A storm on Monday night knocked out our power for almost four days. I have never been without electricity at home for this long. The first thing I did was buy a new flashlight:

I found that I could do many things in limited light, like sketching. The candle in this sketch provided the only light in the room. I did not hold the flashlight over my work and being unable to see details on the page freed me up:

Another thing I did was listen to AM radio on a small “6 transistor” from the 1960s (this sketch was done in May). Just the thing for getting back to basics:

And tonight, when I came home to find the power restored, the first thing I did was plug in the computer and get onto the Internet.

An afternoon at the Field Museum, sketching gulls. I set out to see how many of the gulls in the case I could sketch. After six, the page spread was filled and I was tired and stopped for coffee “and,” then did the final spread (the first spread above). I am still not sure I want to keep drawing in pen instead of pencil, but it it is cleaner and doesn’t smear, and forces me to commit to decisions in drawing, live with my mistakes, and then practice some more.

After a long hiatus of sketching, I started in recent weeks as I usually do, drawing pieces of fruit and household objects. But on Sunday, I had to get out and draw something different. I found this building, apparently a Catholic school, on my way home from church in the morning, and returned in the evening to sketch it. The red part is brick, but I didn’t get to that … and so it has this gingerbread house sort of feeling instead. One of the longest days of the year helped me with plenty of lingering light at 8 p.m. The date is wrong in the sketchbook; yesterday was the 22nd of June.

To be honest, these are drawings of photos I took on the banks of Salt Creek at Graue Mill in Oak Brook, Illinois. I did fill two spreads of my sketchbook while I was there, but as a novice at drawing active birds, I could not capture much.

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