Art Jail, Day Three.

I got so involved in Art Jail, Day Four that I'm just now getting a chance to post about yesterday. I think that's a good sign. :)

Yesterday my dear friend and fellow artist Marissa Lehner Bannister, knowing my week's plans, thought of an "art field trip" that I would enjoy...a drive to historic Clarence Center, east of Buffalo. Founded in the early 19th century, the town is very charming, filled with federal-style brick homes, an Italianate business block, and tons of Civil War-era vernacular structures. An architectural historian's dream! (I met the owner of the house below, and she kindly told me a little of the history of her childhood home, and how she's returned to town to fix it up, bit by bit; meeting fellow old building-lovers is one of the best parts about my work!)

My friend and I enjoyed lunch at the Clarence Center Cafe, then strolled the main street. I had the idea to use vignettes, comic book-style, to illustrate a series of the buildings. I like to capture the feel of a place by integrating numerous subjects, but it can begin to look overwhelming, and take too much planning, if you don't visually separate them.

And then I ran out of fountain pen ink halfway through. So, I took a stroll down to the antiques store we passed on the way in. And what a place! Hen House II was full of amazing artifacts of the past. A great place for some visual inspiration, and their Himalayan cat Pierre was charming.

I took photos of the remaining buildings I wanted to include in my drawing and planned out the composition. I completed the work in-studio and added the town name. I really like the vignette style, and now I want to do more of it with marker and other media, in future artwork!