August 8 -- Dick Blick

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Update -- the name of the building which now houses Target....



I read in a guidebook that there was a Dick Blick art supply store near our hotel.  I couldn't pass up an opportunity to go see.

Wow.  Just think -- you could be an artist who needs gallons of gesso!

You could be an artist who needs every color of marker.

Lots of paper, especially paper printed with peacock feathers.

Or leaves.  Or flowers.

Or just "plain" paper, if this can be called "plain"..............................

I'm thinking this next work is finished, just as it is......................  Those edges..............  Wow.

This is a look at the other side of the draped paper -- all we can see here is the part of the sheets of paper that go around the sticks that are holding it up.

You could be the kind of artist who makes monoprints, and needs different 'plates" on which to work, in all those colors of ink...........

Or maybe you need a potter's wheel, or a printing press..........

Maybe you're the kind of artist who needs all of these acrylic paints?

Oh my.  Look at these "brushes"!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I've never seen anything like these.  At least, not outside the kitchen..............  Aren't they cool?

Wandering in an art supply store always gives me a sense of infinite opportunity..........

I spent a blissful hour and a half in Dick Blick.  I bought a turquoise Baggu bag (which I had see online but not in person before the 8th), a pen, a small sketchbook, and a book of postcards.  No paints, inks, brushes, markers, or fancy paper.  Not this time...........



 I walked out of Dick Blick and found I was across the street from this!  I have been reminded this used to be the Carson Pirie Scott Department Store building, designed by Louis Sullivan and Daniel Burnham in 1899.

Now it is Target.  It is a really (REALLY) fancy building, decorated in tons of cast iron.

See the lavender things, in the planter at bottom left, above?  They are a light installation.  They look like cattails to me.  The parts that are lavender, above, change color from time to time.  I bet it looks especially cool at night.

Black-on-black decoration is not easy to photograph.  It's truly all black, as you can see above, but my closeups all look like what you see next........

I don't want to take care of this, but I am surely glad I get to look at it from time to time!

I walked back east to Michigan Ave.  This is in Millenium Park (which is part of the bunch of parks near Grant Park).  I love her serenity.............  The head is narrow, as it appears.  I wonder why.........

One of the buildings along Michigan Ave.  Olde Fashioned.

Back at the hotel, waiting for housekeeping to finish the room.  Very fancy tiled bits, in the lobby.

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