the only source of heat during the winter. Since Breckenridge is a ski town at 9,000 feet elevation, the stove works hard. Here’s a little sketch.

We are in Breckenridge, Colorado, where my nephew’s wife runs a wonderful homey cafe called “Amazing Grace.” It’s been so fun to sit here and draw! No wonder people love to hang out here for hours.

Sometimes it’s fun to just suggest shapes of people and trees and let the viewer’s imagination fill in the rest.

How shall I tell thee of a summer’s day?

Telephone poles are fascinating. All those cables and loops and little boxes that somehow make our phones, electricity, internet and TV work — amazing! Drawing is a sort of meditation because you are really paying attention to something you usually only glance at.

Scenes like this have always fascinated me. Maybe it’s the mixture of machines and men, maybe it’s a day-glo vests. This was hard to sketch on location, so I snapped a photo and did the sketch when I got home. 

Last Saturday at the Public Garden I sat near a beautiful copper beech tree. Looking through my sketchbook there was a page I had previously painted yellow and orange. Superimposing this sketch of the tree, I used the thick and thin end of the brush pen for the trunk and foliage.

On Saturday I had the most heavenly afternoon on the Boston Common sketching. It was a glorious day. An Asian couple, complete with wedding party, were getting married; a Muslim family were picnicking; kids were playing frisbee. A wonderful scene.

My #1 sadness about the art I see is that so often artists are intimidated about including people, and often paintings are rich in architecture and other features but totally depopulated. Sketching people, as long as you’re not aiming for a portrait, is not hard. Note here the squiggles and dots of color which somehow say enough.

Swans began populating the Charles River near our house about a dozen years ago. This one kindly posed for me as I sat on a bench next to the river last weekend.

A number of people have asked about buying my paintings. I’ve been hesitant about this, because my motivation is to share my love of art, and I don’t want anyone to think they need to buy anything. But if you would like a print of my paintings, including any from the past, let me know. Sketches, like this one and most of what I post: 8 x 10s are $35, 11 x 14s are $50,(+$5 S & H per order); all are matted and fit standard frames. Add $25 for finished paintings, like “Apple Tree” on May 10th.  Many originals are also available for $50-$150, depending on size. If you haven’t been to my website, take a look at www.lynnholbein.com; the homepage has all these emails in a rolling blog.

How do you spend your evenings? For several months I’ve been seduced by Amazon Prime and Netflix. Now I’m going back to my first, and much more dependable love: reading. Like many avid readers, bookstores and libraries are some of my favorite places on earth. I did this sketch on Saturday at the Watertown Public Library, which is an wonderfully architected blend of the old and new parts of the building. There is a pink dogwood tree in full bloom outside the windows.

Sometimes when you’re “in the zone,” just a few lines can capture a likeness. Many years ago, I did this sketch of our son Chris.

Last weekend I visited our son Andrew and his wife Eva in Brooklyn. They got married last June. Eva and I went late Friday afternoon to a coffee shop near the school where Eva teaches 4th grade. While she checked her email, I did this sketch of the bike shop across the street. Sycamore trees line many Brooklyn streets, and I especially love the variegated bark, which I tried to portray here.

This Sunday, May 7th, I will go on the Walk for Hunger for my 37th straight year. I will walk ten miles to raise money for 400 food pantries and soup kitchens across Massachusetts. If you are interested in sponsoring me, you can click here to go to my personal Walk page. I will be pleased to send you this thank you painting.