Strolls through my hood get me out of my studio, they help me get unstuck and often I get inspired by what I see and get new ideas to create something. It is part of my philosophy about Artful Adventures in Mixed Media – which is the subject of my book. Here are some photos that I gathered in the last couple weeks.
July is my favorite month of the year – well first of all it is SUMMER and then its my birthday and I am one of those dorks who like birthday and then you can sit outside all the time and just enjoy life :) Loving the view from our terrace ..and will enjoy it of the last couple months.
I am also very inspired by my new instrument …A Ukulele. Well – I have no musical bone in me and I tried learning the guitar when I was a teenager (any German here who remember Peter Bursch’s Gitarrenbuch?” hahaha). I failed miserably and mind you, no internet back then, no youtube etc. But for a while I had on my bucket list to learn an instrument and so my very musical husband gave me one for my birthday and I loooovee it! I have been playing every day since I got it and signed up for in person classes.
This wouldn’t be a stroll through the hood post without a picture from one of the bike rides through the park- here is Manhattan on an extremely hot and humid day …it was 87% humidity – blech.
Our house reno is coming along -and I learned this beautiful ceiling reveals the typical Balloon Framing invented in the States. I love it and almost wish we could expose the ceiling in one of the rooms- but you know you cannot have everything in such a small house LOL
Some street art at the back of a building down town which I actually rarely pass.
Some under the bridge street art.
Our deck coming along …I love all those lines- I also feel strongly inclined to sketch this as I feel it helps me understand painting buildings better seeing all those raw structures.
When they started taking down the reclined ceiling in one of the rooms (Why the heck do people do that?) we discovered some of the original crown molding. Keep your fingers cross we can keep it. The rosette of the ceiling already came crumbling down.
I love all those old houses in my hood. This one with the cute onion tower is saying – sketch me, sketch me!
And then you have this gorgeous house on the brink of falling down. It looks like there is a permit in the window so it will be interesting to see if someone can bring it back to its old glory of if it is going …sniff.
I love this graffiti also in our new hood! Impressive!
And then one day I decided to check out this church -it is a pretty impressing brick church but I didn’t expect it to be so quite beautiful inside- I didn’t go in as there was a service going on and I didn’t feel it was the moment to take pictures- but I will def. check again one other time.
I hope you enjoyed the little stroll – until next month!
Comments (2)
Sheryl
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I go around my neighborhood almost every day and find so many things inspiring. My husband walks me around and gets a little impatient because I stop so much to take pics. I put a dogs of Richmond on my Instagram and FB. People love it when you ask if you can take a pic of their dog. I just find so many beautiful things . I want to sketch them later but I think ….what’s the point if you already have a pic? Do you feel that way?
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nathalie-kalbach
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Hi Sheryl- love that you are feeling the same about your neighborhood. I know what you mean about taking pictures and then not feeling the urge to sketch anymore – I do however sometimes sketch little details I see in the photo that I find inspiring for stamps or patterns – it is fun and I discover often even more in the picture than I saw at first glance in real life.
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