Vacation at the Cottage

I just returned from a week at the cottage-I had a wonderful time! This cottage has been in our family for generations and is where I spent all my summers growing up (and as much time as I can now!). My dad and his brother inherited it when my granddad died, so now we share the time-half a summer for Dad's family and half a summer for uncle's family.





I painted this scene from the porch. I am not so skilled with perspective, but I am happy with it because it gives me the feel of the place.





My sister and I had a lot of time to ride our bikes and paint (she had a little vacation from her 4 year old). We rode by lakes, vineyards, orchards, fruit stands to get to this little church. Two of our childhood friends were married in this church-sisters who lived in the yellow cottage next to ours. After we painted we rode our bikes to a little hotdog stand on another lake and had supper on their deck by the water. To make this little sketch I watercolored first then did the ink work-it was harder I think. I used watercolor paper postcards to make some of my vacation sketches and pasted them into my Moleskine.





Another day we went to St. Joe to watch the sunset on Lake Michigan. We did little paintings while we were there. There were actually a lot of people on the beach, but I did not want to have to draw so many figures!





Now my uncle has the house for a couple of weeks, then we will be going back later in the month. I did not draw everyday, but Jennifer and I did another creative project while we were there and I will try to take pics of that tomorrow to show you.