Trip to Chicago

Since I wasn't working towards my Memphis urban sketching show, I decided to keep a little bit looser sketchbook to document our trip through the Midwest. I did a couple of pages' worth of sketches from the passenger seat of the car as we drove through corn country on our way to Chicago.

We stopped for dinner on the way in Morris, Illinois, and I was charmed by the old houses and nice old downtown. I fell in love with the "good food" sign, and I wish I'd had time to do a full color watercolor of it, but we were running pretty late.

We decided for sure on the trip when we discovered that the Cardinals were playing that weekend at Busch. It was a day game, which is the right way to see Wrigley, and I was thrilled to be there for the first time. Our hosts had wonderful tickets, and it was a great afternoon, in spite of a late fold by the Cards' bullpen.

The next day was Elmore's race, and since it had been twenty years since I'd been there, I decided to spend the day in the Art Institute. They only allow pencil drawings inside the museum, and here are my few pages from the galleries. I mostly just looked, but I drew a few that I was unfamiliar with and wanted to remember (esp. ones with interesting composition, since that's what you can capture in pencil).

I was again short on time, so I didn't do any full color sketches downtown (I decided I'd rather look at other people's masterpieces for the day), but here are a couple of sketches I did waiting for the Art Institute to open.

Our last morning I walked out the back of the suburb we were staying in into the corn fields of the Midwest. There was a lovely horse farm, and I settled in long enough to draw it in color.