An extended stay at a downtown restaurant, from two visits actually, yields a textbook example of the School of American Hodge Podge architecture. Pitt Pens on Tomoe River Paper.
Perhaps one of the most anticipated and auspicious days of my year is the 12 hour life drawing marathon at The Palette & Chisel on Labor Day. Though I am 63 years old and have had a number of jobs over the years that were not based on the semester structure of schools, the hangover of all that early life preparation, and the change of seasons, still creates this sense for me of new possibilities. Thus, when others look to take the day off from the grind, I look to put in one of my longer days working towards the betterment of my craft.
The sessions start at 7am with a model in the third floor studio, and later, models may be posing on the second floor and out in the coach house. Forty-five minutes to an hour are set aside for lunch out in the courtyard, but then I head back upstairs till the sessions conclude at 7pm. On average, I show up at 7:30-8 in the morning and last till 6:30-7 at night. If I get in some sketching on the 40 minute train ride to the Palette & Chisel, that serves to warm me up and gives me a sense of what the day’s efforts may yield.
 
 
 
 
Fountain pens, Platinum Carbon ink, Pitt Artist Pens, Tomoe River Paper, ledgerbook.
Heading to The Palette and Chisel’s Labor Day 12 hour Life Drawing Marathon in two days and feeling very rusty. Posting a few nudes and life drawings from the past couple months. I’ll put up stuff from Monday’s session, the good, the bad and the just plain ugly. #figuredrawings #lifedrawings #ledgerbooks
 
All drawings in ink, ( brush pens and fountain pens with Platinum Carbon Ink ) on either Tomoe River Paper or ledger book. Y
A view of the Virginia Piedmontese from Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello. Â Returned to my mother’s birthplace outside Charlottesville, Va for a family reunion and visited Monticello for the first time. This chimney is the remains of the joinery workshop on the estate of Monticello. Here master craftsman James Dinsmore fashioned much of the woodworking and furniture at Jefferson’s home along with the principle assistant, enslaved artisan John Hemings, brother to Sally Hemings, the enslaved woman who bore Thomas Jefferson a number of children.
View of The Rotunda from The Lawn of UVa.
Top drawing done with Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens in a Tomoe River Paper sketchbook. Bottom drawing, F-C PAP in an old ledger book.
After a family reunion in Charlottesville, I rode Amtrak to Philadelphia. I think I drew the City Hall tower once before but no idea where that drawing is.
Got in a brief neck-craning sketch of the Philadelphia City Hall tower. The largest city hall in the country btw. And then as I walked through the outside passageway, I took up a position behind a young man playing the violin. Samuel noticed I was sketching him and told me he is learning on his own as he is no longer taking lessons. He also stated he was delightedly surprised to see I in fact got him playing southpaw, which he is. Normally, he has been drawn as a righty. Whaa…? Play on brother.
Pitt Pens in a Stillman & Birn Gamma series sketchbook.