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I made a return visit to North Beach for the first time since 2019. Even though I really wanted to go to a beach last year, the pandemic prevented me from doing that. It was just as well since North Beach had initially closed its beach altogether then reopened it later in the summer only for the residents there. This year North Beach has decided to allow non-residents to use its beach through this new procedure: One had to purchase tickets online before going to the beach. The days of making an impulse trip are over for now. This new procedure is in place in order to prevent crowding so the beach won’t become a Coronavirus petridish.
Now that I was fully vaccinated, I felt comfortable in going to North Beach. I decided to go on a Friday because I have memories of previous years when I went on a Friday, which used to be a day full of activities. Starting in the late afternoon there used to be three different street festivals going on at the same time. There was a classic car show where car owners would open the hoods of their vintage cars so people can see the engines and other internal workings. There was a farmers market where people could buy all kinds of locally grown produce and locally made baked goods. There was also an art fair where local artisans sold their handmade inventory. If all that weren’t enough, there also used to be live music performed by local musicians alongside the beach. I used to go to North Beach around lunchtime on a Friday and hang around the beach until the festivals started. (Going earlier made finding parking a lot easier.)
All that changed this year. I arrived only to find out that the farmers market had been shifted to Saturday mornings while the other two Friday events weren’t happening this year. I was a bit disappointed but I could understand why. The pandemic was still going on so it didn’t make sense to have events that would encourage crowding. If you want to know what Fridays at North Beach used to be like in the summer, check out the entries I wrote in 2012 and 2014.
Despite the lack of Friday events, I still had a good time at North Beach. The beach itself is just as scenic as always. What I didn’t realize was that, when I ordered a ticket for myself, I arrived on the day before Juneteenth, which has recently become a federal holiday. The beach was relatively empty when I first arrived but more people started showing up. But it still wasn’t bad. Everyone got along okay and I didn’t feel crammed or anything.
A lot of things about this town are still the same, such as the memorial benches where people sometimes leave something for their deceased loved ones.
The last time I was at North Beach in 2019 I had eaten a late lunch at a place known as Sweet Sue’s Bake Shop & Coffee Bar. That place still exists but it was taken over by new owners and it’s now known as the bakist (complete with all lowercase letters). The place now only offers outdoor dining (probably due to the pandemic) but they still had a pretty good menu and I enjoyed the lunch that I ate there. There is an incident that stemmed from these window stickers that proclaimed the bakist as being a safe space (while not tolerating discrimination of any kind) and next to it is the rainbow flag.
There was a woman who sat at the table located closest to the window in the above photograph. This guy comes up, sees the rainbow flag and “This is a Safe Space” sticker and he asked that woman if the bakist would not tolerate him because he’s a Christian. He looked like a stereotypical white Christian Fundamentalist man. The woman responded that she’s a Christian and had no problem with the place. The guy walked away. He’s lucky he didn’t ask me because I would’ve told him about my Unitarian Universalist faith and how it was through that congregation that I learned about the importance of LGBTQ rights.
After lunch I went to the changing rooms near the beach where I saw a memorial that I had never seen before on my previous trips. It’s a memorial to a dog named Jack that featured a statue of Jack next to a smaller statue of a squirrel.
There was a plaque that was dedicated to Jack.
The plaque had these words:
Jack’s World
“Do you know Jack?” Jack, North Beach’s own social media celebrity, brought daily smiles, laughter and inspiration to tens of thousands of fans around the world. After becoming an international personality, he bravely fought cancer. His resilience helped inspire others facing their own challenges and they loved Jack as their own. After Jack’s passing in 2018, a local fan urged North Beach to honor Jack, and all dogs, with a memorial. Jack’s fans generously supported the concept and funded Jack’s custom-made bench and dog water fountain.
Jack’s Memorial is in honor of and dedicated to Jack and dogs everywhere for the unconditional love, devotion and wet noses that make out lives happier and more meaningful.
It’s too bad that I missed out on having the chance to meet Jack in person on my previous trips when he was still alive. It looked like he was quite a dog.
There was also another new attraction at North Beach that I really liked. There is now a new public garden near the beach that’s known as Sunrise Garden. It has sculptures, lily pads in full bloom, and koi fish. It’s incredibly gorgeous and it’s close enough to the beach that one can walk from the beach to Sunrise Garden and back. I think Sunrise Garden is my new favorite attraction in North Beach.
I ended my day trip to North Beach by eating dinner at Neptune’s Seafood Pub. I had crabcakes, waffle fries, and masked potatoes with smoked gouda cheese mixed in. I felt like I had died and gone to heaven!
Drone disguised as hummingbird captures incredible footage of monarch butterfly swarm.
Yes, giant technicolor squirrels actually roam the forests of southern India.
Major beer company begins using biodegradable 6-pack rings that feed fish.
Impossibly tiny doodles fill sketchbook pages with surreal optical illusions.
Japanese artist transforms old Amazon cardboard boxes into amazing sculptures.
A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement.
How a former neo-Nazi makes amends for the past.
Watch a rare film featuring Monet, Renoir, Rodin, and Degas.
For today’s drawing I decided to follow along with another YouTube video from Disney animator Michael Woodside’s Drawing With Woodsy series. I drew Flounder from the Disney film The Little Mermaid.
I picked Flounder to draw because today is Good Friday and, as someone who was raised Catholic, I grew up with the tradition of never eating meat on that day as a way of observing the anniversary of the crucifixion of Jesus. Many Catholic families opted to eat fish on that day so I thought it would be appropriate to draw a fish for Good Friday.
I liked The Little Mermaid movie and Flounder is pretty cute as a fish. If you want to try your hand at drawing Flounder, here’s the video I used.
Last week I finally mailed off my entry in The Brooklyn Art Library’s ongoing Sketchbook Project. The origins of that one can be traced to my involvement in last year’s Inktober 2019 (where the object is to create one new ink drawing then share it on social media evert day from October 1-31). One of my Facebook friends who is also my neighbor saw some of my work that I posted on that social media site and she messaged me with this tantalizing proposition. A few months ago she had decided to take part in The Sketchbook Project and she even sent away for the sketchbook, which also included a few ink pens (one was a black fine line pen and the others were brush-like ink pens in black, brown, green, and red). Then she was distracted by other things in her life and she hadn’t started her sketchbook by the time October came. She asked me if I would take over her sketchbook for free. I said yes and she gave me the sketchbook, the included ink pens, and her log-in information for the website.
Since I had already planned and started work on the bulk of the sketches for Inktober, I couldn’t begin work on this new sketchbook immediately. I decided to continue with my current sketchbook for the rest of Inktober then immediately switch to the new sketchbook after the month of October ended.
I finally took a look at The Sketchbook Project in early November and I saw that it had a February 1 deadline, which meant that I only had three months to fill it in then mail it to New York City. I hit upon an idea where I would do The Twelve Drawings of Christmas for the second year in a row while using this sketchbook for the drawings. (Which means that longtime readers of this blog will recognize at least half of the drawings in this post.) While I focused exclusively on winter/Christmas themes for the 2018 edition, for the 2019 edition I decided to include fewer Christmas-themed drawings since I was using a sketchbook that would ultimately be sent elsewhere and it would be looked at by other people (some of whom may not even celebrate Christmas at all) at other times of the year besides the winter holiday season.
I began doing the first of the drawings in this new sketchbook using the included pens only to discover that the paper was a bit on the thin side so the ink would bleed through to the other side. I initially thought about switching to just pencils so I could use both sides of each page but I only had three months to fill in this sketchbook before it was time for me to mail it back in and I had other things going on in my life so I really couldn’t devote 40-60 hours a week on this project.
So I came up with the idea of pasting my own photographs on the other side of each bled-through page once I finished with each ink drawing. Using photographs definitely cut the amount of work on that sketchbook since printing and gluing the photo on a page is way quicker than drawing. This sketchbook would highlight my talents as an artist and photographer just like this blog.
For the photographs I decided on a theme. This year is the 10th anniversary of this blog so I decided to use only those photos that I had previously highlighted in this blog. Despite putting that limitation on myself, I still had a challenge of sifting through hundreds of photographs from the last 10 years in order to decide which ones I would actually use. For every photo I decided to use, there were probably hundreds of others that I could have also used. I also made an effort to have a variety of photographs so I wouldn’t get pegged by others as being only a photojournalist or only a portrait photographer or only a nature photographer, etc.
Once I finished my sketchbook the first thing I did before I sent it back to New York City was to make a YouTube video. If you like to listen to music while viewing my work, here is the video.
If you prefer to viewing still photos, I’ll list them here in the order that they were placed in the sketchbook. Every drawing and photograph have previously been mentioned in this blog so I’ll provide a link to the post in case you want to read about the story behind each visual. (The link will open in a new window.)
OUTSIDE FRONT COVER
INSIDE FRONT COVER
PAGE 1: THE JOKER AND ARTHUR FLECK
PAGE 2: MADONNA GIRL DALE
PAGE 3: A COSTUMED PERFORMER AT THE 2010 PIGTOWN FESTIVAL IN BALTIMORE
PAGE 4: HOWARD THE DUCK FAN ART
PAGE 5: MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
PAGE 6: CLIMATE STRIKE PROTESTER WITH TRUMP BABY BALLOON, SEPTEMBER 20, 2019
PAGE 7: BRUNI FROM FROZEN 2
PAGE 8: BLUE HERON IN PALMETTO, FLORIDA
PAGE 9: VOLKS DOLLFIE DREAM DOLL PEEKING FROM BEHIND CHERRY BLOSSOM TREE
PAGE 10: UNDER THE ZENTANGLE SEA
PAGE 11: BABY YODA IN MEAN CUTIES
PAGE 12: VOLKS DOLLFIE DREAM DOLL IN CHERRY BLOSSOM TREE
PAGE 13: FALL FOLIAGE AT CLARK’S ELIOAK FARM IN ELLICOTT CITY, MARYLAND
PAGE 14: HATSUNE MIKU AND THE CLAUSES
PAGE 15: A PENGUIN NATIVITY SCENE WITH LINUX
PAGE 16: 2014 COWBOY AND INDIAN ALLIANCE PROTEST AGAINST THE KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE
PAGE 17: COPS IN RIOT GEAR AT THE INNER HARBOR IN BALTIMORE DURING THE BALTIMORE UPRISING PROTESTING THE MURDER OF FREDDIE GRAY BY THE BALTIMORE CITY POLICE IN 2015
PAGE 18: UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST FLAMING CHALICE
PAGE 19: ROSCOE THE ROOSTER MEMORIAL IN TAKOMA PARK, MARYLAND
PAGE 20: STATUE OUTSIDE OF ANN’S DARI-CREME IN GLEN BURNIE, MARYLAND
PAGE 21: BABY RAFAEL
PAGE 22: KRAMPUS TAKING DONALD TRUMP AWAY
PAGE 23: JOLENE SUGARBAKER
PAGE 24: COUNTER-PROTESTERS AT THE 2018 UNITE THE RIGHT 2 RALLY IN WASHINGTON, DC
PAGE 25: THE MAY DAY 2015 PROTEST AGAINST THE KILLING OF FREDDIE GRAY BY THE BALTIMORE CITY POLICE AT THE INNER HARBOR IN BALTIMORE
PAGE 26: EDGAR ALLAN POE AND THE RAVEN
PAGE 27: UNDER THE ORANGE SKY
PAGE 28: OCCUPY DC (PART OF THE LARGER OCCUPY WALL STREET MOVEMENT), MCPHERSON SQUARE, WASHINGTON, DC, NOVEMBER 5, 2011
PAGE 29: BUTTERFLY ON A FLOWER AT BROOKSIDE GARDENS IN WHEATON, MARYLAND
PAGE 30: DONALD TRUMP AND HARLEY QUINN
PAGE 31: COBB ISLAND, MARYLAND
PAGE 32: RAINBOW OVER NORTH BEACH, MARYLAND, SEPTEMBER 12, 2019
INSIDE BACK COVER
OUTSIDE BACK COVER
I felt a really great achievement in finishing this. There was a part of me that felt sorry that I had to mail it to New York City but that’s the way it goes. In a way working on this project is like having a child. You nuture it and make your own imprint on it but ultimately you have to let it go out into the wider world on its own as a completely independent entity. I don’t know if I’ll ever see my sketchbook again in person (let alone actually hold it in my hands one more time) but it was time for me to let go of it. At least I shot enough pictures and video footage so I can at least look at it again if I ever begin to feel sad over no longer having that sketchbook in my possession.
Yesterday I received an email from The Sketchbook Project informing me that my sketchbook has been assigned a new call number:
383.10-4
So if anyone ever goes to the Brooklyn Art Library and wants to see my sketchbook in person, you now know how to look for it.
From time to time I’ll probably log into the official website to see if anyone has checked it out or if the Brooklyn Art Library has sent it out on a road trip of some sort. It would interesting to see in the future whatever happened to that sketchbook. But right now I’m going to move on from that project and focus on other things in my life that needs attending to.
One day I decided to bring my sketchbook to The Space, a makerspace located inside of Beltway Plaza Mall in Greenbelt, Maryland. While I was there I decided to borrow one of the stencils that has an aquatic theme and I started to draw and ink various fishes, a seahorse, a starfish, and a shark.
Once I was done with the stencil I decided to try drawing a Zentangle background. Using the TanglePatterns website, I looked for some patterns that seemed to suggest water or had some kind of an aquatic effect and drew them in the background. I used ink for the zentangles and the various sea life while I used colored pencil to color in the color of the blue water.
Tomorrow is not only New Year’s Eve but it is also the day that I will post online the 12th and final drawing in my 12 Drawings of Christmas series. Come back tomorrow if you want to know how I will end this series.
Last year the New Carrollton Public Library in New Carrollton, Maryland underwent extensive renovations. When it reopened to the public this library sported an aquatic theme that gained it a lot of local publicity. I had wanted to check it out for myself but I ended up not getting around to visiting it until recently. What spurred that visit was the fact that I was working on a doll customizing collaboration with the YouTube channel Dollightful and I needed a background that would fit the Pink Mermaid Flamingo doll that I was working on. So I brought my doll and made a few shots against a few different backdrops that could potentially be used as a submission to the Dollightful project.
The library itself is a really cool looking place to visit. Here are some non-doll pictures I shot of the library during that same visit last month.
The outside had a glass entrance that sort of reminded me of the National Aquarium in Baltimore.
The inside of the library itself is bright and airy.
The children’s area is called the Discovery Reef and it had a real aquarium with tropical fish and coral.
There was a wave-shaped wall that had pictures of various types of fish, coral, and other forms of sea life.
This year is the 50th anniversary of the first Apollo moon landing and all of the libraries in the State of Maryland decided to do a space theme for the summer (when the children are usually off from school). This explains why there was a space shuttle sculpture in the library.
There was sea-themed art on the aqua blue walls that reflected on the aquarium theme of the library.
Black-owned restaurant in Dallas reserves Mondays to serve the homeless.
When America forgot about its black World War I soldiers.
19-year-old student hides spy camera in his clothing to take secret street photos in the 1890s.
The problem isn’t robots taking our jobs. It’s oligarchs taking our power.
How to make a shiv with hard, dried fish.
The invisibility of being old, disabled or both.
Even as a child Donald Trump was a horror.
Watch Russian dancers appear to float magically across the stage.
From most hated to American hero: The whitewashing of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Previous in This Series
A Shot of a Ferris Wheel on the Day Before the Greenbelt Labor Day Festival, August 30, 2018
Last year I attended the opening night of the Greenbelt Labor Day Festival for the first time in my life. While I’ve attended previous festivals, I generally tended to blow off opening night and show up on the first full day of the festival.
This year I wasn’t able to attend opening night, mainly because I was helping out with a special project in Takoma Park where we were aiding a man who was required to do a job interview via a smartphone app. (I wrote a post about it because it was the first time I had ever heard of a job interview being conducted in this way. I have a feeling that doing a job interview via smartphone app is a harbinger of things to come for job seekers in the future.) So I reverted to previous years where I didn’t attend the Greenbelt Labor Day Festival for the first time until Saturday.
This time last year the weather was not only cooler than usual but it rained as well. For the first time ever I wore a hooded sweatshirt and long pants to the festival. This year it was completely the opposite, especially in the morning and early afternoon. The weather was cloudy, in the high 80’s, and the humidity was very thick. Just walking around the festival was a miserable experience and I grew tired pretty quickly.
I took the free shuttle over to the festival grounds where I saw that the Greenbelt City Hall had lowered its flags to half-staff to honor the recent passing of Senator John McCain.
One new thing I noticed this year was the concrete barriers that had chalk art on them.
The Greenbelt Elementary School PTA had its used book sale, which was very popular as people shopped for bargains.
Saturday was Community Day where various local groups and businesses had their information booths where they gave out flyers, brochures, and sometimes free goodies like candy, pens, and pencils.
I shot the Chick-fil-A cow mascot.
The Old Greenbelt Theater had a poster for the movie that it was currently showing, Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman.
The Greenbelt Makerspace had its open house where it displayed its computers, robots, and various types of electronics and maker tools.
The carnival midway was lively as people ate food, went on the rides, and played some of the midway games.
After a while the heat and humidity got to me so I ducked inside of the Greenbelt Community Center so I could cool off in the air conditioning. There is an art exhibition highlighting three local artists that’s currently going on until October. I really liked the art on display in that room so much that I took a few pictures. I especially liked the ones by Jim Doran because I found his skeleton and skull art so interesting and whimsical to look at.
The main reason why I was at the festival on Saturday was because I had entered this mixed-media piece in the Greenbelt Labor Day Art show called Robot in the Park.
I wrote a blog post about this piece a few months ago so I suggest clicking on this link if you want to learn about the story and the creative process behind this piece.
I submitted my work to the Greenbelt Labor Day Art Show early on Thursday evening before the festival began. One of the conditions of participating in this show is that I had to sign up for a one-hour volunteer shift sometime during the weekend. I signed up to work on Saturday from 2-3 p.m. so I had plenty of time to eat an early lunch, take the free shuttle to the festival grounds, and walk around a bit. I was even able to view the Greenbelt Labor Day Photography Show and the art show itself before my shift began. I found out that my piece had won a second place ribbon in the mixed-media category, which thrilled me. That ribbon meant that I could attend the award ceremony that was scheduled on Labor Day itself where I would collect my prize and receive public recognition.
So I served my one-hour shift then I decided to walk around the festival some more. I found that the weather had cooled off a little bit so it made walking a bit more pleasant even though the humidity still remained high. I decided to sit at one of the tables outside the Greenbelt Makerspace where I sorted through the photos I had taken so far. At one point an old friend whom I hadn’t seen in a while stopped by and we chatted a bit. At that point the weather turned darker and I saw lightning flashes. It eventually started to rain. Fortunately I was underneath an awning so I could watch the rain while staying dry. At one point the sun came out so there was that unusual phenomenon of raining while it’s sunny at the same time. (When I was a kid, I used to be told that such weather meant that the devil was beating his wife.) When the rain started to taper off into a drizzle, a rainbow suddenly appeared.
By the time the rainbow appeared I was hungry so I walked over to one of the food vendors where I ordered a large cheese crab pretzel. The weather had cooled off considerably and it was pleasant walking outside. The only downside was that it was wet everywhere from the rain so I walked back to the tables under the Greenbelt Makerspace awning and consumed my dinner there. I resumed sorting through the photos I had taken that day until night fell. I walked over to another food booth where I ordered a vanilla ice cream cone with a chocolate dip top and ate that. I also took a few night photos of the festival.
I didn’t stay long because my body had grown tired from walking around the festival in high humidity earlier and it was hard finding a dry place to sit due to the rain. I decided to pick up the next free shuttle bus and head home.
Next in This Series
2018 Greenbelt Labor Day Festival, September 2, 2018
2018 Greenbelt Labor Day Parade, September 3, 2018
2018 Greenbelt Labor Day Festival, September 3, 2018
The Day After the End of the Greenbelt Labor Day Festival, September 4, 2018
I wasn’t able to get to Behnke’s Nurseries before Christmas so I decided to spend the day after checking out the post-holiday sales. There were still plenty of Christmas and Hanukkah decorations that were available for sale at discounted prices.
I made only one purchase. It was a cute Ginger Cottage that I purchased for 25% off.
Here are a few reasons why I prefer Ginger Cottages over Department 56: 1) They are smaller, which means they take up less space in my modest house. 2) They are more affordable for my budget than Department 56. 3) They are actually made in the USA while Department 56 cottages are made overseas in countries like China.
Sagittarius Dolly 
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