In my humble opinion (and that of several others in this forum), America’s 250th birthday cannot hold a sparkler, er … candle to the fervor that surrounded the Bicentennial celebration in 1976.
I’ve already regaled you with my own personal 1976 events a few weeks ago and I’m here again to reflect on what was happening on that special 200th anniversary, an event not just celebrated on a single day, but over the course of the entire year. For the younger set reading this post, remember this was long before social media, so we saw celebrations and events happening on the TV news, read about them in the newspapers, or, if we were lucky, perhaps participated in that fun and frivolity.
Today, I have just a few photos and a tale or two to share with you.
Lady Liberty and Lady Linda.
In my June 7th post I told you about our group of six that participated in the National Model United Nations Conference in New York City in April 1976. If you missed that post, you can find it here.
You’ll recall that as tourists, one item on our “to do” list was visiting the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Back then there were no restrictions on visiting Lady Liberty, nor a need to book your visit months in advance. We simply hopped on the Staten Island Ferry and there she was. We admired her from afar …
… but the highlight of visiting the Statue was climbing to her crown for the ultimate view of New York’s harbor. We were all young, so no problem to make that climb, right? Except NYC was experiencing a wicked heat wave that week and the higher we climbed up the narrow staircase encased within the copper statue, on a sweltering hot afternoon, the more we began to regret not just looking up and taking a corny picture like this and telling everyone back home “of course we climbed to the top of the crown!”
I guess we were too busy prepping for the UN event, to find out about Lady Liberty’s measurements, from toe to top, because visiting Lady Liberty’s crown required navigating 393 steps from the main lobby, including 162 steps up a steep, narrow, double-helix spiral staircase from the pedestal to the crown and then, of course, back down again. Whew! But we did it and lived to tell about it in April of that Bicentennial year.
As American as baseball, hotdogs, apple pie ….
Even though Mark “The Bird” Fidrych was not an official part of America’s 200th birthday celebration, he probably had as much publicity as ol’ Uncle Sam that Summer. He was the 1976 American League Rookie of the Year, a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers and full of quirkiness like talking to the baseball, or getting down on his hands and knees to tidy up the pitcher’s mound. He got his nickname because he had a mess of golden curls and people said he resembled “Big Bird” on the TV show “Sesame Stret”.
“The Bird is the Word” became Detroit’s mantra in May 1976 after he made his Tiger debut. He lived in an apartment in Riverview, so all the locals knew his whereabouts, including the barber shop he frequented. Some enterprising person scooped up some shorn locks and was selling them – yes, he was that popular. Jack and Bernice Loveday, who owned the Dairy Queen down the street from Carter’s, asked my coworker Leslie and I if we thought they should schedule an appearance by “The Bird” at their DQ – we gave them a resounding “yes” and “please can we meet him personally?” They contacted his agent and by then he was so popular, his guest appearance price was exorbitant, so our hopes of meeting this local celebrity were dashed. Unfortunately, a torn rotator cuff resulted in early retirement five years later, then sadly our local celebrity passed away while repairing a truck on his Massachusetts farm in 2009.
Happiness is a bike ride away… or maybe not?
The Summer of 1976, just like all the school vacations after high school and throughout college, I worked six days a week at Carter’s, a diner which only closed two days per year: Thanksgiving and Christmas, so, July 4, 1976, 200th birthday or not, I still donned my waitress uniform and slung hash from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. My parents did some grilling when I got home and then I went out for a bike ride afterward to pedal away those calories.
This was the bicycle I was riding (photo from 1970).
I was spiffed up in the spirit of the 4th of July in red, white and blue, wearing this top (photo from 1974).
I was on Fort Park Avenue, pedaling away, sans bike helmet because they weren’t a “thing” back then, when a woman drove out of the parking lot at Leone’s Bar and hit me. The bike and me toppled to the ground. She didn’t stop and a woman sitting on her porch nearby, got up and went into the house. Nice! I had some road rash on my legs, was bruised on my thighs, but otherwise fine. I wheeled my broken bike to the police station, a few blocks away.
I knew most of the police officers as they often stopped in for coffee (and yes, donuts). For years Carter’s prepared the prisoner meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner and various patrol officers came to pick up those meals. Several of my high school classmates became police officers and as luck would have it, Dave Ames, a fellow LPHS grad, was the desk sergeant that night. Enroute to the police station, I kept reciting the license plate info – I remembered four numbers. I identified her as blonde, driving a Mercury Cougar. The next day two police officers stopped at her house, then swung by Carter’s to say she told them “the sun was low on the horizon, I stopped, helped the young lady to her feet, asked if she was okay and she said she was.” That never happened and we took our respective stories to court, a full day in the local courthouse, which I arranged with my boss to be my day off. She got a ticket for a rolling stop. My parents’ homeowner’s insurance paid for the bike repair and I never rode a bicycle again.
Fortunately, the accident did not tarnish the rest of my 1976.
As mentioned above, the Bicentennial was hardly a one-day event and a big attraction that year was the Parade of Tall Ships in New York, an event officially called “Operation Sail Parade”. Those tall ships came from all over the world to gather for this 200th birthday extravaganza.
After the hoopla, one tall ship docked along the Detroit River near what is now Hart Plaza. A few friends and I made an impromptu trip downtown to get a glimpse of this vessel, which was built in Norway. The Christian Radich was quite majestic, even without the sails hoisted. We met some of the young crew members that likewise hailed from Norway. My friends and I spoke no Norwegian and the crew spoke no English, so there was a lot of smiling, but sadly no pics … this time anyway. Two days later, sails up, the Christian Radich headed to Toronto.
Well that worked out perfectly because my Carter’s coworker Leslie and I had planned a week-long vacation to Toronto and planned to stay with my grandmother who lived close to the Toronto Exhibition. Leslie and I had tickets for two concerts that week, The Beach Boys and Chicago. Lucky for us, we got to climb aboard and walk the wooden decks of the Christian Radich which was docked on Lake Ontario, close to the Ex’s fairgrounds. Thankfully, this time I had toted my camera.
Like before, it was fun to visit with the cadets, who ranged in age from 15 to 18 years old. I said I might have spoken to (more like smiled at) some of them while they were docked in Detroit.
Again, the language barrier was not really an issue and instead lots of smiles were exchanged like before. Leslie captured me taking the wheel like a boss; perhaps I’d been at the helm of a tall ship in a previous life? 🙂
Leslie also got a shot of me with one of those young crew members.
The Christian Radich is no longer a training vessel for the Norwegian Merchant Navy. It has received prizes in sailboat races and now does charter voyages. A few years ago I found a virtual tour of the vessel, inside and outside and learned how it was all computerized now. Next year there will be a special cruise marking her 90th birthday.
A few more glimpses back at the Bicentennial.
There were special license plates created for some states for the Bicentennial and, as you’d suspect, some were red, white and blue. I still had my VW Bug when I got the Michigan Bicentennial plate, but the picture I had of it was blurry – you can see the plate clearly on my 1977 Pacer.
Even if you weren’t old enough to drive and still wanted to partake in some Bicentennial mania, collecting the specially minted quarters, one from each state in the union, was a fun, year-long project. People, young and old collected the quarters and placed them into a cardboard folder with 50 slotted spots, one for each state’s quarter.
This coin below was not from a particular state, but generic and instead featured a Colonial drummer boy with a victory torch encircled by 13 stars, representing the original colonies.
Since I ran the cash register at Carter’s along with waitressing/tips, I had access to lots of these quarters and I began collecting them. I fell short of collecting the complete set of Bicentennial quarters, so I likely ended up using them for bus fare once I started at Wayne State University that Fall.
The photo up top of the vintage-looking patriotic peace sign is my own photograph. I was at the grocery store and saw a display of 4th of July paraphernalia and bought this koozie since I had planned on a Bicentennial post.
I also did this ink-and-wash patriotic painting.
I’ll likely see quite a few flags and bunting displayed on my daily constitutional, that is if I don’t melt first in this ongoing heatwave!
In next week’s post, I’ll flash forward to 2026 for America’s 250th birthday. I recently walked through an amazing display of 250 flags, one for each year since 1776. There were Betsy Ross flags; most were the Stars and Stripes. It was an interesting, albeit windy, walk and I captured the scene so you can enjoy it too.
Happy Independence Day everyone – click here for your Jacquie Lawson card.
Linda Schaub
Wonderful post, Linda. Loved seeing all your pics. Your bicycle is exactly like the one I always dreamed of having, even the basket with flowers. Have a wonderful 4th. 😊
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Thank you Pepper! When I did the lookback post of the year 1976, I knew I could also do a post about the Bicentennial. I brought that bicycle over from Canada with me as I recall, including with that basket with the flowers. Thank you – same to you!
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What a marvelous post, complete with photos of you!
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Thank you Anne! When I did the original post about the year 1976, I realized I had plenty of pics left to reflect on the Bicentennial year. I also have pics from when my coworker and I went to visit my grandmother for a week’s vacation the same year, so that will be for Grandparents Day 2026. Enjoy your holiday get-together/potluck with Lise and your neighbors.
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We had a wonderful time with the neighbors.
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I know you always do – you are a special group of people.
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It is so good looking back at old pictures but makes you think where has all the time gone.
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Yes, I feel the same way when looking on all the old pictures Andy. I have quite a treasure trove of old photos through the years and looking back at them and the memories, it does seem impossible these happened a half-century ago.
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A wonderful look back at your life in 1976! Loved the pictures!
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Thank you Kate! I took, as well as posed for, an abundance of photos in 1976, all with my trusty Kodak Pocket Camera. I will have one more post from that year for Grandparents Day 2026 as my grandmother spent the Summer with us and also a coworker and I spent a week with my grandmother at her house in Toronto in August that year. My grandmother turned 70 that year, same age as I am now.
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Looking forward to it!
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I hope it doesn’t disappoint. The following year was kind of a letdown compared to ’76. I had to take a class in the Summer as I couldn’t fit it into my core curriculum in the regular school year, so it was double the homework as it was just eight weeks long and in an old lecture hall with no A/C and after my 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. shift at the diner … ancient history no less.
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it is hard to believe that 1976 was 50 years ago, but the maths don’t lie! I love the old photos.
I once climbed the steps of Lady Liberty too – the elevator was out of order then, even right after the 1980’s restoration. My legs felt like limp noodles by the time I got back to the ground.
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It seems impossible to me too JP. Five decades, a half-century – however you want to spin it, that was a long time ago. I’m glad you enjoyed the photos. Our state reissued the same license plate for Michigan’s Semiquincentennial. I heard that on the news this morning and apparently it was a hit – 3,400 plates were ordered thus far.
That was quite a rigorous climb up the steps of Lady Liberty and even with youth in our favor, my legs also felt like wet noodles when I got back on the ground.
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Awesome post!!! You are one of the most amazing writers I have read so far on here. So wonderfully descriptive!!
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Thank you very much Vero – your comment made my day! I love writing, especially nostalgic stories and I know my posts are usually very long and, in this post, I had even more I could have said about 1976, but I’ll save it for September, for Grandparents Day. My grandmother spent that Summer with us and then I went to visit her for a week at her house. She was the same age as I am now – 70 and despite her heart condition, a very young 70 (like me). 🙂
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If your health is good, 70 is just the start of the good life!!
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I agree Vero – we waited a lifetime to spend our hours doing things without time constraints … if we both stay healthy, there are so many opportunities to enjoy the good life.
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👍👍👍Yessss!
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So very true Linda. Today just doesn’t compare to 1976 celebrations.
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Thankfully we were around to enjoy that Bicentennial year Cathy.
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While i don’t remember any specific events that year, I do remember it being big news. Hard to believe it was 50 years ago and I was only 11 years old. Love your photos in this post.
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Yes, it was a much bigger deal back then Ruth, a year-long celebration. You were just a kid. 🙂 I was just 20 but old enough to get caught up in the fanfare. I’m glad you liked the pictures. I figured the boat pictures and Statue of Liberty picture for sure had to be shared for this Bicentennial lookback on 4th of July.
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You remember a LOT from that celebration. I only recall that we went to the American Club (in Guatemala City) to swim and have burgers. My diary from then has a bicentennial sticker on the cover. I think that’s it for my part. Looks like you enjoyed many different aspects and souvenirs.
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Eilene, I felt immersed in the Bicentennial year much more than this 250th celebration. I did go to a local park to view the America 250 flags, from each year since 1776, for a post next week, but other than that, I find this year’s celebrations quite low key in comparison. I am a saver, not a thrower and I looked through my scrapbooks to see if I had saved any memorabilia from the Bicentennial and was surprised I had not.
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We’ve exchanged thoughts on the Statue of Liberty before, Linda, and it’s cool we share the experience of making it all the way up to the crown for the view. When I took my daughter for the tour fifteen-odd years ago, the climb up the inside was halted by a massive plexiglass ceiling, where you could only look further up to that two-way spiral staircase you mention. I can’t recall if that was because of a restoration project or because that’s just the way the tours work now. Living on the West Coast during the Bicentennial meant completely missing the tall ships, but I was right there with you filling in my folder with the special-issue quarters (which I don’t have anymore – must’ve spent them). Perhaps it’s the round “100” that made the bicentennial celebration more cohesive and participatory than what was done this year. Let’s hope the 300th represents a more united set of states.
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Yes, I agree – it was very cool to be up in the crown Dave, but inside that copper Lady Liberty, it was a difficult climb due to the uncharacteristically warm Easter week. That’s a shame your daughter didn’t get to the top due to the plexiglass barrier. I wonder if it was for security purposes too post 9/11 – if so, that’s too bad. I don’t even remember if we paid to climb up, though that may have been included in the ferry ride or Ellis Island Museum admission. That’s a shame you missed the tall ships for the Bicentennial Tall Ships Parade. I watched a video yesterday of some tall ships and fireboats in New York’s harbor for a special 4th of July celebration. I was happy to see the same tall ship in Toronto just days after seeing it in Detroit. I wonder how many people collected all 50 states of the special quarters? Now, people would be sharing their folders on social media. You have a point about the “100” year mark making it more special and yes, hopefully by the 300th anniversary we will see more unity in this nation. I kept thinking there would be more fanfare the entire 2026, but nothing really happened until the last few weeks. We did have a nice flag display in a nearby park which I attended and photographed and will be next week’s post. They were supposed to do a dedication today, but it likely got cancelled as we’ve had a stormy day.
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I enjoy your retro posts, Linda, and this one has many points of interest. That climb up the Statue of Liberty sounds gruelling, but the view must have been spectacular!
Mark “The Bird” Fydrich was well known everywhere, even to those of us who aren’t baseball fans. How sad that he died prematurely.
How awful to be the victim of a hit and run. That woman should have paid to have your bike fixed, as well as something for your pain and suffering!
I don’t remember the tall ship being docked on Lake Ontario, but I’m sure we visited the EX in 1976, as we went every year. Concerts there were fun, weren’t they? 😀
I had a bunch of those coins too, courtesy of my mother. We were in San Diego (visiting my parents) for Christmas 1975 and stayed into January 1976. There was already a lot of hoopla going on about the Bicentennial.
Cute card for Independence Day. Hope you had a nice one!
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Thanks Debbie – I’m glad you enjoyed the post! There was an uncharacteristically warm heat wave in New York City that week … since we had our UN sessions every morning, all our sightseeing was done after mid-day when we were on our own time. That was a grueling climb in a very tight space. The woman knew she hit me and just drove off. I was lucky I wasn’t seriously hurt and I was happy they found the driver with my license plate info and description of her and the car, but that nothing came of it made me mad.
“The Bird” was such a big hit that year – everyone clamored to be around him, whether you knew anything about baseball (which I did not). It was sad that he passed away so young. The quarters were fun to collect and I also collected them for one of my favorite customers at the diner who wanted to fill up the folders for his two grandchildren. I know that the “Christian Radich” left Detroit and arrived in Toronto the same day and it was the first day of the Ex as we were there opening week for our concerts – we went two different days. We got there on a Sunday, the first day of the TTC strike which lasted all week. We took a Greyhound bus over and planned to take a streetcar to my grandmother’s house near Lansdowne and Dundas. We did more walking than originally planned!
I’m glad you liked the card – I thought it was cute too. No one else mentioned it, so I wasn’t sure if they got to the end of this long post or not. 🙂
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hello, this was a fantastic post with so many fun throwback pics. I look forward to the 2026 post after the 1976 one.
side note, when I was a young girl, I was at Sherkston Beach n Ontario Canada and we were camping right next to the spot where the Beach Boys played a concert. It was fun hearing the live music. And I wondered if it was from 1976 – and maybe part of the same tour that you saw them at – however –
“he Beach Boys played at Sherkston Shores (often referred to as Sherkston Beach), but the concert took place in 1984, not 1976”
so I guess it was much later
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Thanks Yvette – I’m glad you liked the post. I had some fun photos to share from that Bicentennial year, so I decided to make a special post. I used to go with my newspaper staff friends every year to see the Beach Boys and Chicago at Pine Knob which was an amphitheater here in the Detroit area – we always had lawn seats. They always had people on their feet, swaying to the music, for most of the show, always a fun time. My coworker Leslie and I decided it would be fun to see both of them at the Exhibition, also an outdoor event.
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wow – it sounds like Beach Boys and Chicago toured often together
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Well, not together on one ticket, they were separate concerts, but they always played the outdoor venues every year back then.
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got it!
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Great pics
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Thank you Barbara! I felt like such an outsider with all the duck admiration going on. 🙂
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You’re funny but I get it.
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Sometimes the way creatures look at you, it is as if you intruded on them … most will just bolt, but in this case, all three were so fixated on one another, the infatuation lived on whether I was there or not!
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That’s a fun picture of you and the Norwegian sailor. So many memories for you that special year and I enjoyed reading about all of them. Love your painting, too.
As for me, I was a new mother that year. My firstborn was six months old on America’s bicentennial. He rode in a baby backpack on Tim’s back when we went to an old-fashioned parade on the Lebanon Town Green in Connecticut. It’s a mile long and I think the largest town green in New England. I don’t remember a lot of the details, but I remember feeling very patriotic as we stood on the green and watched the parade go by.
Found this online: “Lebanon, Connecticut celebrated the U.S. Bicentennial on July 4, 1976, with a massive town-wide parade circling the historic town green. The festivities prominently featured the historic Trumbull House and War Office, colonial fife and drum corps, marching bands, and local residents dressed in Revolutionary War-era attire. The 1976 celebration was one of the largest public gatherings in the town’s history, drawing nearly the entire community to the green for historical reenactments, picnics, and patriotic floats.”
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Thank you Barbara! I figured you might get a kick out of the Norwegian sailor, since you and I discussed our respective trips to Norway awhile back. I even took that close-up of the sailor and me and sent it to the “Christian Radich” Facebook page and said “perhaps this young lad is now a Captain or top brass in the Norwegian Merchant Marine now? If so, he might like to see himself back in August 1976 at the Toronto Exhibition.” I thought it would be a fun tidbit to include in this post, but they did not respond back, which was too bad. I have really written a lot about 1976 and a half century ago when I put together the other 1976 post about school, I decided I had enough to do a separate post for the Bicentennial. It’s hard to believe that tomorrow I’ve lived in the U.S. for 60 years. I’ll have one more 1976 post about visiting Toronto as a tourist with a coworker and staying at my grandmother’s house in August that year. I’m glad you liked the painting too. I’ve been trying some ink-and-wash paintings as they are a little easier and less precise for fun stuff for posts.
What a nice flashback for you Barbara. Your experience sounds very hometown and refreshing to stand that close to the parade and all the fanfare on such a patriotic day and how fun that you were able to find out info about that exact event on the internet. Did you mention that day to your son at all over the 4th of July?
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Too bad you couldn’t locate your sailor! I never had heard of ink-and-wash paintings before but read a bit about the technique online. Fascinating.
A few days before the 4th I did tell Nate that story about him. He thought it was “very cool.” 🙂 (To think, at 50 he is so much older now than we, his parents, were on that day.)
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I was a little bummed out they didn’t respond Barbara. Perhaps I should have sent it via their website, but I knew attaching pictures on Facebook they won’t go to some SPAM filter. I did it long enough in advance so I could factor it into the post. I also included the picture of the boat where it was docked and told them I saw it in Detroit and Toronto. Oh well.
The ink-and-wash is easier for me and it is fun. I liked Julia’s classes as there was not so much of the painting wet and allowing the colors to run together for the sky and grass – it was more about flowers and butterflies, so that was easier for me. This is more fun and whimsical.
I guess Nate would think it was “very cool” having his 50th birthday coincide with being an infant in a baby backpack at the time of the Bicentennial. I remember a photo you posted of you and Tim on your wedding day and yes, you were very young. Time flies by too quickly!
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What a great post Linda! Loved all the old photos. Life seemed so much simpler then. I especially love the picture of Lady Linda and the Statue of Liberty! And on the Tall ship – your crewman was a cutie. I vaguely remember the Detroit pitcher – he was a cutie too. Upsetting about the bike, I don’t ride mine anymore as too much traffic. Good job on the painting – you are too hard on yourself re the paintings. They are fun and whimsical. I will respond to your emails later – got computer back and am trying to catch up on WP. I can’t believe the diner used to prepare food for the prisoners! How many prisoners would they feed in a day?
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I’m glad you liked this Bicentennial lookback post Joni! Like the previous post about graduating HFCC in 1976 and what I did while there, this was fun to put together too. I think each of us in our group did a pose like Lady Liberty, me in my tie-dyed tee-shirt, another byproduct of that era, although tie-dye keeps resurfacing as a fun craft and wearable every few years. “The Bird” was so popular and lived a few cities over and we really wanted to meet him at the Dairy Queen – if only the Lovedays had booked him before he was so popular. They were one of my favorite customers. They came in every morning for breakfast before they opened up the DQ and invited me to their condo where they went every Winter after they closed the DQ. I wouldn’t have imposed, by they were a very nice couple – he was a retired police officer, as was one of their sons.
The Norwegian crew member was a real cutie, probably 14-15 years old at the time. I found the “Christian Radich” site on Facebook and sent pictures of the boat docked at the Ex, plus the photo of him/I together, plus the one of me at the wheel. I explained I saw the boat/crew twice within a few days’ time and suggested maybe this young lad was now a Captain or important in the Norwegian Merchant Marine … they didn’t respond to my message. I should have tried on their website too. I thought it would be fun to add to the post. He might have just been there for the Summer as a trainee too. All those crewmembers looked alike, blonde hair in identical outfits.
It depended as to the prisoner meals. They’d call in the order three times a day and one of the patrol officers would come get it. There were probably more people in jail on the weekend. I can’t honestly remember how many as it varied, but we had to fix each meal, they got coffee with each meal and then bag it up. They got two egg sandwiches for breakfast, two burgers for lunch … I didn’t work the afternoon shift, so I don’t know what they got for meals then. Sometimes we’d put all the meals into a big brown box – that must’ve been weekends. It was not fun when the big police order came in at the same time as a rush of regular customers, but they got fed the same time every day, so we knew to anticipate it.
I’m glad you liked the painting and thank you. I discarded a couple of the recent paintings though as they looked a bit odd once I saw them on the screen. I like this ink-and-wash watercolor painting as you can draw, do permanent magic marker for the lines and quickly paint, not even to the edges. I like it better than wetting everything down, then mixing and swirling colors as you have to move quickly where ink-and-wash, you paint each section separately.
I’m glad you got your computer back and there were no issues. Well, I wanted to catch up, so I did write a long e-mail, (don’t feel you have to respond right away), but a couple of short e-mails too about the book and how I enjoyed it.
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Fun memories, Linda. I enjoyed all the photos and was quite impressed with your ink-and-wash patriotic painting.
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Yes, they were fun memories Rebecca – sometimes it seems like it was just yesterday and it couldn’t possibly be a half-century ago! Thank you about the photos and especially the painting. I am enjoying trying the ink-and-wash painting as it is easier and more whimsical, so it fits right in with my blog.
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What great stories and memories! I’m so sorry about your bike accident, it’s too bad that woman couldn’t have just owned up to what she did. And it’s sad that you haven’t ridden a bike since. I loved all the pictures of you, they take me back to when I was that age at that time. It’s funny because I went to Toronto to see the group Chicago and I’m trying to remember what year it was but I can’t. But I think I was only 14 or 15 something like that. I was born in 1959. My sister and her boyfriend took me, she was six years older. Your drawings are terrific. I really enjoyed this post, I get very nostalgic reading about these years💕
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Thank you Susan! I love writing and reading about yesteryear as well. That woman was lucky I wasn’t injured more than some road rash and bruises. My parents’ homeowners insurance fixed the bike, but I could not bring myself to ride it again. I do have an exercise bike in the basement though. Friends and I always went to see Chicago and the Beach Boys every Summer at Pine Knob, an outdoor concert venue and both always put on a great show and they did at the Ex as well. I will have more Toronto memories to share in September as a coworker and I went to visit my grandmother for a week and I was a tourist this time. I’m having fun with the artwork – logging lots of indoor time unfortunately due to all the heat and humidity. I like the ink-and-wash technique as you don’t have to be quite as precise and it’s easier since you can leave in your waterproof marker lines.
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I always look forward to fall and winter as I do my painting and crafts then. I like staying in and puttering 😃
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Me too Susan. I used to walk every morning in the Winter if there was no snow/ice. I took the bus to Downtown Detroit for years, so I had lots of cold weather gear to keep warm. Otherwise if it snowed, I’d just shovel and come back inside and work (until I retired in 2024) and now have free time. I am hoping it gets better soon. It is cooler this week, but the smoke will be back. I don’t think it’s good for the camera either.
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