Third Day of Vacation

 On Monday 7/16/12 we were scheduled to go to the Cook Dairy farm outside of Ithaca. Three van loads of family and my wife Juli and friend Richard trekked out to visit the farm. We were greeted by the farms' dog barking. We all made a bee line for the rows of baby sheds. There some babies that were only a couple

 of days old. Some were very shy but others were not. We pet some and let them suck on our fingers. It was so cute. from there we moved on to the feeding barns then on to the milking barns. The image above was the milking barn. The smell was hard to get used to. This cow was soooo ready to be milked and was just

 laying there waiting her turn. All the little kids loved climbing up into this tractor. It had radio and cd player, air conditioning and rumble seats. All the parents went crazy taking photos of them. The owner climbed up with them and turned it on. the kids loved it. I was fascinated by the weights clamped on the front to keep the tractor from flipping up. The big tires

cost him $1,500.00 each. I was drawn to the grain silos that he had there. They were much smaller then most that I have seen but the shape caught my attention. The last thing that really drew me was the mini John Deere dozer. What caught me was the fact that it was not green but yellow. Such a compact design. It was well used since it was covered in dried mud. The door in front reminds me of the first car my parents had that had its' door in the same spot.

First day of vacation

I left for our vacation to Ithaca, NY straight from work. Had to wait for my father to get there to pick me up after getting Juli and sister Vicki. That night was just about getting caught up a bit. The next day was a day to be quite before everyone else arrived. It was announced that there was to be a camp fire at my uncle Georges that night so we made our way around 7:30 pm. I pulled out the sketchbook to throw down the top drawing . That is my older sister Linda on the left with Gail on the right and Lindas' dog Drew in between them. It was the perfect way to start the vacation with a camp fire.

That night I went back to my sleeping arrangements. Since there was going to be 12 of us in the house my friend Richard and I slept in the shed on air mattress's. I sat there and threw this down of the shed and one of the beds. It was very cool and comfortable.

Getting ready for the Work from Home program

 Before going on this year's vacation I began packing up my desk. It took me over a week to get my stuff home. But it was a bit of work. A year and a half left me with a lot of stuff. Some of it I gave away, some I sold. But the majority of it I brought home.



I decided to do a few more sketches of the view from my desk. Marybeth tried to ignore the fact that I sat there drawing her. I sit in the back of the call center. This is the view looking to the front.

Just before leaving for vacation they installed the new phone system that the entire company is switching to. It will take some getting use to but not till after vacation. I will be posting sketches from that over the next few days.

On this 4th of July I want to put out a call. After all the damage done to the city I lived in for 12 yrs., Colorado Springs, I was devastated watching all  the coverage. I have hiked through that area quite often. I even saw one of the homes that had been in the annual Parade of Homes that Juli and I had toured burned to the ground. While most of the big homes had the insurance to cover their loss there were still people who lost everything. I want to start a fund raiser for those affected there. I will be going through my works from Colorado and sell prints of them. The originals I will put up for auction. But I have no idea how to do this. I have no way to get the prints and don't know how to set this up online. So I am putting this out there for help. Please contact me and let me know what I need to do and where to go. I will begin to make postcards that are 4"x6" in watercolor. Like I said the originals I will auction then sell prints of the same. The one above is one I did for my daughter, Bekah, for her birthday. So she has the original but I will sell prints. Thank you for your help.

Nina and the Pinta

 On 7/1/12 I made my way down to the Port of Rochester to visit the floating museum of the full size copies of the Nina and Pinta, 2 of the ships that Christopher Columbus sailed to the new world. I got there around 4:30 pm. I was disappointed that, unlike other tall ships that come into port, I could not walk along the pier to draw the ships without paying $8. So I stood under the ticket tent and drew the view you see above. I was struck by how small they were. And they were full size. The guy at the ticket stand mentioned that the Santa Maria was never built because it was too big and too expensive. It was still facinating from my view point but after an hour of drawing, standing up, I was sore and tired. The details gives you an idea of the extent to which they went for authenticity. There were running lights and other items that are legally required for a modern vessel but the rest was the same as the original. Both ships seemed to be over crowded with ropes. I smiled when a little kid came up bouncing up and down yelling "Pirate Ships!" Then smiled wider when his parents tried to correct him(he wouldn't have any of that).

From there I walked down the pier in the other direction towards the beach and sat down in the shade to do some further work on the drawing. But across from me was the Coast Guard station. I decided to sketch it out too. These two drawings are the first I drew out one scene on one whole or two whole pages. Of course using watercolor on paper not meant for it meant I have very crinkled paper. That is why the sketch books that I have made - to use once I finish this one - I made out of watercolor paper. I will be using one of my hand made ones during my vacation on the 14th.