Inktober 2017: day 12
Good morning Las Vegas!
The high roller at the Linq
Slowly baking as the sun gets higher.
Looking north towards the Stratosphere Tower and the Wynn
Totally toasted by 3pm!
Flamingoes and Daquiris are all you need
Slowly baking as the sun gets higher.
Totally toasted by 3pm!
Inktober 2017: day 11
9am is far too early to stumble across a pair of 20 foot high peacocks, just begging to be sketched.
Peacock flower display in The Bellagio Conservatory
Once I finished the pen work, I eyed up the fancy mosaic floor and decided this was not the place to risk ‘Inktober day five: The return’. So I went round the corner to a safer spot, to finish the ink wash.
Don’t spill it. Don’t spill it.
Not quite believing that no one moved me and my grubby little palette on, I returned to my flowered friends to finish off.
Next stop, the worlds largest chocolate fountain, 8m high and multi-flavoured!
A woman knows real love, for the first time
My final stop of the day had to be the fountain of the gods at Caesars palace.
Oh wing-ed horse you are the campest I have ever seen, with your teeth so white. Forever destined to be a grinning backdrop in the photographs of tourists less beautiful than you.
Inktober 2017: day ten
For Inktober, I’m following the urban sketchers manifesto, essentially, paint it as you see it, live, as it happens.
However today, I’ve also managed to match the official Inktober theme of ‘gigantic’. Hard not to, since everything in Vegas is gigantic.
I’m working solely in ink this month, straight down in pen with no sneaky pencil outlines first. So the MGM Grand lion could so easily have ended up wonky.
See… I really am here!
The MGM Grand lion. It could so easily have gone wrong…
I also did a quick sketch of New York-New York, whilst a couple stood next to me getting married by a man with a briefcase. Just them and a photographer.
I added the colour sitting next to an Irish bar, in New York, in Las Vegas. Weird.
Think I made a better job of the real thing!
Inktober 2017: day seven
I always find sketching inspiration at Caffé Nero in the Brighton Lanes. It’s a great people watching spot, so it was an obvious choice for today’s Inktober, urban sketch.
Tomorrow…the road to Las Vegas.
Caffe Nero today
Here’s a little Nero montage from the archives.
Black Lion Street from Nero 2012
Nero 2013
Nero 2016
Nero 2017
Black Lion Street from Nero 2017
Black Lion Steet from Nero 2017
© Claire Moore and cmoorelife, 2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Claire Moore and cmoorelife with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Memories, Massacres and Muggles
Vintage 2006
I last visited Coire Gabhail (The Lost Valley) on a tranquil day in May 2006. Following directions my brother had scribbled on a scrap of paper, we arrived at a deserted car park as the mist silently lifted from the Glen.
Looking towards A’Chailleach
Up to that point, drawing was just something I did to pass time when I visited my parents at Christmas. I had a small, slightly weird collection of pencil ‘still lives’ – odd shoes, misshapen candles, a Swedish Christmas gnome etc. Sometimes I’d bring a sketch pad and pencil on holiday, but it generally stayed unused in my bag. However, this time, it was so quiet that I plucked up courage, pulled out my pad and captured the view.
Eleven years later, I’ve overcome my shyness of sketching in public and discovered the joy of pen, watercolour and properly bound sketchbooks. So, armed with Google maps, I was desperate to recreate this special moment.
Sadly, the first attempt had to be aborted, as all the car parks were full of tour buses, tripods and people flying drones. The Lost Valley, it appeared, was no longer quite so lost. Not a wasted journey though, we parked further up the pass and walked the path to Buachaille Etive Beag. Time for a quick sketch looking towards A’Chailleach, shrouded in shadow, whilst we basked in the sunshine.
Castle Campbell, previously know as Castle Gloom
Oban
That evening, seduced by fish and chips in Oban, I persuaded my ever patient partner that it would be worth making a second attempt the next day. With an early start from Dollar, a belly full of coffee and gorgeous weather, the mission was accomplished before lunch, I even managed a bracing dip in the icy stream below the valley.
The Lost Valley
Glenfinnan Viaduct
I found out later, that there is a grim irony in setting out from the shadows of Castle Campbell in Dollar to The Lost Valley. In February 1692, this idyllic place provided one of the escape routes for the MacDonald clan during the brutal massacre of Glencoe by the Campbell soldiers, under the orders of William of Orange.
Finally (and slightly inappropriately after that serious note) in a blatant attempt to get more hits on my blog, the evening ended at the Glennfinnan viaduct, made famous in the Harry Potter films and now featured on the Scottish £10 note.
The Wallace Monument
To make up for that, I also sketched the Wallace monument.
cmoorelife 