some dining sketches

Dining is always a ritual, and at times in the uniqueness of the environment or the casualness of the coffee, a record of the moment is always appreciated to trigger the memories of that day, that place, that experience...

A wonderful escape to our favorite little bakery elicited this little espresso sketch above.

While in Toronto my Uncle brought me to this exquisite (and expensive) little restaurant, Actinole. Very clever in using found objects in the basement for the bar (reused drawers) and for the bar shelves (old factory window frame)

Spent a wonderful late lunch with a fellow designer and generated this little sketch in Utah. Always an exploration of light, surface and construction. As repetitive as these seem, I am yet to get bored with them...

Mother's day Flowers, Fathers Day coffee

It is traditional for me and the kids to go hunting for flowers on Mother's day morning, create a bouquet before she wakes and draw the flowers by end of the day so they are forever retained. This is the subject of this sketch...

For Father's day, we went to our favorite little bakery in Skaneateles and the flowers above were complimented by the sketch below:

Both sketches consider the effects of light. The container in the flowers explore light in transmition while the coffee sketch explores the light of shadows and their layering on a surface.

Coffee sketch again...

Out of Postcards, baker paper was all that was at hand. Loved the response to the water...Gift to Katy and Chris at the Bakery.

Tis the Season

After a very fun exhibition at Skaneateles Bakery from August through November, I had the privilege of receiving 3 commissions for Christmas cards. Below are the three plus the one I did for our family.

top left: Petrie Family Card; Top right : Skaneateles Bakery;
Bottom Left: Western Lights Liquors; Bottom right: my friend Marbeth Sweeney.

Cafe Impressions : on exhibit

Skaneateles Bakery + Cafe has been one of my and my wife's favorite little cafe ever since we got married. For awhile we have watched art work go up and down from their walls and just recently the owners, Katie and Chris, invited me to display some of my work. I decided to go with a small show of cafe postcards, appropriate for the venue, with 9 cards being specific to Skaneateles bakery or skaneateles the town. (displayed on the right as you enter) We even made bakery post cards for customers to purchase and post!

Fathers Day Sketching

For Fathers Day my wife gave me an amazing gift...time to sketch. She got a sitter for an afternoon for our two oldest and took me and the baby out to coffee in Skaneateles, NY. Taking in a slow lunch and some quick lines we had a relaxing time . . . a rarity and delight!

another fascination for me are the overlapping geometries in our backyard. with the angles of the roofs and the change of scale with the play-fort it makes a dynamic composition of figure and field relations. This sketch was exploring those geometries and the shadow play of the tree crown overhead.