Valparaiso Viewpoints

Jeanette and I paused in Valparaiso, Indiana to recharge our art batteries. Valparaiso is the county seat of Porter County, but not many tourists come here. The library has a fabulous collection of art books and there’s an art museum on the university campus of that we’ll check out tomorrow. Today it’s time for sketching.

We picked this streetcorner: a shoe store in a brick building with a round turret. Here’s how it looked to the camera.



I tried a sepia sketch in the mini-Moleskine watercolor book, using a few washes of tone and then some brown Waterman ink sketched with a fountain pen. Then I added a wet wash here and there to melt the linework, releasing its inner red tone.

Here’s Jeanette to describe her painting: “I did a pencil sketch in my sketchbook (laid-finish paper), then put down some watercolor. I went back in with a ballpoint pen when the color was dry.”

Our fingers got cold from the November weather, so we tucked into a wi-fi café for soup and coffee. An elderly fellow sat near me and hauled out his laptop. Sitting duck, thought I.