Lake George at Dusk

10" x 8" Acrylic on Gessoed Hardboard, $80, available for sale here

Silver Bay, NY is hands down my favorite place on this planet. (I haven't made it to Italy yet, so I guess this could change). This painting was done from a photograph I took looking south from Slim Point.

A little bit about this place I keep talking about: Technically, it's a YMCA conference center, but to me, it's a family vacation spot much like Dirty Dancing (or The Shining if you are there in the winter). Families return summer after summer to relax and enjoy the simple things in life. There is no cable, internet is hard to come by, and if you really need to use your cell phone, you either canoe out to the middle of the lake, drive 15 miles south, or huddle near the flagpole in the center of campus and hope for the best.* Evenings are spent catching a show at the auditorium and socializing over ice cream at The Store, and if you're feeling really wild, you'll head down to the beach or to the dock to watch the waves in the moonlight.

My grandmother, Barbara, started the Scott family tradition when she worked at Silver Bay as a teen. Eventually she and my grandfather, George, purchased a small cottage just off the main campus. Later, my father and his siblings spent their summers there, and now it's my generation's turn. There have only been a few summers I couldn't visit (damn you Kinko's for not giving me time off in the summer of '99!), but I made up for lost time by being an "Emp" (employee) three summers during college. As an Emp, you get paid well below minimum wage, are fed semi-tolerable food (we loved sandwich bar day!), and you live in condemnable dorms that smell like mold more often than not, but the work you do, the people you meet, and the place you are living more than makes up for it. Some people I worked with for only 7 weeks nine years ago are still my good friends; I'm going to one fellow Emp's wedding in just a few weeks.

You get the idea, I heart Silver Bay. I have my tickets to go back in July to introduce the place to My Biggest Fan, Jason. I sure hope he likes it as much as I do.

*it's possible that cell phone coverage has improved since my last visit in 2007, and I secretly hope it hasn't.

Lake Leisure

Finally, the bounty of my Surface Design project.

Goal: Create a cohesive line of products using completely original art elements.

Inspiration: Silver Bay on Lake George, always my muse. I pictured a line of products that could be for sale at the Silver Bay Gift Shop. Products that could appeal to any part of a generation. Silver Bay is conventional, preppy, rustic, and funky all at once. Lots of tradition, lots of family. It's a place people keep in their hearts for their whole life. These things (combined with my lack of fashion know-how) geared my line of products into a strange hybrid; think country club meets outdoor enthusiast.

Title: This was the last thing I did, but it seems appropriate to list it first here.



Icons: First we created a series of graphic elements that could stand alone or be combined with other Icons to create compositions. I had no idea where I was going with my project at this point. I only knew I wanted to incorporate hand-written type, because that's so hot right now. I got out the watercolors and started painting.







Badges: Badges are mini compositions which could be used on a hat or chest print of a t-shirt (or mug, etc). My favorites involve the Sunfish; I love how their bright colors pop against the deep blue greens of the mountains (in real life and in my badges!




Patterns: The Patterns portion of the class was challenging for me. We used our icons, badges, and borders (mine were too lame to show here) to make repeating or organic patterns. I think this would have been easier had I started with more abstract shapes, but the realism of my icons begged for a composition. Who wants a sheet set with a billion repeating sailboats all over it? Therefore, my most successful ones involved a simple brush stroke stripe.


I was able to use my watercolor birch leaves with a found image of a birch tree trunk. That turned out pretty cool.



Product Line: Finally, we created a product line. This involved finding/creating silhouettes on which to place your masterpieces. I found products and hand drew them to give it that "Silver Bay Look," then took the scans into Photoshop and applied my patterns/icons/badges. Here are a few of my favorites.









Outcome: I had a fantastic teacher, got a glimpse inside an industry I knew nothing about, picked up some Photoshop tricks, met some nice classmates, got some great sketchbook time in, and challenged my brain to not think composition first. Good times.

Thanks for your patience. If you made it all the way down to the bottom, you get a special treat - a joke!

What's brown and sticky?

A stick!

Sailboat on Lake George

5x7 watercolor in 11x14 mat, $50

This is another watercolor done from a photo I snapped while sailing on Lake George with my dad. I'm pretty sure it was the same trip where I snapped the photo for this painting.

I think it's safe to say that Lake George is my muse. I'm so Georgia O'Keefe.

Prints are available through ImageKind for as little as 8.49!

Foreboding sky over Lake George

SOLD

This is a watercolor I did from one of my favorite photos I have taken of Lake George. I was out with my dad on his sailboat as a storm blew in from the north. We were anxiously trying to head back to the boathouse at Silver Bay before the rain came. While my dad was busy jibbing and tagging, I was snapping photos of the beautiful sky. We made it back just as the rain started to come down.

This is a 5x7 watercolor; still trying to get my skills honed in this medium.

Prints are available through ImageKind for as little as 8.49!

Rainy Silver Bay Day

This is something I sketched from a snapshot my dad sent me. On rainy days in Silver Bay, NY, you get out the board games, books, and puzzles and settle down in the lobby of the Inn. Nowadays they have a Wi-Fi connection so you see a lot more laptops than you used to.

Fishing

This is from a photograph I snapped while in Silver Bay. When I was younger, my brother and I used to fish off this same dock. The dock holds the "Silver Spray," a boat that takes visitors on an intimate guided tour around Lake George.

I tried out these new artist pens I got recently - Faber-Castell PITT artist pen; the landscape set. Only 6 colors. Pretty fun to work with - towards the end I was getting a bit more confident with my mark making. My next attempt will hopefully be a bit better.

More in the beer series to come soon - Hope to do one tomorrow night.

Silver Bay

For my Girls Who Draw assignment, "favorite place", I chose Silver Bay, a small YMCA conference center on Lake George in upstate New York. My grandmother started working at this YMCA camp when she was in her 20's (maybe teens?) and returned year after year. Eventually, she and my grandfather bought a small cottage on the mountainside right off campus. Ever since I was zero years old (in my mother's tummy) I have gone to Silver Bay for vacation in the summer. It's rustic (take a canoe out to the middle of the lake if you want to get cell phone service), beautiful, outdoorsy, peaceful... all things that have made it a very special place to me. For three summers in college, I worked at Silver Bay - 2 summers as a Sterling Silver jewelry making instructor, one summer as a conference set-up crew (and the last 2 summers, I was an RA for the dorms, too). I made a lot of long lasting friendships and I look forward to going back there every summer, if I can. So, it is definitely my favorite place in the whole world.

Technique: Another teeny watercolor, this one 4"x6". I need to learn some techniques because this could have been a lot cooler probably. Still learning!