Can You Keep a Secret?

Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool, Chicago

The Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool is one of the best-kept secrets in Chicago. Our Monday sketch group makes sure to go there at least once a summer to sketch.  Peaceful, quiet, (well, except for the birds, frogs, and breeze through the trees) and uncrowded, it's definitely the pause that refreshes. I was thinking about that as I was drawing. It seems no matter how tired or crabby I am if I stop to sketch a little my smile comes back!

I couldn't resist a quick sketch of the heron that briefly came into view!

Happy Earth Day!

These are a few quick sketches I did  at the Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool in Chicago a few summers ago. I like the no pencil approach in them. It's a style I rarely use but I've begun playing around with it again. 

Urban Sketching at Camp Nana

The Monday sketch group and several Urban-Sketchers Chicago met this week at the Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool.  Lily Pond Park, as it's also known, is a beautiful zen-space that few people even know exists. I hate to be selfish but I'm rather glad.

This year our annual sketch outing to the pond coincided with Camp Nana. Camp Nana is the time between the end of school and the beginning of real camp when my granddaughters and I happily (well most of the time) share each other's daily adventures at work and play. On Monday the girls were introduced to urban sketching. They took to it like ducks to water. Geese and goslings, ducks and ducklings, Nana and granddaughters and Urban Sketchers, we all had a marvelous day at the pond.