Travels with a sketchbook in the USA

(From top left, clockwise: Arizona, New Mexico, Southern California and Northern California)

I’m coming to the end of posting about my travels in New England in September on my Travels with a Sketchbook blog this week – just two more blog posts to go - one of which will go on later today. As a result, I’ve updated Pastels and Pencils, my website, so that it now contains all the sketches from my travels to seven states in the USA this summer. I must confess I do like looking at all the ones belonging to one state in one go. I've also added in links to the individual blog posts which go with each sketch.

There are now seven galleries in all as follows:

• Travels with a sketchbook…in the USA (the overview)
• Travels with a sketchbook…in California
• Travels with a sketchbook…in Arizona
• Travels with a sketchbook…in New Mexico
• Travels with a sketchbook…in Massachusetts
• Travels with a sketchbook…in New Hampshire and Vermont
• Travels with a sketchbook…in Maine

(From top left, clockwise: Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont)

You can actually access all of the above from the main Travels with a Sketchbook page. My stats indicate that the sketchbook part of my website is rapidly becoming one of the most popular sections of the website. I'd certainly encourage other people to have their sketchbooks on their main websites - I think whether you're a browser, a fellow artist or a prospective gallery or purchaser there's something very interesting about seeing where paintings come from.

I'm still in two minds about redesigning the structure of the Pastels and Pencils website so that it places the sketchbooks alongside the type of paintings that come from them. I definitely want to keep the 'trip' sketches together so I may need to ponder some more on that one.

I'd very much like to thank all of you who've commented on my travels. Constructing each post, with all the links and the scanning and resizing of images plus just remembering what happened each day, can take some time and your comments have kept me going while posting each trip - even if I've flagged a bit towards the end on both trips. It's also been fun watching all the different places in the USA (and around the world) that have come up on the Mapstats list which indicates where all the visitors to the Travel sketchbook blog come from - I just managed to capture a screen shot of the day that the White House came up - just before it scrolled off the page!

I also have to give a huge enormous "thank you" to all my exceptionally generous hostesses and trip companions who in their different ways made my two trips a really exceptional experience - many many thanks to Louise, Dick, Kathy, Gordon, Nicole, cousin V, and Donna.

And just for Laura (as a thank you for her very kind words yesterday) I'll finish with some of my favourite interiors.............



(From top left, clockwise: Tommy's in San Clemente, California; La Cochina in Truth and Consequences, New Mexico; In Good Company, in Rockland, Maine and Burdicks in Walpole, New Hampshire)

Link: Travels with a Sketchbook in.......

Technorati tags: Arizona, art, artist, California, colored pencils, coloured pencils, drawing, Maine, Massachusetts, moleskine, New England, New Hampshire, New Mexico, pencil, pen and ink, plein air, sketching, sketchbook, travel sketchbook, USA, Vermont