Tag Archives: lobster

Lobsta lettering

As you already know, I’m a big fan of francophone lobsters. Well, just down the street from the world’s largest homard is this lobsta joint, complete with excellent French lettering.

Not to be outdone by its Canadian cousin, New England’s got some great lobster neon, as well. In Kittery, Maine, just across the Piscataqua from Portsmouth, NH (home of that other bit of vintage nautical neon), is one of my favorite sea-creature signs. But I have to admit, I took a bit of artistic license with this one: I happen to have an old menu from Warren’s and the design of that thing puts even its own sign to shame. So I replaced certain bits of the sketch with some of my favorite elements from the menu.

(I should get my Artistic License laminated and keep it in my wallet—because I’m not afraid to use it!)

Pink picnic

Well, the pastel picnic tables clashed spectacularly with my lunch this day, but they proved to be the perfect example of why a table setting should include a paintbrush for the first course.

Tourist (lobster) trap

No trip to the Maritimes is complete without a good lobster meal (or two, or three…). And a pound of fresh lobster looks mighty impressive on a plate—good drawing and good eating.

Now, a fifteen-foot, fifty-ton roadside lobster statue?

That’s something I could sink my teeth into.

Lobster Lane

I just got back from two glorious weeks in the Maritimes. I still have a lot of color finishing to do on my trip sketches, and somehow it’s still four hours later in my brain—so for now, here are just a couple of drawings to give you a taste.

The tiny fishing village of Peggys Cove (oddly, there’s no apostrophe in the “official” spelling) is a place I’d been wanting to see for many years—and thanks to the perfect weather on the day I spent there, it became one of the highlights of my trip. I’m told the place is one of the most-photographed places in Canada—and it’s not hard to see why. As I heard a tourist from Texas exclaim behind me, “Everywhere you look there’s a picture!”

Boy, howdy, is there ever. I sketched, and sketched, and sketched for hours—even in a steady, icy, screaming wind (the reason I couldn’t do any actual painting on site). Every time I finished a scene and started to walk on, I’d get about three steps before finding another vantage point I just had to sketch. I ended up filling fifteen page spreads that day with my pen scratches—so you can bet you’ll be seeing a lot more of Peggys Cove before too long.