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Thursday, June 17, 2010

Lewes Delaware Pen and Ink Drawings














































These eight pictures are actually four that were scanned in in halves but I haven't put stitched them together yet. The story behind these pen and ink drawings is a sort of love story with a very dear friend, old towns and homes, and my affection with an artist named Charles Wysocki. He did these very frontal folk art pieces showing some of the most charming New England towns in America, often in a sort of late 1800s theme.

My dear friend and his partner of 15 years were getting married on Cape Cod last October and he was gracious enough to invite my husband and I, as well as our daughter. In anticipation of his wedding I collected various photos of historic homes and buildings in Lewes Delaware where he and his husband live and I arranged them into Spring, Summer, Winter, and Fall themes, trying to incorporate about ten historic homes in each seasonal image. I went to Google Earth and all over the net as well as got pictures from my friend showing the homes and buildings.

Then using the frontal style of Charles Wysocki I cut and pasted the houses onto a computer scrapbooking program and scaled them to a size that gave a little depth and proportion to the compositions. I used various Wysocki themes throughout the sketches since Lewes Delaware is a coastal city and has a lot of the same sorts of landscape details.

When I finished the drawings I inked them with  waterproof pens on bristol board and my daughter cut the mats, and my husband made the nice crisp black poplar frames. They were a huge hit at the wedding and according to my friend, many folks from Lewes love to look at them to find their home or a treasured historical building.

The project took about 100 hours including research. Maybe more. Going to Cape Cod and watching my friend marry the love of his life, priceless.









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