Federal Hill (Part 2)

In midafternoon (May 29th) I tried to sketch the thunderstorms passing over the city.

Baltimore. Prismacolor crayon in Moleskine notebook, 3.5 x 5.5.“Prussian white” was my code for a particular kind of bad-weather cloud, a steely whitish blue that you see in front of storms.

Then I tried the sky again, on the lower part (righthand page) of the opened notebook, but it was the first time this year I’ve really seen such towering thunderheads – and a startling cove of clear blue opened way above my head. So the sketch had to annex the adjoining page.

The faint horizontal element all the way down in the lower left is a bank of lights at Camden Yards, aka Orioles Park.

Baltimore. Prismacolor crayon and watercolor pencil in Moleskine notebook, 7 x 5.5.

Sunset, Sunday, 31 May 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.I watched this sunset for more than 45 minutes before even making up the palette, as it got deeper and a little more strange with twilight.

Federal Hill (Part 1)

Later on Friday the 29th (after we taxied past the Domino Sugars sign), Laura and I wound up on Federal Hill, where I sketched this little confection:

Baltimore. Pigment liner pen and watercolor pencil in Moleskine notebook, 3.5 x 5.5.The view is down Montgomery Street, with M & T Bank Stadium (aka Ravens Stadium) on the left, in southwest Baltimore. You can sort of see one raindrop in the ink of the last townhouse and adjacent tree on the left side of the street. I was standing and sketching in the rain while Laura walked around taking pictures ...

Federal Hill is the site of a fort constructed to keep an eye, and a lot of cannon, trained on the pro-Southern populace of Baltimore in the Civil War. More about this when we get to the Westminster, Md., sunset of May 30th.

Sunset, Saturday, 30 May 2009

Westminster, Md. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.This is a suburban sunset – the view is from my brother Steve’s front yard in Westminster, Maryland. But just a mile or so behind me is the pretty little nineteenth century commercial-industrial town itself. What occurred to me about Westminster, after writing about the Confederate sympathies of Baltimore, is that it’s one of the first towns on this side of Maryland, going north, where Johnny Reb might have had to watch his back when dealing with civilians. For me, it more or less marks an entryway into a northern, Union, Yankee feeling. My brother is basically a Southerner and his wife Sandy most definitely is one, but I’m not talking so much about who might be living here now as about a history that you can feel and even see in the old brick buildings. A Barbara Fritchie could just as easily have waved Old Glory from a balcony in Westminster as in Frederick.

Sunset, Friday, 29 May 2009

Fells Point, Baltimore, Md. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.At sunset the last of the storms we had seen earlier at Federal Hill were still hanging around.

Domino

For fans of Baltimore (and/or Homicide and The Wire) ... the back of the Domino Sugar sign.

Baltimore. Pigment liner pen on paper, 6 x 8.

Update on Friday, May 29, 2009 at 06:24PM by BVD

Actually, having cruised up the harbor in a water taxi and seen the sign from the front for the first time this trip, it’s the Domino SUGARS (plural) sign.

The ship docked alongside is the Elkhorn Century. Ship names often remind me of the crazy-sounding titles they give racehorses and show dogs ... Elkhorn Century, sired by Big Elk out of 21st Century Fox ...

If you’re checking here for the first time in a few days and wondering where the sunsets went, that’s explained here. We should be having a big sunset party on Sunday the 31st.