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.

John Payton Project

So - while chatting on line with my wife she mentioned that my cousins' band was gong to be playing at the Dinosaur BBQ that same night. Later I end up finding out that my other cousin was going to be there too. So I break down and tell my wife that I would meet her there after work as long as I could draw them. I get there and end up waiting till 10pm before they start playing. It was loud, and as soon as they started the floor was over crowded with people singing with them and dancing. My cousin John was thumping away on the drums and bobbing his head like a true head banger. Unfortunatly, as soon as I tried to draw him the crowds filled in around him and I had to draw him in bits a drabs. As soon as a space opened up, up front, Juli and I ran up there and I drew the other members of the band. At 11 we had to leave to catch the last bus home. Juli ran up to John to hug and kiss him goodbye. That made him have to introduce us as his cousin and my wife to all the stuned people. The lead singer then had to pipe up with "If you see a mountain walk through the room it's most likely a Payton." That made everyone laugh. What made me laugh, though, was watching My cousin George(whose bigger than me) dancing without a care in the world. It was a fun night and worth loosing 3 hrs. of sleep.

Today was the first meeting of the Rochester Sketchers. We met across the street from the Eastman theater. Our group organizer did not realize until the day before that it was the beggining of the international Jazz Fest. Band after band on stage playing music. We got there before the days program started. A lot of time was spent introducing each other to each other but soon we got into what we came for - draw. I felt comfortable but poor Juli was a bit bored until one of her friends from her writing group showed up and they got to talking and then the music started. That is when the crowds flooded in. I thought that would give me plenty to draw but suddenly the people I tried to draw were blocked by others but I just shrugged and moved on to others. Juli and I were the last to leave. We went to our church for a special meeting of Danny Cahill. The winner of season 8's season of the Biggest Loser. He now goes around country as a motivational speaker. It was a good day over all-weather-music-drawing. .

This past weekend I got a lot walking. On saturday I walked down to our Rite Aid to pick up a perscription for my wife Juli. This took me 35 min. to get there. I got in some sketching inside the Burger King while there but from there I walked down to the Port of Rochester. That took another hour to get the spot you see above. It was an overlook set up for turists. What struck me was a painting on display there by Christopher Blossom. An artist that was famous for his nauticle paintings from the early 19th century. This painting was a veiw of the port from that very same spot done around 1830. The light house, railroad station, tracks and road are in the same spots today. So I had to draw the same spot as it is today. On tuesday I went in for my teeth cleaning. The last time I had them cleaned was about 3 yrs ago. So it took a lot of work. I was clenching my hands together to keep from flinching. I studied what I was seeing - sitting in that chair so I did not have think about what she was doing to my gums. When she was done I went next door and sketched the next image from memory. She used a sonic water pick for this session and it left me soaked. But I still have to go back in 2 weeks for the rest of the work.