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    All images are Copyright Protected and the property of Jamie Williams Grossman. Paintings and photos displayed on this site may not be reprinted, copied, downloaded, displayed elsewhere, or used for any reason without her written permission.

    ------------------------------------- CUSTOMER REVIEWS

    "OMGGGGG, Jamie!!!! It's absolutely amazinggggggg!!!!!! I loveeeeee it!!!!!! This is sooo much more than I could have imagined!!! Thank you!!!!"

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    "Happy" with it is an understatement! My sister's husband said, "Wow, it's beautiful!" That's a lot of emotion coming from him! haha. And my adult daughter said, "OMG MOM, ITS GORGEOUS!". You have added to your fan club!

    "Jamie, your painting arrived in perfect condition! And, as I expected, it looks even better ‘in person’ than on the computer screen. Thank you so much for your careful packing and wonderful painting."

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    "I love the new painting! It's actually a little more golden and fluid than it looks in the pic and I love the movement; everything in my house is a little on the warm and yellow and gold side so it could hang pretty much anywhere. It's going to the framer shortly and I look forward to having it up :-)"

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    "I just wanted to share that my father-in-law absolutely LOVES your painting. He loves the frame and said that he's never owned a real oil painting. ???? But most importantly, he loves the subject matter and he and my husband spent a lot of time reminiscing this morning about hikes they took there years ago. This part of the Hudson is, by far, their favorite! Thank you SO much for making this Christmas gift PERFECT."

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    "[They] love the painting. They were so surprised. They really appreciate it and the thought and artistry behind it. They received many [wedding] gifts, and said this was one of their two favorites."

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    "Hi Jamie –I thought you’d enjoy seeing “The Red Barge” framed. Until I give it to my husband on his birthday, I have it hanging in my office. I LOVE looking at it all day!"

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    ------------------------------------------ If you haven't seen the two-DVD set, "The Impressionists", you don't know what you're missing!

    the-impressionists.jpg


    I rented it from Netflix and absolutely loved it. It is an enactment of the lives of Monet, Renoir, Manet, Cezanne, Degas, and other Impressionist painters living at that time around Paris. Fascinating and eye-opening!





All images can be clicked for larger versions.

I drove up to Massachusetts today to have brunch with my son, and decided to sketch at Old Sturbridge Village while I was in the vicinity. What a fabulous place to draw and paint! It’s an old colonial village, with everything from farms and sawmills to pottery demonstrations and hot mulled cider over an open fire. They do not allow photography nor artwork for commercial purposes, but they had no problem with me bringing my sketchbook around.

These are ink and watercolor in a 5.5×8.25″ Hand Book Journal. They’re done across the two-page spreads, so each image is about 8×10″. The images are a little distorted because the paper doesn’t lie perfectly flat.

I started out in the Towne House (above), on the recommendation of the sweet woman working the Admissions counter. I could have spent the whole day drawing there, but there were so many other things to see!

The Fenno House was my next sketching stop, where this big fireplace with oven and built in cabinets above captured my interest (below). I didn’t realize there was a person spinning wool in the next room! We chatted for awhile about all the interesting things there, and I sketched a couple of them. She gave me a piece of unspun wool to bring home. The little house in the drawing below is the Fenno House.

The District School (below) had a sloping floor so that the students in the back would be able to see the teacher! The benches were built so that the backs served as desks for the students behind.

On the upper right, that brick structure is a huge pottery kiln. When I say, “huge,” I mean about 20 feet tall! The kiln takes 3-5 cords of wood to stoke the fire, and can handle about 800 pots at a time. They fire up the kiln a few times a year.

The image below that one was sketched in the kitchen at the Freeman House and Farm, where I was served hot mulled cider by a woman dressed as a farmer’s wife in colonial times. She was cooking bread pudding over the open hearth in the kitchen. On top of the cabinet is a sugarloaf. The farmer’s wife would break off pieces and grind them with the mortar and pestle.

When I left the farm and continued walking down the road, I saw this picturesque covered bridge over a frozen pond (below). I walked past the blacksmith, sawmill, and some other buildings and crossed over the bridge, heading back to the Village Green.

The bank in the Village Green is really pink! It was getting late, so I headed back to the main building to quickly check out the Clock Museum before it was time to go. On my way there, I came across an artist painting a wall mural based on a colonial woodcut. He’d project a transparency of the woodcut onto the wall, and then do an interpretation in black acrylic on the white wall. It looked fabulous.

I only had enough time left to get to the gift shop. I wanted some kind of a small souveneir, made there at Old Sturbridge Village, to bring home with me. I found the perfect item; it’s a little ceramic inkwell!

9 Responses to “Sketches of Old Sturbridge Village”

These are fabulous! thanks for sharing them…what a great relaxing, rewarding day you had.

What a wonderfully succuessful day of sketching you had. I love your style and agree it would be a wonderful place for a sketchcrawl if I didn’t live in So Cal.

Wow these are so great…like a mini tour…just what i needed to see….THANKS

I think you have the making of a beautiful walking tour guide for the area Jamie. What a wonderful souvenir for yourself. Thank you for sharing it all.

I love these drawings, you managed to capture so many details and the old-fashioned atmosphere, it´s a feast to the eye!

Jamie, I saw your journal on WetCanvas and decided to drop by your blog to check things out. I like reading the stories that go with the sketches. I need to do a blog or website. This is great!

Wonderful sketches. Reading through them was like having my own travelogue! Such a successful day.

Nice sketches Jamie.

Your journal entries made me so homesick for New England. I haven’t been back for 30 years. I loved all of OSV when I was last there (1976), but especially the Pliny Freeman Farm and, because I am also an open-hearth cook,the farmhouse kitchen. Incidentally, that wooden yarn winding/measuring tool in your charming drawing is called a Niddy-Noddy…Dearjane

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