Federal Hill (Part 2)

In midafternoon (May 29th) I tried to sketch the thunderstorms passing over the city.

Baltimore. Prismacolor crayon in Moleskine notebook, 3.5 x 5.5.“Prussian white” was my code for a particular kind of bad-weather cloud, a steely whitish blue that you see in front of storms.

Then I tried the sky again, on the lower part (righthand page) of the opened notebook, but it was the first time this year I’ve really seen such towering thunderheads – and a startling cove of clear blue opened way above my head. So the sketch had to annex the adjoining page.

The faint horizontal element all the way down in the lower left is a bank of lights at Camden Yards, aka Orioles Park.

Baltimore. Prismacolor crayon and watercolor pencil in Moleskine notebook, 7 x 5.5.

Federal Hill (Part 1)

Later on Friday the 29th (after we taxied past the Domino Sugars sign), Laura and I wound up on Federal Hill, where I sketched this little confection:

Baltimore. Pigment liner pen and watercolor pencil in Moleskine notebook, 3.5 x 5.5.The view is down Montgomery Street, with M & T Bank Stadium (aka Ravens Stadium) on the left, in southwest Baltimore. You can sort of see one raindrop in the ink of the last townhouse and adjacent tree on the left side of the street. I was standing and sketching in the rain while Laura walked around taking pictures ...

Federal Hill is the site of a fort constructed to keep an eye, and a lot of cannon, trained on the pro-Southern populace of Baltimore in the Civil War. More about this when we get to the Westminster, Md., sunset of May 30th.

Sunset, Friday, 29 May 2009

Fells Point, Baltimore, Md. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.At sunset the last of the storms we had seen earlier at Federal Hill were still hanging around.