Mexican sketchbook 1 | Stephen Springer Davis

The purpose of the visit was not only to vacation but it was also the first of four trips to Mexico my wife, Nina, made to see if we could figure out how to move there. This was in the year after 9/11, when both of our freelance businesses were in shambles. Moving to Mexico seemed like the only way to be able to survive financially in those very rough times. In the end we decided not to move to Mexico, despite having loved the places we visited, but I do have the only sketchbooks I’ve ever done on vacation. On other trips I am more serious about creating artwork that I would put in shows. These little paintings were only for my own enjoyment.

Mexican sketchbook 2 | Stephen Springer Davis

Mexican sketchbook 3 | Stephen Springer Davis

Sometime after our trips to Mexico I was in the Philadelphia Borders, and I tripped over Paris sketchbook by Fabrice Moireau. Since I was getting ready for a trip to Maine at the time, I was thinking about doing another journal, but with nice little watercolors and some notes about the places I went. I wanted some inspiration, and to see how other artists treated this kind of thing. I still haven’t gotten over the beauty of Moireau’s paintings of Paris scenes.

Paris sketch 1 | Fabrice Moireau | Paris sketchbook

His precise and detail-filled, but still off-handedly casual perspective drawings amaze me. It’s not only the skill of the drawings, but the fact that they seem to have been drawn without correction. And these are really complex street scenes, often with crooked old buildings and streets that don’t intersect at ninety degrees. And then the artist paints over these drawings with lush and equally confident watercolors. My analysis is that M. Moireau must do these drawings/paintings at several times the size of their reproduction. I don’t see how else he can put in all the detail. I can stare at the pages of this book endlessly, in awe. If I were to take on the paintings of this book it would take me a decade to complete them.

I also own the Loire Valley sketchbook, which is equally lovely. I should point out that these books are not written by M. Moireau, so they are not his journals. He collaborates with different writers. There are also the Provence, Garden of Paris, and New York sketchbooks. This is a prodigious body of work.

Paris sketch 2 | Fabrice Moireau | Paris sketchbook

I ‘ve been so humbled by the sketchbooks of M. Moireau that I gave up the notion of doing more complex “sketches” on vacation. His work sets a standard that I could never rise to. But I’ll continue to do my little marker drawings. That I can handle. But I’ll still pull out his books and study them agog.

Lakeside | 2009 | Stephen Springer Davis

I’ve been frustrated for some that I so often have to do paintings from photographs. The last several times I’ve been to Maine I’ve had disappointing (read as rainy) weather. My brother Criswell generously flew me to northern Utah about a year ago, and to the amazement of me and local residents it was really cold with nasty rain, pretty much everyday. I have pictures that I took on our trip, but the scenes are guess what? Rainy.

I haven’t painted with watercolors for years, so I’m trying out a return to see if I can develop something different from the landscapes I’ve been doing. I’ve had in the back of my mind to combine drawing and a looser kind of watercolor washes. I consider these to be sketches rather than finished artwork, and the intention is to be looser and more casual. Here are a couple recent drawings/paintings, done from some (guess what?) photos of England I had.

Street Scene England | 2009 | Stephen Springer Davis

In the drawing/painting above I use a both black waterproof and sepia non-waterproof ink along with a watercolor wash.

In the drawing/painting below I used waterproof black ink, watercolor wash and then white opaque watercolor for the highlights.

Street Scene England 2 | 2009 | Stephen Springer Davis

I’ll post new pieces as I continue to explore working with watercolors again.