Upon the sale of my house everyone involved made more profit than I did. The real estate agent got a commission from the sale which resulted when the buyer came to him the day after I signed him up bearing the advertisement I’d published at my own expense. Of course the various paper pushers also got their pieces of the pie. The broken bit of crust with some taste of filling that was mine went with me to Portland, Oregon to be exchanged for the best quality colored pencils, pastels, and papers.

For years after, I benefited from that cache of supplies.

To stretch it out most of the drawings were small. This was also an advantage for the live sketches where in the interests of time, small worked best. I cut most of the pastel papers to 4″ X 6″, 5″ X 7″, and 8″ X 10″ pieces. The pencils and papers went everywhere I did, tucked away in my Volkswagon Squareback in an easel box. After work, I liked to drive in search of scenes to sketch at the approach of dusk.

Almost as often, I went out and did local night sketches.

Once, I sat on the top of the car and drew the park block in Portland. The Police kept a watchful eye.

The “Miniatures” album at www.fenimorecentral.artspan.com” are some of those drawings.

Today I borrowed a pastel that I’d entirely forgotten, made in the1980’s using such  precious supplies. It reminds me how I love doing landscapes!

Now I’ve photographed it and proofed out the prints to color match and sent it back immediately to be certain that so nice a sketch would be as quickly as possible reunited with the generous owner.

I’ve named it, “Juliescape”