Here’s the view looking northwest up Atkinson Street, from Strawbery Banke out to State Street way in the distance. Those two tiny figures in the distance are about in the spot from which my drawing of the Thomas Bailey Aldrich house was made. This drawing is done in broad-stroke pencil, a style popular among architects in the early 1900’s and popularized in drawing technique books by Ernest Watson and Ted Kautsky (both excellent and highly recommended). You sharpen your pencils to a wide, flat point, and lay down a single layer of graphite. Broad stroke purists insist that you should never go back over a mark once you have made it, and that you always use the same pressure on the pencil, varying the darkness of the mark by using a different grade pencil, not by pressing harder. (Limited edition prints of this image are available directly from me.)
In the left center of this view is the William Pitt Tavern, site of interesting goings-on during the time of the Revolutionary War, and which Strawbery Banke has restored. It is also part of Portsmouth’s Black Heritage Trail. Strawbery Banke Museum is one of the cultural institutions that makes Portsmouth a great town. It is very popular among tourists and school field trips, but somewhat less so, I would say, among the local citizenry, who, IMHO, seem to take it for granted.