Let's make up a trip. A day dream. Let's say you are on routine (getting a building permit) business trip for your client (Free People). This usually means travel to a beautiful places and having evenings to yourself. Say you do this (twice) in Miami Beach. Say you are a constant sketcher and stop at a very cool outdoor bar with this crazy shape that just has to be sketched. You pull out your kit, order your beer and just play while imagining this was your job. ( I love my job but I would love for this to define my semi retirement) Say a few sketches really pop and you put it on your meager little blog online wondering who will enjoy it. AND what if the hotel saw it, and loved it, and called you about it. They say, I don't know what I want to do, but you have captured the spirit, etc etc. What if they called you on the coldest day in Minnesota (-14 degrees - 44 windchill) in a decade and said, "We have decided to pay for your flight, and take care of you while you are here. Just pick something before it gets crazy in February and we won't even give you direction. Just come and feel taken care of and do what you do." Add to this daydream that you didn't take vacation this year and decided to cash in miles and have Marcy and Leo crash your room? Then the hotel says that's fine and we will pick you all up and they can eat too! Yeah right....dream on sucker! All you did was enjoy your beer and the beautiful people, and the pigments swirling around on your little sketch book.
WELL, THIS DID HAPPEN, I KEPT WAITING FOR IT TO FALL APART AND IT KEPT GETTING MORE AND MORE REAL. NOW IT IS DONE AND IT STILL FEELS SUREAL. THANK YOU CLEVELANDER AND ESSEX HOUSE AND TOM BURCHETT, MIKE PALMA, IAN ABDON,AND CHRISTINA WARD! VIP TREATMENT TO A PERSON!
Anyone who follows my blog knows I love other people's process and assume people like to see mine. I have documented the trip. I produced about 14 images onsite and have plans for about 5 more. For the images on site I took periodic pictures. ( I also teach and these come in handy). I plan to to post the semi final images in about 3 blogs and then the process for each image later for the process junkies like me.
This first series is intended to give you a sense of what we left...frozen Minneapolis and crazy work...to being literally pampered in a beautiful hotel room and warm palm trees. I still feel like it was a dream although it was only earlier this week.
TO BEGIN:
I took this picture yesterday morning to show the people in Miami. This is the view outside my office. The little squares are ice houses. It looks like a small skyline but the frozen lake is large and flat and these houses are a long distance apart. But, this is just for reference as we head to Miami!
This morning we finished packing and woke up with what we thought was enough time. It had really snowed the night before and the car was covered and the trip in was slow with blowing snow.
I travel a lot. However I was shocked at how packed the airport was. I never fly Sat morning, and this was alarming. Thank goodness for the family line they put us in or we wouldn't have made it. We also stopped in the middle of the concourse and decided to CRAM everything together and skip the bag check in line. This was the move that let us make our flight. Well, that and bringing handsome Leo.
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Warm ups on the plane.
This is an image in top of a previously inked page. This is white gouache over the top of the dried ink.
Just some general sketching and painting to pass the time and warm up. (I notice my palm trees were much less practiced than they are now as I am proof reading this!)
But after 6 hours of conference calls (3 projects) on Friday, a crazy crazy sat morning airport and barely making it (despite being there early), my butt is seated, the email is set to manual, and I am on vacation and ready to relax and sketch.
For warm ups I was able to knock out a couple of sketches for EVERY DAY MATTERS on the iPad
Once we land, Leo is still on board and carrying his weight.
Dinner at the Clevelander and surprised that the main street closed to traffic for the Art Deco weekend!
Back in the room we are greeted with a bottle of wine and chocolate covered oreos....Plus a phone call from Ian....Seriously..we are treated well.
Isn't she just a beautiful person? I love this woman.
Leo LOVED the cookies...Loved them...Still talks about them...
Leo enjoying the room decor.....
Breakfast at a place that Marcy and I had a date back in ...well I don't like to think about the math but it was one of our first and we were here for the AIAS convention before we graduated and we were just dating then. I still remember the date vividly and eat here every time I visit.
I will post the rest of the sketches in other blogs (this is long enough) but it REALLY was a great vacation. We REALLY were taken care of in a way that I hadn't before. I REALLY felt appreciated for my art in a way that I never have before...so thank you. Everyone to a person was fantastic to us. Even when Leo was grumpy in the high end (AMAZING FOOD! WOW) Zen Sai.
Now to the sketches....I hope you open the next blog.