Newport International Boat Show

   I have some random things to catch up on before I talk about the boat show. First, Amy Edmondson will probably get a chuckle out of this, I'm an idiot when it comes to flowers. Mom and Dad sent me a nice flower arrangement last week. Here is what it looked like:

Notice the arrangement on the left. I thought it was just the florist's "vision" to have the flowers hanging out of the side of the vase and touching the counter. Turns out, whoever brought the flowers from the office of the Landing School up to my studio is just clumsy. The flowers had fallen that way unintentionally. It took me THREE DAYS to decide I'd see what happens if I put the stems of the flowers IN the water. One hour later... Vioala! 

   

   I have a couple shots of my classroom. Not much to look at yet. But that sailboat is actually pretty sweet. It is electric/remote controlled and used in racing competitions. Super high tech and fancy. 

And this is just a shot of how I spent my Sunday afternoon (last Sunday, not today). Sketching and ice cream on the patio. 

    I discovered an art store in Portland last weekend, too. This part of my blog will be boring to people who don't care much about art supplies. But it was the highlight of my day so I have to share. It was a hole in the wall and I did NOT expect what was inside. It. Was. Huge. It had so many art supplies. I needed a drafting brush and Michaels doesn't sell them, so I found this place. They have multiple brushes to choose from. I didn't even know there were different sizes to begin with. I can't even describe how much stuff this store had. It was crazy. For example, Hobby Lobby probably has 100 different sketch/drawing/and watercolor pads of paper to choose from. This store has at least 2,000 options of drawing pads. They have that plastic "friendship bracelet" string on spools here! I could have spent all day and all of my money there. But I managed to escape with only my brush and a few extra pencils to use in Kelly's birthday present. She already knows I'm drawing it for her, so this blog post isn't ruining a surprise. I'll post a picture of that drawing when it is finished and after she sees it in person. Here are some pictures of the art store.

   Now onto the boat show:
   Friday was great. I got up early to be on the charter bus by 6:30. We made it to Newport, Rhode Island around 10:30am. We picked up our tickets and got a wristband right away, and then we were free to wander around the rest of the day. I set off on my own for a while. It was almost overwhelming. Sooo many boats to look at. All of the boats were lined up right next to each other making it difficult for me to get a profile shot of any of them. You can see in some of my photos how cramped together everything was. Still, it was all so neat. I was as happy as I could be all day.
   There were a lot of large buildings with booth after booth of people and companies selling products. It was exactly like the booths in the State Fair and Clay County Fair buildings, but these booths only sold boat products: fish finders, gyro stabilizers, cleaning products, ship wheels, clothing, dog life jackets, sound systems, lounge chairs, engines, bedding, etc.

 


   My assignment during the show was to pick a boat I liked the most and learn all about it. We were told to sketch the boat if we felt like it. Of course I felt like it. I chose the Jeanneau NC14 because of it's unique exterior styling. It has a plumb bow.... meaning the front part of the yacht is nearly vertical instead of tapering diagonally to the back of the yacht. Like I mentioned, all of the boats were right next to one another, so I couldn't get a good picture of the boat. So here is an image from its website followed by the sketch I did of it :)