Friend Gary joined me this morning at the Treo's coffee house in Tacoma's Old Town. Rain whispered on the rooftops. A flat, gray sheen of water to the north lay beneath a flat, gray sky. Not a boat was visible from North 30th Street.
Gary had returned this week from an extended visit to family in Geneva, Switzerland. He brought with him to our weekly show-and-tell two small notebooks of pen-and-wash sketches. Each painting was exquisite. Every one brought an aging, urban landscape to life.
Gary is an architect. His eye and pen captured details that, otherwise unnoted, contribute to an overall statement of sometimes recent and sometimes old construction that reflects Geneva's centuries of established beauty.
He is no stranger to freehand drawing but relatively new to plein air sketching and watercolor painting. He works from a small pocketbook that carries his watercolor-paper notebooks, his india-ink drawing pens, brushes and a small tray of watercolor pans.
Plein air artists work fast in any clime--but Geneva in winter--despite this month's Indian summer there--dictates rapid sketching, rapid painting. Despite this enforced haste, Gary has captured Geneva with bold lines and sensitive washes that provide an illusion of detail and completeness.
I can't wait until he turns his educated eye upon Tacoma!
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