After 57 years, I finally return to the Land of The Midnight Sun. Glorious light. Flowers going crazy in long luminous days. Met up with some of the local talent for a plein aire event and a drink-n-draw at Spenard Tattoo. The above log cabin is the home of local artist Don Kolstad who has been an educator and fixture on the scene for years.
  
Above, drawings done on the flight to Anchorage. An attempt to capture some cloud and mountain formations somewhere over British Columbia.
The following drawing of Columbine flowers and the following paragraph I did and dedicated to a young woman who passed away just days before I arrived in Anchorage. I also dedicated gave it and gave it to the owner and staff at Blaine’s Art where she had worked for about nine month’s prior to here death at 21 years of age.
Ashley, I never had the privilege to have met you. But I have met wonderful people who did , and clearly, your spirit touched them. You are missed. I believe life is a supremely amazing gift, and the people who come into our lives, are a large part of that gift. I was told of your departure as I sat in the car outside the store you worked at, having been driven there from the airport. The first things I saw as I stepped from the car were the Columbine flowers at the store’s entrance. They were the first things I drew after stepping on Alaskan soil since I left as a child 57 years ago. They were purple, one of your favorite colors I’m told, and radiant in the incredible searing light. It was the first I had ever seen Columbines. It will not be possible for me to see them again without thinking about you and the emotional way those who knew you, spoke about you, your radiance, your accomplishments, your wit and brilliance. The growing season in Alaska is brief, and like those arresting Columbines, you had an all too brief but intense presence to those whom you encountered. I know they are grateful to have met you.
Above, a view from the water’s edge of a Salmon catching contest near the mouth where Ship Creek empties into Cook Inlet by downtown Anchorage.
 
Seth and his shy friend at the Drink & Draw at Spenard’s Tattoo when Seth works. I could tell she was watching me thru the veil of her hair.
The Anchorage Plein Aire group with Don Kolstad on the right from an overlook facing the estuary alongside Turnagain Bay.
 
Above, a dorama in the Anchorage Museum of Art and my lunch counter view of the kitchen crew at Anthony’s in Sea-Tac International. Airport.
Drawings done in a ledger book, a Strathmore toned sketchbook, a Stillman & Birn Alpha series sketchbook with Faber-Castell Basic and Pelikan M215 and Pelikano Jr. fountain pens with Carbon Black ink and Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Brish Pens and White China markers.
Shot down to Wicker Park where I met up with a dozen Urban Sketchers to draw in the Den Theater building. One of the USkChi crowd is an architect who is working on renovating the building which has at least 4 theaters and 2 bars and has been gaining notice as a playhouse putting up plays of note.
I rode the Metra in from Evanston and got off at the Clyborne station which sits on the edge of the Bucktown/Wicker Park neighborhoods. I like not only the convenience of this station’s location, but the physical bearing of the massive concrete and steel raised platform. The following 2 drawings were drawn from previous visits and displayed in prior posts.
 
Clyborne Station is the first stop north on the Kenosha/Waukegan Line and a mere 18 minute ride to the Davis stop in downtown Evanston. The station straddles Ashland Avenue and both Cortland and Armitage avenues and running beside the Kennedy Expressway.
Chose to park awhile in the dimly lite main theater at Den where the stage was dramatically lit while the rest of the room was dark, punctuated with a shaft and sliver of ambient light. After an hour of drawing, someone came in and turned on a slew of lights so I threw in the towel. Following the event, I grabbed some fried chicken from Harold’s and had lunch in Wicker Park where I sketched the woman below. Back up on the Clyborn platform I waited by the pedestrian shelter for the train headed north.
 
Above are my roll up pen wrap and the gear I took out for the day. From the top to the bottom, various Faber-Castell Big Brush Pitt Pens, a black, white, 2 shades of warm grey, and a cool grey, 2 Pitt Pens, a brush nib and a 1.5 nib, aSailor brush nib fountain pen, a Pelikan M205 with a medium nib, a Faber-Castell Basic with a leather grip, and a Faber-Castell Ambition. The fountain pens were filled with Platinum Carbon ink.
 
I’m no Nina Johansson but I will occasionally brave cold weather for a drawing. Both of these were drawn in Evanston. The second drawing from the top was lakeside on the Northwestern Univ. campus. The following drawings were done at Calvary Cemetery in Evanston.
 
In addition to pitt Pens, I used a Sailor Brush Nib fountain pen, a terrific tool which yields a wide variety of marks and line widths depending on the angle it is held as you draw on the page. Threw in a few details as the wide format of the drawings made for less than crisp images. Below are the Wilmette locks.
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
