Illuminara

I was searching through my stacks of sketchbooks going back many years. I saw this page, and it seemed to want to be seen today. This is the first day of school in Westport, and this fairy in the “Time for Change” bubble made me smile. My prayer and wish is that all the children [...]

I was delighted to receive a call at the studio a few days ago asking if I’d like to put Westport Sketchbook drawings I’ve made in Longshore Club Park available on the Longshore 50th Birthday website. I feel honored to be a part of the celebrations. Just go to this link to see their site, [...]

At the start of summer, I was at Compo Beach and saw a nice elderly gentleman reading a book. His hat was floppy (I liked that about him). H got up and ran into the water for a dip, and sat back down to read. I wondered then who he was and imagined he was [...]

I love drawing around town. People are beautiful in their places, mostly without being aware of it. The light at Compo Beach in summer in particular is to me one of the most unexpected surprises (where you live usually does not carry that kind of mystique, but The Sound at Compo is especially pink on [...]

I have it easy now, and I’m not gloating, just appreciating it. I can go to the beach with my sketchbook while my older kids (older than this kid here in the picture, way older) play and as long as they are in range and I can see them,  I’m happy to draw all the [...]

I love painting on the beach, sketching all the characters and colors. Life guards are a fun study because they’re perched up there, they’re alert, but in a solitary way. It makes for interesting poses and it’s fun to capture possibly the only person with an intense sense of responsibility at the otherwise easy-going beach.

In winter, I saw a man walking along the lane at Longshore. He was using a cane. For that instant, everything looked French or foreign in that idyllic new way that ordinary life can assume when you least expect it.  Today, nearing summer time, there is a spring storm passing through. The air is cooler [...]

There was a lot of action at Compo Beach this weekend. The sun was warm and intense, the breeze was cool and babies were happy.  I started sketching at Joey’s by the Shore, and had fun watching the toddlers waiting for ice cream.  This is a detail, if you’d like to see the full sketch, [...]

It is as beautiful a day in May as anyone could wish for. The streets are dappled with the shadows of leafy boughs overhead. The blurry sunspots dancing with those shadows conjure memories of summers long ago, of memories not even our own, but of those who lived well long before we breathed a sigh [...]

The weather this week was so glorious, the air so perfect and the sun so warm, that I wanted less to draw it all and more to sink into it. I was at Longshore one day with my family and in-laws from the UK, near the boats and pool. I made this quick and unfinished [...]