2 approaches to sketching looking out the same window

Our friend Tateki & Nao invited us out for dinner at their home in the North End of Boston.
This is an old part of Boston that still has the characteristic left over from 100's of years ago and I especially fell in love with this area when doing sketches last year for my Freedom Trail book. Tateki also mentioned that his apartment had a great view of the city out the window for sketching - so I took up the offer.

I climbed out a small window onto an old/half rusting fire escape ladder fearing for my life but got these 2 sketches of the same view sketched in different approaches.

This 1st one is a funky perspective view trying to fit as much as I can from the ground floor of a 6 story building all the way up to the sky. The bent building in the background is the Old North Church, a historic building part of the Freedom trail.


This 2nd one was drawn much more straight forward focusing on painting the sky with a little more attention to detail. Since I was using multiple gradient water color washes on my sketchbook, it buckled a little bit making it less ideal to do this style in my current sketchbook.


This is a personal choice but I tend to prefer the first one since it's always fun not knowing how the sketch is going to turn out in the end and is a challenge in trying to jam pack various views.

Dinner was served and I had a wonderful time at their place.

Walking the Freedom Trail with my book

A few weeks ago out of the blue I received a bunch of photos sent to me by Atsuko, a friend that recently moved out to the Boston area from Japan. This was her first time in Boston and she walked the Freedom Trail using my book as a reference guide!

The photos are all 'Selfie' pictures she took of the book with the actual scene in background.
It was great to hear that she enjoyed walking the trail and most of all said she found my book useful and entertaining!

Here's Astuko starting off the trail at Boston Commons taking a picture with a costumed person working at the Freedom Trail Visitors center. Note the words on the book cover is a mirror image - a Selfie picture indeed.



Brewers Fountain and the New state House.





Shaw/54th Regiment Memorial



 Park Street Church



Granary Burying Ground - Historically famous people such as John Hancock, Samuel Adams and Paul Revere rest in this grave.
 



King's Chapel

Democratic Donkey at the Old City Hall

Irish Famine Sculptures

This was supposed to be the Old corner Bookstore - but she took a picture of the next door Starbucks by mistake

Old South Meeting House

Old State House

This is when she told me that her phone ran out of batteries!

Anyway I was really happy to hear that she enjoyed the book and walking the Trail!

My book at the The Bostonian Society Gift Shop

Last month I released my 4th book 'Urban Sketching The Freedom Trail' via Amazon.

2 day later I received an email from the Director of Marketing of Revolutionary Boston - an organization part of The Bostonian Society, a 128 year old institution dedicated to studying and preserving Boston's history. They found my book online and was interested in selling them in their gift shops - I was thrilled!

I delivered a box of 36 copies last week as a test trial and went to go see how they were selling this memorial day weekend.

They have 4 gift shops located in The Old State House, Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market - All shops located right on the Freedom trail. A perfect location for my book.

Here are photos from my gift shop tour!

The Old State House museum:

Inside Faneuil Hal:

and in Quincy Market:

This was a very exciting day for me and I can't wait to hear how well it sells.
If this test sell turns out well, we talked about printing in larger volumes (which would bring the piece cost down) as well as printing on higher quality paper and possibly as a hard cover.
It would be an amazing experience to have my book printed and sold in large volumes!

For out of town people interested in this book, you can find it on Amazon:

Urban Sketching The Freedom Trail

Each year over 3.2 million people visit Boston Massachusetts and walk The Freedom Trail, making it one of the most visited historical attractions in the United States. In the summer of 2013, I walked the trail carrying my small backpack filled with my art supplies and sketched anything I found attracting along the way. In total I ended up walking for 11 weeks sketching the entire 2.5 mile journey and enjoyed every bit of it! This 74 page book captures my journey and hope it may want to make you walk The Freedom Trail!

Note: The Freedom Trail® is a registered trademark of The Freedom Trail Foundation, Inc. This book is independently published and is not affiliated with the Freedom Trail Foundation.

11 Weeks of walking and sketching the Freedom Trail

Here's my way overdue posting of the Freedom Trail.

Is is estimated that each year over 3.2 million people visit Boston and walk "The Freedom Trail", a 2.5 mile (4km) trail making it one of the most popular and successful historic destinations in the US.



As a person that never enjoyed history, I never thought I would have this much fun sketching and learning about American History. Every Saturday that I walked and sketched, it felt like I was traveling somewhere distant but in reality was still in my home town.
 I didn't take too many pictures along the way but here are some from the journey.



Here’s inside Faneuil hall – 2nd floor meeting hall



Sketching one of Boston's oldest buildings - Paul Revere's house



A cute little Fire house in Charlestown



The last landmark site on the Freedom Trail - Bunker hill monument




In total I sketched over 80 sketches and inspired by the 2 books I bought in Barcelona by Nina and Swasky on Gaudi, I'm in the midsts of working on turning these into a book :)

Here's the index/map creation in process.

Still lots to do but I do hope I can finish before the end of the year to be able to share with everyone.

Sketching Boston's Freedom Trail

Ever since returning from the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Barcelona, I've been so inspired and motivated by the event and all the people I met that I began to look for sketching projects I can work on in my home town.

I quickly thought of one of the most famous tourist attractions here in Boston called the "Freedom Trail", a 2.5 mile long red path that goes through downtown Boston, Massachusetts, that leads to 17 significant historic sites and many more smaller interesting landmarks along the way too.

Each Saturday morning I've been heading into downtown Boston, walking the trail and sketching the various historic sites for a few hours. So far I've managed to capture 20+ sketches. It might take a couple of months before I get to capture the entire trail but I hope I can finish before it starts getting cold.

Yesterday was my 3rd week walking the trail and my wife came along too.
She recently found an interesting APP that creates these cute little movies on the spot with real ease. It's real fun and she made one of me sketching too. (The APP's called "Road Movies" made by Honda. yes, the car maker and it's free too!)





This sketch is one of the historic sites on the trail called the "Old House Meeting House" where 5000 angry colonists gathered in 1773 to protest a tax and started a revolution with the famous Boston tea party.

Hope to share more sketches soon.