The streets of Paraty, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The streets in the historic part of Paraty are narrow, roughly cobbled and lined with whitewashed houses on both sides. The uniform white of these houses is broken by their colorful doors and windows and terracotta roofs.
I sketched them over and over. Here are a few from my collection:

Pousada do Cais, where I stayed for my first couple of days in Paraty.

Just for the record, not ALL the buildings in Paraty had blue doors and windows with a yellow trim- for some strange reason, all the ones I sketched seem to have just that one color combination- like the one below.

And this one with local artisans selling colorful woven baskets and bows and arrows.

This next sketch has my only record of the dogs of Paraty. How could I not have captured more of them when they were everywhere? Our pousada had a collection of black dogs who slept right at the doorstep and were invisible in the dark. I think I stepped on one atleast a couple of times.Did I mention that I rarely sketched alone? One of the most amazing things about being at an Urban Sketchers Symposium is that you step out into the street and find it littered with sketchers all sitting around and drawing. Here are some I caught ‘in action’.

Paraty by night. Whitewashed buildings and inky skies. Sketched with friends and a caipirinha. Which might explain the crazy Paynes grey sky.

More on Paraty coming soon. Meanwhile, all my Brazil sketches, as I upload them, here on flickr.