Kat Walk Designs

A couple of birds, a figure and a Nature Journal

2012-01-31T14:46:00.000-05:00

I have been in the mood to draw birds lately. So above is a small sketch of a female mallard. She is one of the birds in the photograph in my last post. She had the look of a disinterested observer to the 2 males tussling, but I am not so sure. Actually I was really attracted to the patterns on her feathers. The females may not have the brilliant color of the males but I think in their own way they are just as beautiful.

For my next subject I used a photograph I made of one of the Red Tail Hawks on exhibit at the Trailside Museum. I have a feeling she injured her other foot which is why only one is visible on her perch. I think this is a female since she was larger than the other bird in the cage. Not sure I did her justice, but not too bad either.

Below is my Nature Journal spread from a visit to Borderland State Park last week.

More dog walkers and dogs this for this entry. I should really bring a checklist of breeds when I walk at Borderland, I see so many different varieties of dogs with their owners. The smaller dog to the right was I believe a miniature collie, and the woman was walking a golden retriever. The challenge with these drawings is to get the woods to have the right feeling and look. And believe me it is a challenge.

The sketch on the bottom of the page is of the needles of an Eastern Red Cedar. Their "leaves" are finer than the Northern White Cedar, and they have what look like berries instead of miniature pine cones. The bark/trunk is also very distinctive. At some point I will start drawing tree trunks to illustrate the look of various barks. Probably not until spring when I will have leaves to help identify the trees.

Last nights figure drawing. I have mixed feelings abut this one. It is OK but I wish I had spent more time on the face and head. Ah well there is always next week.

We did have a good crowd for the session which was good and bad. The good was more people the bad is that 2 were young women who smoke. Can I say here I hate the smell of cigarette smoke and the older I get the more I hate it. UGH, I have no clue why young people start smoking now a days, how they can afford it is a complete mystery to me.

The above is a photograph from my walk at Borderland. This is the largest spillway in the park and as you can see there is plenty of water flowing over it. While we haven't had a lot of snow this winter we have been having rain so the lakes are full.

That is it for today. Next time I will share images that I am working on as the center for the border I finished a few weeks ago. In the meantime comments are always welcome.

A Doodle, EDM 89, a Nature Journal Spread

2012-01-27T12:58:00.000-05:00

I have been doing a lot of doodling lately not being able to settle on a subject for a major work. A lot of my play has been with a brown ink pen, but those doodles really aren't ready for prime time, or my blog so instead you get another flower. This one has a kind of bee flying around it. Done in pencil then I added color again with the Pitt pens. I have to admit I am feeling the lack of selection in my Pitt pen colors. I know they come in more colors, looks like I need to invest in a few more. They don't really blend on the paper, but it is still fun to mix them up a bit.

My other go to when I can't seem to settle on a large project is the EDM list. Today's drawing is for EDM #89 - Draw a Button or Buttons. I have a small stash of buttons and selected 3 of them for this drawing. I admit that I was selective, wanting different shapes and sizes but nothing too complex.

Next another spread from my Nature Journal.

Wednesday it was nice enough for me to venture out. I had another task I needed to accomplish so I didn't want to go too far. When I want someplace fairly easy to get to I tend to head toward the Blue Hill Reservation and in this case the Trailside Museum.

Since it was a nice day all of the animals seemed to be out and about in their cages/pens. The otter was swimming, the Great Horned Owl was actually visible, the two Red Tail Hawks were both in the center of their cage etc. There was even a small flock of mallard ducks at the pond.

The museum has a Gum Ball machine filled with duck food that visitors can purchase for the ducks. I fed them about a handful then wandered off to make photos in other areas. When I came back I found these two males in a tussle. Not sure if it was over the females or food. Either way I don't usually see mallards being so aggressive toward each other, so that became my subject for the Journal.

Below is my source photo for the drawing and another of a male mallard.

As you can see they were really going at it. But isn't the male coloring gorgeous. All the ducks seem dressed in their best, even the patterns on the female feathers are lovely. I did see another pair of mallards courting and mating on the pond so this fight may have been over a female, with 2 other males watching from the sidelines.

The above photo shows a couple of males. Look at the tail feathers on the one in the center, prior to Wednesday I didn't realize that those black feathers actually curl up, I just thought the black and white pattern I saw from a distance was multicolored tail feathers. In reality the upper tail feathers are black and the lower side feathers are white and it is perspective that can make them look somewhat like a checkerboard.

Photos were both made with the new lens. Hopefully I am getting a handle on how to use it.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.

A mixture of images

2012-01-24T13:50:00.000-05:00

A couple of sketches to start today's update. Above is another Every Day Matters drawing. This one is for number 218: Draw a Knife. It shows one of my heavy kitchen knives that I purchased way back when I set up housekeeping for myself in my early 20's. I splurged a bit and purchased good knives. Obviously a good investment as I still have them and use them, though I admit that I haven't used this one all that much.

The sketchbook challenge for January is Doodles and oddly enough I have had a hard time with it. Finally I managed the above drawing of some tulips in a vase. Color was done with my Pitt pens. Not sure this is really a doodle but it will have to do. I certainly didn't spend a lot of time on it.

Below is my figure drawing from last night:

I know it looks blue, that is because I made the photograph outside in the shade and when I lighten the image in Photoshop the shadow turned blue. I tried to adjust it a bit and ended up with this. Oh well you can see the original drawing and since I am not working in color I decided to not sweat the color shift.

The drawing turned out better than I expected it would at the one hour point. We tend to take breaks about every hour so the model can get out of pose and recover a bit before resuming. Gives us artists a chance to take a break and evaluate the work in progress so necessary corrections can be made. Not going to tell you what all I corrected but the end result is something I am fairly happy with.

Below is my Journal page from yesterday's visit to Daniel Webster:

We had snow here last week and over the weekend. our first snow falls for the new year. Not all that much actually fell about 4 or 5 inches, maybe a total of 6 inches in some areas around me. The paths at Daniel Webster were mostly still covered in snow and I slipped and slid my way through the sanctuary yesterday afternoon. All the sliding was because it really warmed up yesterday - into the 40's and the snow was melting underfoot.

The drawings in the journal are prints I saw in the snow. The top prints are a Canada Goose. And yes they really do have a pigeon toed walk. The middle is probably a deer and the bottom I am not sure of, I think either a fox or a raccoon. It was too large and not quite the right shape to be a squirrel or chipmunk.

Next a couple of snow photos to share.

The image above is actually from Borderland State Park in Easton and made last Friday. I went out to the park to walk and make some photos, leaving the Journal at home. I knew it was a bit too cold for me to want to make notes. Just as well, walking took most of my energy and attention, any extra I had I used making a few photographs. The image above shows the shadows of tree trunks across the snow marked by a passing deer. The other marks in the snow were caused by snow falling out of the trees.

Above is a photo I made yesterday at Daniel Webster. It shows seed pods against the snow at the edge of the man made pond. I believe these are the seed pods for the mallows that were blooming last fall.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are welcome.

Red Caps, and a Nature Journal

2012-01-20T12:46:00.000-05:00

Red Caps

A short post today, I don't have a lot of images to share. I did finish the pen and ink Zentangle type drawing I started last week. I think it is done, when I finished the inking part I added just a little bit of color to the, hmm well they are sort of mushrooms, but not quite. Anyway I wanted to pull the viewers eye to that section of the drawing so I added some color using watercolor pencils. I have thought about going in and adding more color to other areas but I rather think I won't. I feel doing so would reduce the impact of this current limited use, and I rather like the black and white contrast of the rest of the patterns.

I did get out Wed. to a MA Audubon site, in this case Stony Brook.

I was playing with the new lens, it and I aren't totally getting along. I am not sure if it is me, the lens or the camera but photos aren't as clear as I expected. Could be totally user error and I understand that, so I will keep working on it.

The day was chilly (well comparatively) in the mid 30's, but it was sunny so it was really a lovely day to visit the sanctuary.

Drawings, the top drawing is of a red squirrel on a stone wall. It was leaving the bird feeder area having been scrounging for dropped seeds under the feeder. Stony Brook has mainly red squirrels. They are a bit smaller than our standard grey squirrels, but actually a bit more territorial and feisty. It is my understanding that they will drive the grey squirrels out of what they consider their territory.

Bottom drawing is of a bush out in the pond area that has both seed pods (open) and catkins on the branch. I am sure the catkins erupted during our warm November/December, but they are out now and will stay until spring. What impact that will have on next years growth for the bush I have no clue, but I am trying to document these issue when I see them.

Below is one photo from my visit that I sort of like:

The swans were on the mill pond Wed. one swimming in open water and the other standing on the ice's edge. The surrounding ponds all had even less open water (I believe they are much more shallow) so the swans had made the move to this location.

That is it for today. I have been busy sewing not drawing these past few days, but the project isn't ready to show off. Believe me that when it is I will. In the meantime comments are always welcome.

Some Computer Art, a Journal Page and a Figure

2012-01-17T12:33:00.002-05:00

I don't usually make a lot of computer art. Obviously when I was taking Graphic Design classes everything had to be done on the computer, but for the past year or so I have been focusing on my drawn (as in pencil/pen and paper) art. Still for Christmas this year I found myself wanting some new tags for my gift wrapping but didn't have either the time or inspiration to work on them at that time. Since I have been home from my Christmas holidays I have challenged myself to come up with some new tag designs for next year.

These first two images are what I have come up with so far. Any critiques, comments or suggestions would be welcome. Both have been done in Adobe Illustrator. It has been interesting trying to remember my skills in that program, but I think I have managed fairly well. The snowflakes were esp. fun to create. Though I have to admit I was getting a bit tired of the process by the time I did the fifth one so I cheated and just reused one for the background snowflake.

This design was a bit more straight forward, except for the text on path, which took me a bit to remember how to do. Then felt somewhat the idiot because it is really very easy in Illustrator, Corel Draw is the program where it was a pia to put text on a path. .

Above is my journal page from yesterday's visit to Daniel Webster in Marshfield. The top drawing is of a Turtle Dove that I saw in the woods. Usually I only see the turtle doves around the feeders, and there they are mostly on the ground. So to see one in a tree in the woods was unusual, well for me.

The lower sketch is of some bushes over by the River. I drew them because I have drawn them before, but last time there was a nest still in among the branches. Yesterday I noticed the nest was gone. Not quite sure when it vanished. I am sometimes not as observant as I would like to be. But I think it probably happened over the weekend when we had some very strong winds.

Above is last nights figure drawing. The model was almost in a pin-up pose. I have to say that I found this pose much more satisfactory to draw than last weeks. Course that is partly my own fault, I should have moved last week for a better view.

Below are a couple of photographs I want to share:

The above photo was made in Blue Hills Reservation Saturday. It shows what is left of the old Route 128 two lane roadway. The current Route 128 is a 6 lane (or more) limited access highway that circles Boston and was mainly built back in the 1950's. When they built the new highway this stretch of road was abandoned and the land it is on was made part of the Blue Hills Reservation. A trade I am sure for the land they took for the larger highway. I didn't quite follow it to the end of pavement, but some other day I will.

It was a bit strange walking this road and knowing that I wouldn't see any cars on it, just other walkers. It is in surprisingly good shape for a road that has been unused for so long. But notice that the trees have grown right at the blacktops edge, something that would never happen on an in-use road.

The image above is from Daniel Webster made yesterday on my walk, I just like the colors and the interplay of light and shadow.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are welcome.

An Unusual Use for Fabric

2012-01-13T12:27:00.000-05:00

A member of the Quilt Art List (Jane Davila) posted a message to the group yesterday about her unusual use of fabric and asked if anyone else had used fabric in a non-traditional way. I wanted to wave my hand and say I have, I have. But the list doesn't allow images to be included in messages and I hadn't done the blog update yet so I had no way to show them what I have been up to. I had to let the chance slip away. Today I am posted my unusual use of fabric. By the way you can click on Jane's name to see what she made, something much more elaborate.

I know the average person would have no need for such a large pencil holder, but with the gift at Christmas of some Faber Castell Polychroms I needed more storage. Can I say that I have a lot of colored pencils? Not all of the pencils in the holder are Polychroms, in fact most are my old Venus pencils, but I still have room for more Polychroms as I manage to acquire them. Since I need to order them from Dick Blick it will probably be a while.

I made my first pencil holder, hmm, last summer or spring I think. But it is now packed with pencils so I needed this new one for the new pencils.. The tubes are paper towel rolls that have been cut into sections. I first cover them with fabric using white school glue. Then I painted a layer of Gel Medium over the fabric, to add support and protect the fabric. Letting all that dry I hot glued the tubes together and then hot glued the tube unit to a cut to shape base of tag board. I use the shorter tubes for pencils that are getting a bit short and the longer tubes for my newish pencils. Works for me.

The above isn't finished yet, but I thought you might like to see what I have been working on. I should be drawing the center of my stipple border piece, but instead I have been doodling and working on the above. It is sort of another Zentangle, and at this point I have no clue if I will add color or not, just waiting to see how it develops.

Wednesday was a lovely sunny day, a bit cool but not that cold so I took advantage and made my first visit to Borderland State Park for the year. Most of the ponds had ice on them, but they weren't totally iced over. We just had about a day and a half of rain so there is probably even less ice today.

Drawings are at the top some American Beech leaves. For some reason some Beech trees will retain their brown leaves through winter and into spring when the new leaves will finally force the old ones to fall. Wednesday I happened across a tree that still had a lot of leaves and those leaves were lit by the sun, so I made a photo and used the photo as reference for the drawing. I decided it was a bit hard to identify what I had drawn so I added some color to help separate the leaves from the back ground.

The bottom drawing is from a photo I made of a pair of mallards swimming on one of the ponds with the background of bushes and trees. For this drawing I concentrated on translating the darks and lights in the photo to paper. I think it works, but it is sort of tricky to do so will have to think about this process a bit more.

Final image is the photo of the Beech leaves I made:

The above is by no means the first photo I have made of beech leaves, I love the color of them, esp. when contrasted by a dark background.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.

Journal Pages, Chicago, Nature and a figure dwg.

2012-01-10T15:14:00.000-05:00

I have managed, in the past couple of days, to finish another page in my Chicago Journal. This one is based on a photograph I made at Logan Airport just prior to my departure, it is the plane at the gate.

Now I have to decide what to draw next. I would like something representing O'hare Airport the other end of my flight. But I had the camera packed away and didn't make any more photographs until the next day while I was in Chicago. Bother, I really would like to have more of a travel narrative here. Well I will just have to do some Google Image searches and see what I can find, hopefully something of the airport or lacking that the Blue Line terminal at the airport.

Above is another page from my Nature Journal. Yesterday I re-visited Daniel Webster in Marshfield to walk and check out the state of things. Sketches are from photos I made. Top shows some European White Birch with Birch polypore fungus growing out of the trunks. The trees are dead, though they still have some branches and are still standing. From what I have read the fungus will so weaken these trunks that a good wind storm will probably knock them over sometime next summer something else for me to pay attention to on my walks.

The bottom image is of a squirrel in the bird feeder area. It was scrounging for seeds around the base of one of the feeders. Something caught its attention and it sat up for just a moment. I caught that moment on camera so made this drawing. The background is a mill stone that they have in the feeder area. Not quite sure why the stone is there, decoration I guess, as far as I know there was no mill on this property.

Below is my figure drawing from last night:

I think I should have shifted position last night. I ended up with another profile view of the model's face and foreshortened leg positions. Not to mention that the couch looks lopsided because of the pile of stuff at one end for the model to lean against. Not the most graceful composition from where I was sitting. But by the time I realized the above I was already too far into the drawing to want to move. Will have to pay more attention to my positioning next week.

Below are a couple of photographs from yesterday's visit to Daniel Webster.

I made a couple of photos of the white birch trees with the fungus, I used the other as my reference for my drawing, but I rather liked this one. Blue sky, white/black trunks and golden/brown grasses, might be an interesting pallet for a painting.

A view of the man made pond with a mostly frozen surface and some Canada Geese taking off. The geese actually run on the ice for their take offs, though I am not entirely sure the photo shows that well.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are welcome, hopefully now that I am back on my regular update schedule I will be able to maintain it.

Some EDM Sketchs and a Journal Page

2012-01-08T15:31:00.000-05:00

Can I admit to not liking January? The let down after the Christmas Holidays, the short hours of daylight all combine to making me feel a bit down, but restless at the same time. The end result is that I end up spending time on the computer, reading, watching TV etc, but not drawing or working on my art.

I have been working on the stipple piece I posted in my last update but since I decided I needed to darken the background in the border I have been making no visible progress with that drawing. So for lack of any thing else to post on the blog I decided to go to the list of Every Day Matters ideas and make a couple of sketches.

Above is my take on #26 - Draw anything you like, if you want to draw a vegetable that is fine too. I didn't want to draw a vegetable, so instead I drew one of my Ty Beanie Baby's. This little one has lost its tag so I don't know what its name is supposed to be. Doesn't really matter of course, I just like to know these things.

Above is another EDM sketch, this one was for #8 - draw a watch. I haven't been wearing a watch for over a year now. If I need the time and I am out and about I check my cell phone or the car clock, but I still have this one. The drawing isn't wonderful I found myself getting impatient with all the metal details, but it gives you an idea of what it looks like.

Below is a Nature Journal spread from a visit to Ames Nowell State Park on Friday.

Top sketch is some dried stems and empty seed pods of a Knapp Weed plant. The bottom sketch is of a young woman walking her bull dog in the Park. I may go back into the bottom drawing and darken up the background behind her, as it stands it feels like it is lacking something.

I am finding it hard to settle into working on drawings this past week or so. I just want them done so I can move onto something else. Not my usual mode of working, so I am not pleased but not sure what to do about it. I feel sure that it is just a phase and really all I need to do is keep plugging away at something art related and eventually I will get back into my stride. At least I hope so. In the meantime my drawings may have an unfinished look to them because I have gotten impatient and want them done before they really are.

Last for today I have a couple of photographs I made at Ames Nowell.

I was using my new lens (55-250mm) for both of these, I know the above picture doesn't look like much of a close up, but really the swans were quite far away from me, and would have been just white dots with my older lens. The lake had ice around the edges and the swans were swimming in one of the few open areas left. After the past couple of days I am sure there is less ice on the lake then there was Friday so the swans probably have more swimming space.

This is some bushes with seeds that I passed in a clearing beside the path at one point, you can catch a glimpse of the lake off in the distance. I am discovering with this lens I can't be as close to the object I am photographing as I am used to being with my original lens. I can see that I still have a bit of a learning curve with it. Still I rather like both of these photos so all is not lost.

Thanks for looking, per usual comments are always welcome.

Border Finished, Journal Page and new Figure

2012-01-04T13:53:00.000-05:00

It is finished, well, more or less finished, I will be adding more dots over the next several days to even out areas that bother me as I look at it, but I am calling it done.

After transferring the border lines with tracing paper and pencil I outlined the ribbon and then stippled the background with a 3x0 technical pen. Lots of little dots create the grayish background. My nephew asked me how many dots, I told him I have no clue, and I don't, I just know there are a lot of them.

I enjoy designing borders as you may have noticed if you have been following my blog for a while. The mandalas that I designed a couple of years ago were really just a series of borders only circular instead of straight. Anyway above is my most recent border project. Now for the challenge of designing what goes in the middle. I have a couple of ideas and will have to work with both of them to see which I prefer so it may be a while before I actually finish this piece. In the meantime I though you might like to see what I have been working on.

Since I am again home in MA. I was able to visit one of my nature sanctuaries on Monday, below are the pages from that visit.

I went to my normal Monday location, Daniel Webster in Marshfield, MA. The weather during my vacation was obviously warm. I say obviously because all of the ice I saw on my previous visit was melted on Monday. Since today's temp. is well below freezing it will be interesting to see how much ice I see on my next walk.

The top image above shows a couple of European White Birch stumps that are beside the raised walk way in one of the wooded area's of the sanctuary. Apparently someone had lost a cap, and another someone had placed it over the top of one of the stumps waiting for its owner to return and claim it. I couldn't resist using my new Faber Castel Polychrome pencils to add some color to this drawing.

The bottom drawing is of a deer I saw in the Apple Orchard area. A doe who was moving away from me as I approached on the path. She didn't run but she didn't really hang around either. I did sort of manage a couple of photos, but as you can see she was mainly hidden from me by the tall grasses and tree branches. Not the best view, but one I had to make do with.

Below is my Figure Drawing from Monday Night.

It was good to get back to my drawing sessions. Though I am not sure this drawing is totally successful. I fear the almost 2 weeks I spent away didn't help my skills any. Ah well thankfully there is always next week when I hope to do better. In my defense this pose isn't the easiest to draw, slumped body, draped fabric that is never the same twice and a foreshortened leg. This drawing will not be going on my favorites list that is for sure.

Below is a photograph I made Monday at Daniel Webster.

A view of the brown grasses contrasting with some pine trees, distant leafless trees, and a blue sky with a few clouds. A bit bleak, but I also think full of possibilities, with just a hint of a brighter green here and there.

Not a long post today, but per usual comments are welcome.

Happy New Year and Updates

2012-01-01T15:51:00.002-05:00

First I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year for 2012, may it be a year of good health, friends and events.

Above is a sketch I made yesterday while waiting for it to be time for me to leave my Sisters for the airport. It is a Western Tarsier from a photograph in the November issue of National Geographic. I love the Canon ads in National Geographic and have often used them as reference for practice drawings. The little guy looks like he was smiling at the camera, I know not likely but it is cute.

Last week my sister and I visited a couple of Chicago's excellent Museums. The image below is from the Chicago Art Institute.

The images are of three quilts that were on exhibit in the the recently renovated Fiber/Textile area. Last year they had tapestries, this year the space was devoted to early american textiles. The Textiles were mostly woven bedspreads but the exhibit did include a few of the Museum's early American (prior to 1840) quilts. All three quilts in my image were beautifully quilted. I love the non standard borders on the Blazing Star quilt, and the half block edging on the blue and white quilt. Isn't it too bad that we can't ask the maker why she used half blocks for both the top and left side prior to adding the border of flying geese I don't know many modern quilters who would do that.

The exhibit also included a beautiful white on white quilt that had trapunto done in some of the quilting designs. The three quilts I photographed were the ones I liked best. The actual photos aren't wonderful, the gallery has fairly low lighting and I didn't use a flash so the images aren't as crisp as I would have preferred. The exhibit also included some hat veils and worked samplers, most beautiful and all interesting to see.

We also took a day to visit the Chicago Natural History Museum.

The museum this year had a special exhibit on Whales that was most interesting. Photographs were not allowed in the special exhibit so you will just have to take my word for it. We also visited the Egyptian exhibit but to be honest I was feeling a bit claustrophobic by then so we didn't stay long. The museum was extremely crowded, which made it difficult to spend much time viewing items on display. I sort of wished we had been able to visit before Christmas but that wasn't possible.

The above photo shows Sue, the museum's famous Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton.

Below is a Nature Journal page from my visit to Daniel Webster the day before I left for Chicago.

Daniel Webster as a former farm has lots of open grassy areas. The sketches this week are the seed heads of three different grasses. The middle grass grows in a somewhat marshy area and is fairly tall, over 3 feet. The other two were growing in more typical farm land areas and are shorter.

The day of my visit was chilly, we had had a cold weekend so there was ice edging the ponds and even at the edges of the River. The photograph below shows the river lined with trees and some ice.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome, and I hope to get back to my regular update schedule now that I am back home from vacation.

Various Journal Pages

2011-12-27T09:45:00.000-05:00

I have not made a lot of progress with my holiday journal. Oops, oh well I do have photos and will have to spend more time with it when I get home. Now I seem to be spending most of my time visiting with relatives and working on another piece of art, or using the camera. So I will just have to create the pages from my reference photos, I know not the way it is supposed to work but it will have to do for me.

I have managed to get a couple pages done. The above page is the front piece and I am rather pleased with it. The poinsettia was done with colored pencil. The lettering is no particular font just something I thought looked nice.

Above is the pen and ink drawing I made for the second page, how I got to the airport for my trip. I plan to include an airport scene but haven't drawn it yet.

The page below is from my Nature Journal, my second trip to Broadmoor in Natick made over 10 days ago.

The 2 sketches from that visit are fairly simple. The top is the seed pod of a Catalpa tree. The tree is located just outside of the sanctuary's visitor center. Typically there were still some pods hanging from the tree but there were also a few on the ground. I collected one of the pods on the ground to draw.

The second drawing is of a mill stone. The property at Broadmoor once contained a grist mill, and the mill ponds and flow-ways are an integral part of the site. The stone is to commemorate the mill and I don't believe it is an original stone. There is nothing left of the original mill structure, just the dams, spillways and ponds.

I am including a couple of photographs I made while visiting the sanctuary.

The above is a view of the Charles River with its tree lined river bank. Because of recent storms the river was outside it summer banks and running fairly high and swiftly.

By the time I was leaving the sanctuary the sun was beginning to set. The above is an eastern view of one of the ponds showing how even clouds in the east can pick up some color when the sun is setting. You can see a corner of one of the walkways in the lower left.

That is it for today. Hope everyone is enjoying their winter solstice holidays, per usual comments are welcome.

More Bags, a Journal Page and Figure Drawing

2011-12-22T13:30:00.002-05:00

I have been traveling, and visiting with family so am a bit late with this blog update. Before I left on my travels I purchased a Christmas gift for myself, a new lens for my Camera. It is a 55mm to 250mm lens and I am hoping to make better photographs of birds and butterflies with it once I get used to it.

The only thing was, the new lens won't fit in my current camera bag with the camera and its old lens. There were a couple of options, I could purchase a larger camera bag that would hold both lenses and camera and other stuff (cables, manuals etc) or I could make a separate bag to carry the lens. Since I don't really want to haul around a larger camera bag I decided to make a small bag that would hold just the lens. One that I could easily wear while out and about in the areas I go to photograph. So I pulled out some fabrics, my rotary cutter, the cutting mat and started cutting.

The bag in the above image is the end result. Just large enough to hold the new or old lens, with a long enough strap so it can easily be carried while I am out walking so I can swap out lenses if I need/want to. There is batting between the inner lining and the outer fabric to protect the lens. I also placed the seams on the outside to keep lint/loose threads away from the lens. I didn't use a pattern but sort of made it up as I went along. The strap is braided fabric strips.

I think it is pretty and functional, and actually used it on my walk in Daniel Webster this past monday. It worked very well and is light enough to not be a burden.

Below is a page out of the Nature Journal from over a week ago.

This was also a visit to Daniel Webster but was a week ago Monday. Weather was chilly, with a slight film of ice around some of the edges of the ponds. The image is of a goose taking off from the pond. Looked like it was walking on water in the photo so I couldn't resist using it for my page image for the day.

Below is my figure drawing from this past Monday evening.

It was a good session with a few non-regular artists dropping in to draw. I was feeling a bit distracted that evening, what with my mind wanting to think about the things I had to get done prior to my leaving on my trip. So I am not sure the drawing is as successful as it could have been, still all things considered I am not displeased with the results.

Below are a couple of photographs I made at Daniel Webster over a week ago.

Blue sky with one of the marsh plants seed heads against it.

The photo above is the one I used as reference for my page drawing. You can see how stark everything has gotten now that winter is finally settling in. Birds in flight are poetry in motion no question. These Canada Geese taking off from the pond are certainly that.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are always welcome.

Bagging Christmas, and start of a new Drawing

2011-12-16T11:49:00.000-05:00

I have started the above pen and ink work in the past couple of days. The elaborate border was drawn first in one of my sketch pads and I am using tracing paper to transfer it to my good paper. I am using gray Stonehenge for this and will be using stipple in the background of the border. Not sure what I am going to put in the middle yet. I think some flowers and have been searching my photographs for the right reference image.

Needless to say this part of the work is finicky and find myself able to spend just so much time on it before I want/need to work on something else.

With the Christmas season approaching (rapidly) I have been spending a fair amount of time on preparing gifts for my family. Last year I decided to bag my gifts instead of using wrapping paper and I am continuing the tradition this year. The bags are made out of Christmas fabric which I think has prettier designs than wrapping paper does and can be reused instead of thrown out. They are simple to make, a couple of side/bottom seams a turn over at the top to make a pocket that a ribbon can be threaded through (leave a gap near the top of one of the side seams, so that when it is folded over inside there is an opening to the pocket on the outside). I think it takes me longer to iron and trim the fabrics for the bags than it does for me to sew the seams. Anyway in the top photo above you can see my pile of made bags with some of the gifts to be "bagged".

The middle photo is of one of the bags, you can see the ribbon used to close the opening trailing across the bag.

Bottom photo shows all of the gifts bagged and ready to be boxed up and mail off. I designed the name tags last year. Those I print off on fairly heavy weight paper, cut apart, punch a hole in the corner, add names and attach to the proper bag, and call it done. Hmm, maybe I should think about purchasing several yards of Christmas fabrics and selling the bags in my Esty shop next year. I suppose I could also design some tags that could go with them.

Below is a page from my Nature Journal from a trip over the Weekend to Blue Hills Reservation.

The images are of a dried seed head of a late blooming goldenrod. As I have said before this kind of material isn't going to survive the winter, and I have always thought that dried grasses and seed heads were visually interesting so will continue to include them as long as it is available.

The bottom drawing is of a Screech Owl. It was chilly the day I was in the animal exhibit area at Trailside Museum and not much in the way of animal life was visible or active so I decided to go into the museum. The Naturalist was there holding this small owl. I asked if I could make a couple of photos and I used one as the reference for the above drawing. They think this is a female, but even so she is a small bird with brownish coloring. They are night hunters of mice, moths and other small creatures. They do have ear tufts though this one wasn't really displaying them. It certainly looks cute, but they really don't make good pets.

Last image today is a photograph I made at Houghton's Pond showing some skim ice on the pond. After our very warm fall the temps are finally falling to more seasonable weather. The Sunday I was in the park I saw this ice along the southern edges of the pond. The shadows from trees and bushes growing at the ponds edge prevent the sun from shining on these areas so even though it was after noon and the sun had been shining all day and the air temp was in the 40's these areas of ice remained.

Enough for today. Per usual comments are appreciated.

Finished Sketches and a Figure Drawing

2011-12-13T13:14:00.000-05:00

My top two images today are the finished drawings done from the Thanksgiving Day sketch. The one above is only pen and ink on Bristol Board, the one below was done on Hot Press Watercolor paper and is colored pencil. The top image is larger 9.0 x 12.0 inches. The colored pencil piece is only 7.0 x 9.0 inches.

I prefer the pen and ink piece, I find it more visually interesting even though it doesn't have color. The blocks of color in the colored pencil piece bother me a bit, but I am not sure how to apply the color so that it is more interesting yet not muddied or too busy.

Sorry for the image quality on these, I photographed them both and I should have set up the tripod and checked angles, neither photo is entirely square as it should be. Both pieces are just a bit too large for my scanner.

Below is my figure drawing from last night.

We had a more upright pose last night, different from what we usually have. Lighting was also different as she was lit from above. It looks like a deceptively simple pose, though it wasn't entirely easy to draw.

Below is a page from a visit I made last week to Borderland State Park.

The drawings are fairly simple, the top one is the tip of a branch of Northern White Cedar including some of the pine cones. These trees were growing around the old farm house that is on the property and aren't something I often see in the woods I visit. More typically I see Eastern Red Cedar, I am saving that drawing for a later date. In the center of the page I did a close up sketch of one of the pine cones as they are really very simple compared to most pines and I didn't feel the top sketch really depicted that.

Bottom drawing is a tree stump that was covered with shelf mushrooms. They may not be doing any growing at this time of year, but they are still viable. Since my available subject matter has been reduced I will draw anything that strikes my fancy, expect to see more tree trunks before spring arrives.

I made the above photo at Borderland and is of one of the ponds, there is a small grouping of mallard ducks in the center of the pond. I think they were all females and spent most of their time feeding. I selected this photo because of the light/shadows and the colors of the clouds. The photo was actually made in the middle of the afternoon, but with the nearness of the winter solstice, daylight is short this time of year and the sun was already getting low in the western sky.

That is it for today. Hope everyone is enjoying good health and getting ready for the up coming Holidays. Per usual comments are welcome.

Making my own Journal

2011-12-09T16:02:00.001-05:00

I have only been doing a little drawing these past few days. Mainly I have been focused on putting together a blank Journal to take with me to Chicago this year. The idea is that I will do sketches/drawings to document this holiday with my family. Last year I was working on the Sketchbook Project and I thought it would good to have another similar project for this year, just not as many pages.

The idea is also an out growth of the Sketchbook Challenge I have been following. Over the past year I have been introduced to many artists who journal their vacations. So I thought why not. I didn't want a book with a lot of pages (the Sketchbook Project uses Moleskin and they are larger than I wanted to use) so my next option was to make my own.

I have done some binding, notably for my Portfolio Resume. The type of binding I used for that can be used to make larger booklets/books (Coptic binding). So I purchased some fairly heavy weight paper and cut it to a size I wanted to use. Found some heavy cardboard to cut for covers and proceed to poke holes.

The image above basically shows some of the steps I went through to create the book.

Top image is the cover design I finally came up with after a lot of thought. It is based on a photograph I made several years ago along the edge of Lake Michigan looking toward downtown Chicago.

Second is a photo of the 3 prepared "signatures" with the top and bottom covers.

The next image skips the assembly step of attaching the signatures to the top and back covers. You can visit the web page I used for instruction here. This image shows the assembled book after I had applied a coating of Liquitex Gloss Gel to both the front and back covers to protect the paper.

The last image shows the step of gluing the first and last pages to the covers, I suppose this isn't necessary but it does attach the covers a bit more securely.

The image at the top of the blog is the finished Journal ready for me to use size is 7.5 x 9 inches.

I am fairly pleased with how this came out though I do have a couple of issues with it. The lettering on the cover could have been better and while you can't see it one of the signatures isn't in line with the others, getting that right will take a bit more practice I think.

Below is my Nature Journal page from Monday's visit to Daniel Webster.

Top image is just a small branch of a European White Birch. The birches over at Daniel Webster seemed to be a bit confused about what season we are in and are starting to send out these flower catkins. They aren't blooming, and as the weather has turned much more seasonable in the last couple of days they probably won't, as for what will happen to them come real spring I have no clue but will be watching.

The bottom two sketches are of a couple of split seed pods I found in the grass near the Visitor Entry building. I don't know what they come from, nothing around the building. But I have a feeling the source isn't that far away either. I just liked the shapes and thought I would draw them.

Below is a photograph I made Monday.

It shows bare branches against a blue sky with a few scattered clouds and a half moon rising in the sky. The moon was really visible that afternoon so I thought it would make a good subject.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are welcome.

An Update, Nature Journals, and a Man

2011-12-06T09:58:00.001-05:00

I will say immediately that this isn't done. Not quite sure where I am going next, but I will be going somewhere. This is the Pen and ink version of my sketch from Thanksgiving with a lot more ink added. So far I am pleased with how it is coming along. One of the next steps I am contemplating is adding some color, but you will just have to wait and see.

Below I have a couple of Nature Journal pages, I have done a few more out and about trips than I have posted to the blog so I am getting a bit behind image wise. Today I thought I would do some catch up.

This was done during a visit to Daniel Webster in Marshfield, MA., Monday Nov. 28th.

The above sketches are top: a dried seed head from a Queen Ann Lace flower. I think they actually look quite pretty and they certainly won't survive the winter so I took the opportunity to draw one now while they are still to be found.

The bottom sketch is of a nest I saw in some bushes. The fallen leaves have left just the stems and branches of trees and bushes. Allowing the once hidden nests of squirrels and birds to be revealed. This nest was small and seemed to be made mostly of twigs.

Below are some drawings from a first time visit to Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary, another MA Audubon site on December 1st.

Broadmoor is located in Natick, MA. not that far from my usual stomping grounds so I am not sure why I haven't visited before. Anyway now that I have been this once I will be going back. The site includes fresh water ponds/marshes, wooded areas, fields and a section of the Charles River. They have quite a few walkways that extend into the ponds for easier viewing of birds and other wildlife. For some reason I actually forgot my camera so there aren't any photo's from this visit.

Drawings are top: a structure I saw in a wooded area, I have to wonder if the sanctuary doesn't host a boy or girl scout troop and this is something they were building, with a bit more branches it would make an excellent shelter.

The bottom two drawings aren't all that impressive, the one on the left is half of a hickory nut that I found on one of the paths. The actual tree (shag bark hickory) was a good quarter of a mile away standing alone in a field next to a stone wall. It is a very large old tree, I am sure the farmer who once owned the land considered it a valuable resource.

The drawing on the right is a grouping of white pine needles. White pine needles usually come in groups of 5 though sometimes in groups of three, and are approximately 3 inches long. I drew a white pine pinecone as one of my early images in the book and thought I should show the needles.

Below is last nights figure drawing.

Yup, that is a guy not a girl. We were supposed to have a male/female pair last night, but the woman caught the flu so we only had the man. Actually I didn't mind, I wasn't sure if I was up to drawing two figures, and having one male suited me just fine. We so rarely get male models that I really enjoyed the change. Not sure how the painters feel about it, but I wish we could have more men. Oddly enough I am finding that lovely young women get a bit boring after a while.

Above is a photo from last weeks visit to Daniel Webster. It would have been nice to have one more goose in the photo, but one has to take what nature provides. OK I know I could Photoshop in a 5th goose, but I don't like to do that, so this is what it is. Still I really like the shapes against that gray sky. By the way the geese are flying from right to left. Hmm maybe I should check my Roman History, I think flying geese were considered some sort of omen to the Romans, hopefully a good one.

That is it for today, per usual comments are appreciated.

Developing a Sketch

2011-12-02T14:21:00.001-05:00

On Thanksgiving (last Thursday) I started the above sketch in my sketchbook. It isn't wonderful, but I thought it had possibilities so earlier this week I transferred the drawing (using tracing paper) to a couple of sheets of better paper so I could investigate those possibilities.

The above version I am doing using just pen and ink (at the moment) and it isn't very far along. I haven't really done enough with it for me to decide one way or another how I feel about it. But I also am not at a point where I would tear it up and work on something else.

This one is being done on Velum Bristol board, a smooth white paper, that until I started using Stonehenge and Hot Press Watercolor paper was my favorite paper to use.

Above is the colored pencil version I am working on. It is a bit further along than the ink version is, not surprising as I started it first. With this I am feeling that something is not quite how I want it to be, but haven't quite put my finger on what is wrong. Well maybe wrong isn't the right term, but about the best one I can think of at the moment. I think it needs more complexity, but have to figure out just how I want to introduce it. If you have a suggestion I would love to hear it.

Below is a Journal page done last Saturday with an image from my visit to the Blue Hills Reservation.

It was a warm day (upper 60's) and there were hordes of people out enjoying it at the Trailside Museum parking lots. I think most of them were actually climbing Great Blue Hill, but there were plenty wandering around the Museum and grounds.

The drawing is actually from a photograph I made in the Houghton Pond area. The man had been walking his dog and both of them were playing with a white ball that was almost as large as the dog. The dog would sort of push it around and the man would kick it for the dog to chase. Both seemed to be having a good time.

As I recall the round object in the man's hand was one of those leashes that automatically unroll and then contract depending on how close or far the dog gets from the owner. I see a fair number of these when I am in the State Parks (they allow dogs) and it certainly has to be easier for the owner since the dog can run a fair distance and explore all without tangling a leash on the ground or around some trees or bushes.

Below is a Photo I made at Houghton's Pond:

This is just a photo of the pond showing the reflections of the trees and sky on the surface. Amazing how the sky looks bluer in the pond then it does in the real sky. As you can tell there wasn't much wind so the surface of the pond was a perfect mirror.

That is it for today. Per usual comments and or suggestions are welcome.

A Sheep, a Figure and a Nature Journal

2011-11-29T09:54:00.001-05:00

A friend saw my sheep sketch from a couple months ago and asked if she could acquire it. I replied that the sketch in question was just a sketch, not very large, not on good paper and that I would be happy to redraw the sheep for her, larger and on better paper. The above image is my finished sheep. I don't think I need to add that I am quite pleased with it. The sheep looks woolly as all good unshorn sheep should in late May, which is when my reference photograph was made

We are having very warm weather for November (60's), so last Friday I decided to take advantage of it and pay another visit to one of my sea side Parks. In this case I chose Ellisville Harbor State Park in Plymouth, MA. Below is my journal page from that visit.

Not much in the way of drawings. On my way down to the beach I noticed some bushes with leaves and seed pods on them. I picked a small branch from a bush and location where it should not show and proceeded to draw it. I wasn't thrilled with the first drawing (top) so changing my view slightly I drew it a second time.

I am fairly sure that the bush is a Japanese Andromeda. In the spring it will have waxy bell shaped flowers on a stalk. These are one of our earliest spring flowering shrubs, they will bloom even before the forsythia. I have of course no clue how these bushes got into the park. But the land was only fairly recently made a park so the bushes were probably planted by the former property owners.

Next two drawings are of 2 shells I picked up on the beach. The one on the left was so worn that all that is left is the white inner shell. The one on the right while a bit worn still has its brown striations. Both are sea snail shells. Since the tide was out during my visit I found several snail shells that were still occupied by their owners. Needless to say I did not bring those home.

Below is my figure drawing from last night:

Without the promptings of last weeks attendee last nights setting was far less complex. Well excepting for the fabric that is draped over the couch.

In a way it is not entirely fair of me to draw only with graphite. Scott changes the colors of the background fabrics from week to week and I can only suggest those changes by value differences. Last nights colors were a grayish blue with splashes of yellow orange. The piece of fabric by her right arm is black velvet. It adds interest to the colored paintings that the other attending artists make. Without color I can only suggest that different fabrics are layered on the couch by using different values for each area. Anyway here is last nights effort, not too bad if I do say so myself. The model was pleased with it.

Below are a couple of photographs that I made last week at Ellisville Harbor.

The waves, wind and rain can do a number on the beaches and bluffs overlooking them. Tides have been high this year and between tides and rain the bluffs are being eroded. I am not sure how many more storms this tree will survive, the land under it has already been mostly worn away. I doubt this tree will be there come spring. Beyond it you can see the beach with its exposed rocks since the tide was almost at its lowest.

Above is another beach view, this section of the beach has more sand, and you can tell the visiting dog was enjoying his dip in the ocean. I have to wonder if the owners have to rinse it off when they get home. The land in the distance is Cape Cod.

That is it for today. Per usual non-spam comments are welcome.

Black Friday Alternatives

2011-11-25T07:59:00.001-05:00

It is the day after Thanksgiving here in the USA, a day known as Black Friday. Because today is the day that retailers hope to start making their profits for the year off of all the Christmas shoppers who flock to the stores for the Black Friday deals. I am not one of the shoppers. I in fact am going to head out to one of the State Parks a bit later hoping to spend some time with my camera and Journal.

I drew the above glass yesterday while I was celebrating Thanksgiving with friends. A glass of wine (or two) with good food and friends is an enjoyable way to spend a day, esp. a holliday. Course I did overeat a bit (and now probably shouldn't eat for a week) but otherwise had a great day.

Above are some sketches I also made yesterday, not really portraits of my friends (not accurate enough) but as quick gesture type drawings they aren't bad.

Below is my Nature Journal Pages from last Monday's visit to Daniel Webster.

Monday was more seasonable weather wise then it has been (cooler), and it was the first time that I didn't see any turtles out sunning themselves on either rocks or the logs in the pond. I have a feeling they are gone now until next spring, having buried themselves into the pond mud to spend the winter sleeping.

Sketches are a bit strange today, I didn't draw the tree stump as I didn't think there was any change in water level between my visits. Instead the top drawing is of some dried leaves and fruit/berries I found attached to a broken off branch. Not sure of the species I think a form of Cherry.

The bottom drawing is of a sight I saw on one of the wooden walkways. A dead mouse next to some droppings that some largish animal left. Probably not a dog, visitors are not allowed to bring dogs into the sanctuary. Besides it didn't look like dog droppings, and I have seen lots of those over the years. Maybe a deer or a fox left it, though I didn't see either on Monday.

I have never actually seen a dead animal before on my visits to any of sanctuaries (well dead seagulls down on the Cape, and the remains of a squirrel hanging in a tree) so find it very strange that I saw this one. How did this dead mouse get there? I would think that any predator who had killed it wouldn't have just left it for me to find. I didn't pick it up to examine it, but I didn't see any blood. So did it just die on the walkway or did it get dropped and left by an owl, hawk or fox? Obviously I will never know, and while I know it is a bit strange for me to have used it as a drawing subject, it was so out of the ordinary that I just couldn't ignore it. My journal is to document nature, and sometimes nature isn't very nice.

Below a couple of photos from my visit.

Above is a view through the leafless trees of one of the raised walkways at Daniel Webster. In one area there is an extensive stand of European White Birch and this is a photo of part of that area. Since the ground underneath the walkway can get very damp and sometimes be covered with pools of water they wisely decided to install the raised walkways. It keeps the ground from being turned to mud, and also keeps the visitors on the paths, safer for the animals/birds, esp. in the spring.

This photo was made from the parking area at Daniel Webster. You can see a largish flock of Canada Geese feeding on the grass, and part of the fence that circles the area. That large shadow toward the center of the photo is from a vehicle barn/shed they have on the property. There is a small group of structures in that area, probably left from when this land was a working farm.

Enough for today, per usual comments are always appreciated.

EDM #24 with Journal Pages and a Figure

2011-11-22T11:26:00.001-05:00

When I am not quite sure what to draw or need a quick drawing because I have been busy with other projects that aren't quite ready to be shown I fall back on the Every Day Matters list of Challenge's. It has gotten to be quite long so I can go through it and select something that I feel in the mood to draw with little difficulty. The other day I selected #24 Draw a piece of fruit. I happen to have an apple on hand so it became my subject.

Not too bad for something done fairly quickly. Still it was a bit of a challenge to suggest the striations on the apple along with the shadows. That white oval is the store sticker identifying the apple type, bar-code and source.

Below is another Nature Journal Page, this one from a visit to Borderland State Park last Friday.

I expect these will be my last leaf images until next spring. Well I may do some evergreen leaves but there aren't that many evergreen plants in my local woods so there won't be many.

I am not sure what the top leaf is, there were several trees that it could be, but in the end I couldn't make a positive identification so I will leave it as a mystery for now and hopefully next spring I will be able to figure it out.

The middle leaf is from a Norway Maple. The leaves turn yellow in the fall and can hang on a bit later than the Sugar Maples do. It does look a lot like a Sugar Maple leaf, but there are some differences that make it possible to identify the species. The Norway Maple is not native to the US so trees found in the woods are volunteers from plantings around homes.

The bottom sketch is of a small dog I photographed while on my walk. I have sketched in just the hint of feet and pants of the owner in the background. The dog was wearing some sort of sweater as the day was a bit chilly. I expect I will be including a lot more people and dog images in the Journal, it is that or just landscapes as winter sends wild animals away or into hibernation.

Below is my figure drawing from last night.

Does the setting for the model look different? It certainly ought to. Last night one of the women who sometimes models for us came to draw and she asked Scott if we couldn't have a more complex setting, so they set up a still life to act as a background for the model.

Yikes, I admit that all the visual distraction gave me a bit of a problem early on, esp getting the angle of the body/head correct in relationship to the cart and other materials in the center of the image. In the end I did leave things out and others I only hinted at. Otherwise the result is more successful then I expected at the first break.

The lighting source is also different, usually it is from a low source and last night it was shinning down on her. A lot is very sketchily done, but I think there is just enough detail to give the viewer something to look at.

Below are a couple of photographs from my visit to Borderland.

A leaf falling onto the surface of one of the ponds. I am not sure I have the crop right. I did play with it a bit before selecting this image. I wanted some context for the leaf, not just leaf and water. A narrower crop just didn't feel right.

This is just a photograph of the path I was walking. Totally covered with fallen leaves, and showing the shadows of the tree trunks on the path. But this view won't last, people walking will break up the leaves, the wind and rain will move them off the path, so this photo has like many captured just a moment in time.

That is it for today. Hope you enjoy reading my blog, and per usual comments are always appreciated.

Some Pencil Play

2011-11-18T09:15:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I like to take my sketchbook, start drawing a doodle (more or less) and see what happens. Usually they don't go anywhere but sometimes I develop them into something that I like and want to explore further. The above pencil drawing is one of those. Using tracing paper I transferred the major shapes to a piece of cream Stonehenge paper. The images felt like they should be in browns so pulling almost all of my brown colored pencils out of their slots I worked on the drawing. I added a couple of blue greens and yellows to the mix to add variety to the colors.

Below is the resulting drawing.

I rather like it, though I am finding myself thinking about what could be added or changed. What I really like is the color combination of the browns with the sort of turquoise blues. In reality I am not going to add more background, I think it would only be distracting to the already complex shapes. It doesn't have a name just yet so if anyone has any suggestions please leave a comment.

Below are my Nature Journal pages from Monday's visit to Daniel Webster.

The top drawing is my usual tree stump, I think it may have shifted a bit more in the water. The water level seems to have gone down a bit from last week, but the way this stump is shifting around it is a bit hard to tell. Anyway it is still my best indicator of water levels so I will continue to draw it.

This week there were four turtles hauled out on the trunk enjoying the sun. Each week when I arrive at the viewing blind I am wondering if this will be the week that I no longer see them, but each week, so far, they are still out and about. I have to wonder just how much longer they can stay active.

The center section is of some tansy flowers and leaf. Because of our warm weather and lack of a really hard frost (despite snow on a couple of occasions) the tansy is still blooming at Daniel Webster. I didn't draw the leaf very well, but the flower heads are rendered fairly accurately.

The last drawing is of a robin sitting in some sort of cherry tree that still has a lot of berries. Actually there were 4 robins in this tree, all dining on the fruit. They let me get fairly close with the camera before flying off. I am sure that as soon as I left the area they all came back to resume their interrupted meal. I expect the tree will be picked clean on my next visit.

Below are a couple of photographs from my visit to the Sanctuary.

A view of one of the bends in the river with the edge of a stand of Red Maples. It was a beautiful day Monday, though really too warm for this time of year, but I will take what I can get. You can see that these trees have totally lost their leaves so at least the next snow fall shouldn't take down any trees.

I photographed this dragonfly on the railing of one of the bridges that span the river. I didn't really expect to see it but there is it. This week I didn't hear any crickets in the sanctuary. I had been hearing them in the grasses near the river but this week they were silent.

That is it for today. Comments are always appreciated.

A Lamp, a Journal, and a Figure

2011-11-15T10:06:00.001-05:00

I should have been working on my sparrows, but instead I decided to do a quick sketch. From the Every Day Matters challenge list I selected #2 Draw a Lamp, desk or other. My lamp is other. It actually sits on the back of a chair, I don't have the scale of the chair vs lamp correct, the lamp isn't that large compared to the chair, but you get the idea anyway. This is a very useful lamp for when I am sitting in the chair and need extra light.

Saturday was another beautiful fall day, so I decided to visit Massasoit State Park. Below is the journal page from that visit.

Not very exciting I fear. The top drawing is of part of a branch of a sweetfern bush. These are low shrubs that spread not only by seed but by suckers from the parent plants. The leaves do look a bit like fern fronts. To me they remind me of rick rack. The plant has a pleasant fragrance when the leaves are crushed, and it is native to these New England woods. It tends to grow in disturbed or rocky soil and by roadsides.

The bottom drawing is of the fruit/berries/rose-hips of the mutiflora rose. This is the small many blossomed white rose that has invaded so much of our habitat. Not native to the U.S.it can now be found in many shore or woodland areas. The berries are small and not as large as the fruit of the rosa rugosa, but they do look pretty in this late fall landscape.

Below is my figure drawing from last night.

Actually I am fairly pleased with this one from last night. Not totally happy with her face, but I have her lying in/on the couch not floating over it. I do unfortunately have drawings where the model seems to be floating on top of the couch. Not the effect I am looking for at all needless to say. For some reason it isn't always easy to convey the visual information necessary to show fabric in front of the body. After doing this for a year and a half (approx.) I think I am beginning to learn how to convey that information. That said, please understand that I am still learning and each weeks pose presents its own challenges. At least I am much more comfortable drawing the human form.

Below is a photograph from my visit to Massasoit.

American Beech and Oaks are the last trees in my local woods to turn colors and drop their leaves in the fall. The above photo is of a small Beech tree surrounded by sapling oaks. It is being lit by an afternoon sun. I love this combination of colors, the gold/yellow of the beech contrasting with the rich red browns of the oaks. The green in the background belongs to the White Pines so often found mixed in with these trees.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are welcome.

November 12th Update

2011-11-12T00:09:00.001-05:00

I should have done this update yesterday, 11-11-11, such a cool date, and it's like won't be repeated again for a very long time (100 years). I certainly won't be around to see it. But I needed to finish a couple of drawings before doing this update so I had to delay it. Still 11-12-11 is sort of a cool date but not quite the same. Oh well, I am not going to beat myself up over the delay.

Above is a sketch I did based on the Every Day Matters list. The drawing of a peanut butter jar is my take on challenge #7 - Draw a bottle, jar or tin from the kitchen. I love peanut butter and so far at least I am lucky enough to not be among those who are allergic to peanuts. With luck I never will be, though one of my Aunts did develop a peanut allergy late in life so you never know.

Anyway my drawing was done with graphite in the sketchbook I have set aside for this project. I am not being very consistent about getting these done, too many other projects, but they make a nice filler for when I am at a bit of loose ends.

Below is an update on my sparrow drawing.

I actually did most of the work on this several days ago, but today I spent some time refining outlines to have a bit more accuracy. Eyes and feet needed slight re-positioning. I will let it sit for at least another day then I will check details against my reference photographs once more before starting the tricky part, inking in the birds.

Sorry the image is so light, but I am using a 2H lead for the outlines so I can erase them later when I finish inking the images.

Below is another Nature Journal Page.

Wednesday I drove south and visited another MA Audubon site. Allens Pond in Dartmouth, MA is another coastal sanctuary, within the boundaries of the sanctuary is an ocean front beach, an estuary, a fresh water pond and some wooded areas.

I started my visit to this property by walking the beach and doing a bit of beach combing. Picked up a few shells, made a few pictures. The only bird in sight was a lone sea gull that eventually got a bit nervous about my photographing it and flew off. The tide was coming in so it wasn't a good time for shore birds. I then spent over an hour walking the more inland paths out to and around a fresh water pond. I heard more birds than I saw, but that is fairly typical.

Drawings for this visit are top, a couple of views of a honeysuckle vine that I think is a bit confused about the season. This vine had both berries and flowers. The drawing shows a section of vine with flowers, and another section that still had leaves but also berries.

The bottom drawings are of a couple broken shells that I picked up on the beach. One is the the inside of a Moon Snail Shell (the darker one to the left), and the other is a slipper shell that has lost the top of the slipper. The beach at Allens Pond had a lot of slipper shells and just about nothing else. Interesting how different beaches have different types of shells.

Last I will leave you with a couple of photographs I made Wednesday afternoon:

A view of the beach at Allens Pond, as you can see this is a very rocky beach. A more sandy beach which is used by the town is just beyond that rocky outcrop with the shrubs.

This photo shows the path that leads the visitor out toward the fresh water pond. The boards are because the path was very wet in spots and walking on the boards at least keeps the path from turning to mud. Notice the stone walls lining the path. I see a lot of stone walls on my walks but the person who built the ones down here was an expert. Many of the rocks he used were cut/dressed and the walls are higher than I a usually see them.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are welcome.

Green Dragonflies in a mythical world

2011-11-08T14:25:00.000-05:00

I was just playing around with my green colored pencils the other night and the above drawing is the result. Nothing wonderful, but I sort of like the dragonfly which is based on one of the photographs I made this summer. The weird plant is totally my imagination. I used only various green pencils with the addition of white and some Indigo blue.

Below is my Nature Journal page from my visit to Daniel Webster Sanctuary yesterday:

I found plenty to write about yesterday but coming up with what I wanted to draw was a bit more tricky. I really need a better lens for the camera.

There was a lot of wild life to be seen yesterday. At the birdfeeders by the entrance I saw squirrels, a chipmunk, cardinals (male and female), titmice, chickadees, redwing blackbirds, grackles (I think), house finch, a junco, blue Jays, turtle doves, downy woodpeckers and a Hairy (which is larger then the downy), and I am sure there were a few sparrows in the mix. Now that the weather is turning colder the feeders are becoming more active.

Out in the woods I also heard then saw a woodpecker, but can't tell you if it was a downy or a Hairy, it can be tricky to tell size with field glasses and I had to use them to see the bird. At the pond there were a lot of Canada Geese when I arrived, by the time I left to continue my walk they had all flown off to feed in the fields, leaving only a few mallard ducks. I did see a Hawk fly over the pond, and a couple of chickadees. On my trip round to the northern blind I saw a doe feeding in the same field with the geese. From the northern blind I noticed lots of turtles sunning themselves on logs, and a gray duck feeding out on the pond. I believe this was an American Coot. It was smaller than the mallards and would actually dive under water, instead of just tipping over to feed.

Drawings are of the tree stump in the pond, note the water level is lower than last weeks, but I expected that we haven't had any rain for over a week. Not a bad thing, even with our cooler weather things will get a chance to dry out. Second drawing is of a crow that was sitting in a tree. I was able to approach the tree closely enough to get a photo I could use as a reference. Not always something I can do with the wild life at Daniel Webster.

Below is my figure drawing from last night.

I have drawn this model before. She is lovely and slender, but she gets very restless with her hands, esp. her right hand, which is why the right arm/hand has an unfinished look. It is unfinished, she kept shifting her pose with that hand, and I wasn't in the mood to erase and redraw the entire arm continually. End result is that I am not totally pleased with this drawing. Ah well, one week OK/good and the next week thumbs down seems to be my latest pattern. Lets see what happens next week.

Below are a couple of photographs from yesterday at Daniel Webster.

Not the best photo, but considering how late in the year it is I was totally surprised to be able to make this one at all. I saw at least 2 of these yellow butterflies yesterday, this one was feeding on a dandelion, which is why I had trouble photographing it.

Last image is of Canada Geese taking off from the pond. This was just about the last group to fly off, leaving only the ducks and turtles in possession. It became very quiet when they left, geese can be very noisy birds.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are welcome.

Catching Up with Nature Journals

2011-11-06T14:27:00.000-05:00

I thought I would do an extra posting this week. The weather has been beautiful, sunny if a bit chilly, but not too bad with a warm coat so I have been out and about to various state/national parks.

On Wednesday I decided that I needed to do another trip down to the Cape before winter really sets in. My aim was to go a bit further down Cape and visit the Audubon Sanctuary in Wellfleet. I didn't actually make it that far and instead ended up at Cape Cod National Seashore in Eastham. I actually visited a couple of locations in the Park which is extensive. My first stop was Fort Hill in Eastham. This site doesn't have any barrier beach access and is mainly salt marsh and estuary with some hills and woods, and an old Sea Captains house. I walked several paths down to the waters edge then along the salt marsh for a ways. Going inland I visited the Captains house making photographs.

Highlights of my visit to Fort Hill was seeing a Hawk, who I interrupted at her meal and later at the Captains house a downy woodpecker that was attacking the barn/garage looking for a late lunch.

I then drove further down Cape and stopped at the Visitors Center for the Park in Eastham, then I traveled on to the Coast Guard House and down onto the beach. I walked the beach picking up only a few feathers and making photographs. The beach didn't have much in the way of shells, mostly clam or crab shells that were the remains of a seagulls meal. The tide was on the way in, but I was lucky enough to arrive when it was still mostly out. I thoroughly enjoyed my walk, though walking on sand gets tiring.

My drawings aren't quite as exciting as my photographs (which I will post in my flickr account in a folder if you are interested). The top image is of a Bayberry branch with leaves and some berries. The berries boiled to render their wax are the source of the wax for bayberry candles. Next 2 drawings are of pine needles and a pine cone both belonging to a Pitch Pine tree, a common tree on the Cape. The last drawing is of an Oak leaf from a tree in the Long Pasture Sanctuary (I stopped there briefly before coming home) I think it is from a Swamp Oak, but oak leaves can be tricky to identify, acorns would be better, but there just aren't any this year. The other drawing on the page is of a land snail shell that I picked up at Fort Hill. The shell itself is prettier then the drawing makes it, a pale translucent yellow with a brown stripe.

The page below is from a visit to Ames Nowell State Park, Abington, MA.

I visited this park on Thursday afternoon. It is probably the closest park to me distance wise so it is easiest for me to get to. On Thursday I walked in a different direction from what I have taken before and only have leaves to show for my efforts. The leaves are almost gone from the trees and I felt that I needed to document as many of them as I could before I have to wait until next spring.

The drawings are top: a leaf from a Witch Hazel tree/bush. I found all the leaves on the paths and they were all showing fall colors, mostly yellow or a yellow brown. The middle leaf is actually from an American Chestnut. I wouldn't call it a tree, because of the blight Chestnuts no longer grow to mature tree size in my region, but saplings still grow from the old trees root system and will survive until killed back by the blight. The one I found in Ames Nowell was about 15 feet high, but a long way from being a mature tree.

The bottom leaf is I think a Northern Red Oak. As I mentioned above Oak trees can be hard to identify, leaf shapes even on one tree can have a fair amount of variety, but I think I am correct with this one. A leaf that I previously drew thinking it a Northern Red Oak was probably either a Scarlet Oak or a Black Oak, but I may still have all these wrong.

My next page is from a visit yesterday to Borderland State Park, Easton, MA.

The most notable thing about yesterday's visit to Borderland was the number of dog walkers I saw. Not just on the main trails but also on the trails through the woods. I decided to try and explore a new trail to me so went off the main road/trails into the woods. The top image of a gentleman with his dog was made there.

I also saw a group of Mallard ducks on one of the ponds and walked the Marsh trail, which is aptly named. Despite the fact it has been a week since our last storm the trails are still wet and soggy in spots. Not just in Borderland but also in Ames Nowell. I am thinking I really should get waders so I can keep my feet dry.

The lower sketch is of some seed pods. I don't know what plant they are from, without flowers it can be tricky to identify seed pods unless you can identify leaves. This plant didn't have any leaves left so I am left to wonder exactly what it is.

Below are a few photographs made on my Park visits.

Above is the hawk I saw at Fort Hill. I am not sure what she is, though I am fairly sure it is a she. Female raptors are larger then the males and she was a fairly large bird.

The above photo was made at Ames Nowell and is a view of Lake Cleveland showing what is left of the fall color.

I used part of the image above for my Borderland Nature Journal drawing. The dog had gone on one side of the tree and managed to wrap its leash around it, the man is doing some untangling. The yellow leaves are Beech trees putting on their fall show, and you can see one of the large rocks that the glaciers left scattered around the park lands to his left.

That is it for today. Hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my Journal. Per usual comments are appreciated.

Squirrels and other Animals

2011-11-04T11:00:00.000-04:00

I don't usually post images elsewhere prior to posting them here on the blog, once I have done that I will then post the image around the various groups I am a member of (WetCanvas or Flickr). I made an exception with the above squirrel drawing. It was supposed to be the lead in drawing for last Tuesday's post, but I hadn't gotten around to drawing it yet. Oops, so Tuesday night I finally sat myself down and just drew it in one of my sketchbooks. Since I rather liked it I didn't want to wait to show it off, so my apologies if you have seen this image elsewhere.

The image is from a photo I made on my porch sometime this spring/summer. I do so much line work when I am using pen and ink that I wanted with this pencil drawing to keep lines to a minimum using only tone and shading to suggest them. So I used lots of short pencil strokes and layers to do the body and esp. the tail. I think I did a fairly good job, at least to me the tail actually looks fluffy, and there isn't a solid line between the tail and its back just different values to show they aren't attached. I did use lines around the ears. The far ear esp. was almost the same tone as the wooden boards and I didn't want it to get lost in the image.

I want my drawings to be realistic but not the hyper photo realistic that some artists go for. It can be a fine line, and I hope I am learning how to accomplish that.

Below are a couple more Nature Journal pages.

I am trying to get out and about while we still have fairly good weather. This past weekend has reminded us that winter is coming quickly. A time when it will be more difficult to get out and also when there is less to see in the natural world. Insects are dead or hibernating and so are many animals. Trees won't have leaves and there won't be any blooming flowers. I am already wondering what I will find for my subjects, but I will take it as it comes. Have a feeling I am going to start drawing even more birds and trees and maybe even just bark.

The pages above are from my visit to Blue Hills Reservation last Sunday afternoon after our snow storm. The Blue Hill area didn't receive much snow and most of it had melted by the time I arrived. Though I did make some pictures with snow in them. The above drawings are of two birds at one of the bird feeders, I am taking some license here usually only one bird is at the feeder at a time, though this scene would be possible. The birds are a chickadee (front hole) and a titmouse (rear hole) This particular type of feeder has no perches so the birds actually grab hold of the feeder holes. Means they don't stay very long and only small birds can use the feeders.

The bottom drawing is of a doe. The Trailside Museum has two does on exhibit. This week they were up and about so I made a few photos, this drawing is from one of them. I am leaving out the chain link fence of their enclosure, but otherwise hopefully have managed a fairly good drawing of the doe.

I can remember when the Museum used to have one stag to go with the does and they would have at least one fawn in the spring for the visitors to ooh and ah over. Such breeding is no longer considered acceptable practice so these does live a solitary existence.

The pages below are from my Monday visit to Daniel Webster.

I arrived fairly early at the sanctuary Monday (well early for me) and spent some time on the far side of the bird feeder area making photographs. Usually that area is over grown with grasses but because of Farm day a week or so ago it is still mowed fairly short. I still wasn't quite close enough for me to make good photos of the birds with my camera but I did capture the squirrel in the bottom drawing sitting on the fence post and surveying the feeder area. I made it look fat, but then I think it was, the squirrels are quick to collect seeds the birds drop, and one or two of them have figured out how to gain access to the feeders despite squirrel guards.

The top drawing is of the tree stump in the Pond. The water level Monday was the highest I have seen. The stump has actually changed its position so the level may have been even higher over the weekend. I keep drawing this stump because it is a good indicator of just how high or low the water level is. This week there were no turtles sunning themselves on this stump, though I did see three at the other end of the pond when I visited that blind. Usually this is a favorite spot for them, I have seen as many as six turtles at one time sunning themselves.

The middle drawing is of a section of a Green Brier vine. Most of the leaves had gone except for the single small one out at the tip. This particular bit of vine also had a small cluster of black berries still remaining. Winter food for some bird or animal I am sure.

Below are a couple of photographs from my visits.

The above flower was still blooming in the wild flower garden at Trailside. The white in the background is snow.

Not sure of the name of this river that runs through Daniel Webster, it creates an Ox bow on the land and the Sanctuary has a couple of bridges so a visitor can cross the river and walk through a stand of mostly red maples. This photo was made from one of the bridges. Not much color left here, the trees are almost bare, ready for winter and the next snow storm.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.

All Saints Day, Snow and some Images

2011-11-01T11:58:00.000-04:00

November 1st is All Saints Day, it is also the first day of the Festival of the Day of the Dead. Did you know that you can search on a date and find a listing in Wikipedia that will give you notable events, Births, Deaths for that day? Sometimes it is useful to be able to find such information but otherwise I imagine you could get overloaded with that amount of trivia.

I don't have a new drawing for today, and haven't managed to get any further with my bird. Well I am thinking about adding a second bird and have printed some reference photos but that is about it.

The above photo was made Sunday afternoon at the Blue Hills Reservation. While much of the East Coast and even Central and Western MA got buried in snow Saturday night we here on the south shore only received a couple of inches. It is mostly gone now, though there is some left in shaded areas. The poor central portion of MA is still dealing with it and the aftermath of down trees and downed power lines. They certainly have not had a good year weather wise. Tornado's, Hurricanes, floods and now snow, have all caused major damage to that region of the State. I am thankful to be living in a quieter portion.

I do have a couple of Nature Journal pages to share:

The above page was done last Tuesday on a visit to Massasoit State Park in East Taunton. First image is another maple leaf. This one I believe is from a Sugar Maple. The tree might be a Norway maple (the leaves look similar) but Norway's leaves turn yellow in the fall and this one was more red/orange which is typical of a Sugar Maple. It was a young tree so I couldn't go by the bark.

Next images are related to the ornamental Cherry trees that are planted by the road at the edge of Lake Rico. These poor trees have gotten confused as to the time of year and actually have some blossoms on them along with their fall berries. So I drew both the berries and the flowers. So strange to see an almost leafless tree with small bits of green and white scattered through the branches

The next page is from a visit to Borderland State Park, Easton, MA., October 28th.

The ferns are beginning to turn first yellow then brown. The top drawing is of a fern frond that had turned brown, curling up into just these bits before they crumble back into the soil. Not sure why it attracted my attention, but it did and I thought it would make for an interesting sketch.

The next image is of an Ash leaf. I am not sure the variety of ash as I found the yellowed leaf on one of the paths and wasn't able to identify the tree it came from. Without knowing what the bark looks like it is a bit hard to truly identify the tree.

Last image is of 2 mallard ducks on one of the ponds feeding on something at the bottom of the pond. I call this sketch Bottoms Up as that is all you can see of the 2 birds. Drawn from one of my photographs. I saw more ducks visiting the ponds this past week then I have on other visits.

Below is my figure drawing from last night.

We didn't have a large turn out. One regular was probably hanging or prepping to hang his pictures for a solo show that starts Friday at a local Art Association Gallery in Scituate, MA. Everyone else was probably handing out candy. I don't get trick or treaters so had no reason to stay at home. I was much happier being out and drawing.

I am much happier with this weeks efforts. Not sure about the feet, but that isn't unusual, otherwise I am fairly pleased.

Next a couple of photos from my Park visits.

Above is the photo I used as reference for the drawing on my Massasoit State Park visit pages. The only hint that this isn't a spring photo is the reddish brown blur in the background from some of the fall foliage. Otherwise you are going to have to take my work for it that I really did make this photo last week.

A spillway at Borderland State park leading from one of the upper ponds to the lower ones. We have had so much rain that water is spilling over the entire length of the spillway. When I first visited the park only a little water was flowing over one end. You can see that there isn't a lot of color, mostly brown. Weather has finally turned cold, but too late for this fall.

That is it for today. Lots of photos and only a few drawings. Hopefully the next post will have more drawings, in the meantime comments are welcome.

Starting Something New, Journal Pages

2011-10-28T09:27:00.000-04:00

The problem with finishing a work that I have spent a lot of time on is that I feel a bit at loose ends when it is done, and it can be hard to get the brain to focus on what I want to do next. I have of course been working on the drawings in the Journal pages, but I needed to start something new.

Last week I found myself feeling that the technical pens weren't totally doing it for me so I hauled out the crow quill and a bottle of ink. No I am not going to show you the scribbles I made while playing around the pen, but I did enough that I decided I wanted to try something a bit more focused.

My camera while excellent needs a new lens that will let me take close up pictures of birds without being right next to them, unfortunately the budget won't allow that expense right now, but every now and then I get lucky and get a fairly good photograph of a bird. I used one of those of a sparrow feeding to draw the above image. It is still in pencil and needs to be refined a bit, but I think so far so good. Next step will be applying some ink. Wish me luck, I have a feeling I am going to need it.

Below find a couple of Journal Pages:

The one above is from last Saturday. Daniel Webster Sanctuary was having it's annual Farm Day. They have games for the kids, music, some crafting tents (I avoided them) a Hayride and a few farm animals on display. The event was supposed to have happened back in Sept. but that Saturday it poured rain so they cancelled it and rescheduled for Oct. 22. It got a bit cloudy but at least it didn't rain, and it wasn't too chilly so I think it was a success. I did walk the sanctuary but saw few birds, only some Canada Geese in the fields, I think the rest had be frightened off by the noise of people having a good time.

The first drawing is of my usual tree trunk in the pond. The water level was the highest I have seen it. Covering most of the rocks that the turtles like to sun themselves on. There were just a couple of turtles out Saturday, it could be that despite our warm weather some are starting to realize that it is time to hibernate but I really don't know. I only know that I didn't see as many turtles this week as I have in the past.

Next drawing is a bit hard to make out, it is of the tractor pulling the hay wagon with riders around the sanctuary paths. I think I should have been a bit more sketchy with the background.

Last drawing is from a photograph I made of one of the farm animals, this is a kid (young goat) with an itch. I rather liked the photo, but not sure my drawing did it justice.

Next pages are from my Monday visit to North River Sanctuary.

I often visit both Daniel Webster and North River sanctuaries on the same day. They are only a few miles apart in Marshfield, MA. Because I had been to Daniel Webster on Saturday I decided to spend my visit time on Monday at North River. I walked down to the overlook pier and spend some time just sitting and watching the river. The tide was low and still going out so mudflats were exposed. I got to see some shore birds, not sure just what, they were too far for me to identify even with my field glasses, probably Willet's and or Sandpipers feeding in the shallows and on the mud flats. Also saw some Cormorants diving in the river and then sitting on a raft to dry their wings. At one point a mallard duck swam by, he was also busy feeding in the river. It was a fairly mild day so I enjoyed just sitting and watching.

Drawings for Monday are top: a chipmunk that is taking advantage of a free meal in one of the bird feeders at the sanctuary. They mostly have the tubular hanging feeders for the smaller birds, but they also have this larger one that they spread seed in for larger ones. I have also seen squirrels and blue jays feeding there.

The bottom image is of a boat on the river, several passed by while I was sitting. I was able to photograph this one and though it made a good image for the journal.

Below are a couple of photographs I made on my visits:

Above is a view of the pond at Daniel Webster, notice how high the water level is, and how golden the trees and grasses look. I just like the colors here, the contrast of the golden grasses/leaves with the gray/blue water and sky make I think a beautiful picture.

The above photo was made from the observation pier at North River looking back toward the woods that line the river edge. This is about as good as it gets this year for seeing fall color.

That is it for today. Not very exciting I know, but comments are appreciated anyway.

Mushrooms Finished along with the usual stuff

2011-10-25T11:47:00.000-04:00

Well I worked on this over the weekend and got it to the point where I am calling it done. I expect I could have done more work on the front left, but decided since I wasn't going for total photo realism that I didn't need to work it much further. I laid in enough color/pencil that it looks like wood. Besides, I will be honest and admit that I was getting tired of the piece, not to mention that I didn't want to overwork it. I am mostly pleased with how this came out. The dark values are good and really make the light mushrooms pop.

FYI I did not use any black pencil on this. The darks are several dark browns, a dark grey, and indigo. My Illustration instructor a couple of years ago advised us to not use black unless we absolutely had to. It is a dead color that absorbs all light, if you get a dark using combinations of others colors, your paintings will have more life.

Below is a Journal page from a visit I made to an ocean side State Park last week.

This was a new park for me, Ellisville Harbor in Plymouth, MA. It is on the shoreline with an estuary, marsh, beach, and barrier dunes along with a narrow strip of woods. I spent most of my time walking the the beach, picking up a couple of rocks and shell fragments. The rocks and shells I used for the drawings on the top and middle of the page. The rocks were totally smooth, worn that way by the action of the waves and sand on them. Both are probably quartz, the larger more milky and the smaller round one more translucent.

Both shells were broken a bit, and I am not sure my ink drawings do them justice.

The bottom sketch is of two gulls sitting on a rock surrounded by seaweed. The tide had been almost all the way out when I arrived, but it had already turned and was coming back in during my visit. The rock they were standing on was covered with seaweed and at high tide was certainly underwater. Not sure the species of gull, they have black legs and I think black beaks, though their backs are dark grey. Maybe a Laughing Gull in non-breeding plumage.

Below is my figure drawing from last night.

All I can say is oops, I was not in good form last night. I am not pleased with her face, or her right arm/hand. Good thing I get to try again next week. My excuse is that we had more artists this week, and I was distracted by conversations.

Below are a couple photographs from my visit to Ellisville Harbor:

The view is looking out over the tidal mud flats in the estuary, with brown grasses and some trees on the barrier beach in the middle. The land in the distance is Cape Cod, just across a narrow bit of Cape Cod Bay. The white tower toward the right belongs to a power plant on the Cape.

Not sure just what this is, but I thought it made an interesting photograph. Since the tide was almost totally out I was able to photograph rocks with some attached life forms. This is actually quite small only about an inch across.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are appreciated.

Every Day Matters and Journal Pages

2011-10-21T11:56:00.000-04:00

First two drawings today are from a list of challenges created by a group called Every Day Matters. I believe it all started on a blog and has morphed into a Yahoo Group, a Facebook group and a Flickr Group. The list of challenge subjects has grown to be over 280 challenges long. A new challenge is released every week, so you can see that this group has been running for years. I found the group through one of my Flickr contacts and requested to join.

That was over a month ago. I have been reading the group, checking out links, but not doing any of the challenges until the past couple of days. I did pull out a blank Journal I had around the house and started to set it up to be used for these challenges, but wasn't motivated to draw. Mainly because I was working on other things.

Finally I got around to starting this journey. So above are my first drawings for the challenge, a shoe and a cup. I don't intend to always draw the challenges in order. And since I have realized the the drawings I did for the Every Day in May Challenge are actually from the Every Day Matters list, I won't be re-drawing them. Not sure how often I will be doing or even posting these. But I want to get back to drawing everyday, and this list is a great source of subjects.

Below are two more of my Nature Journal Pages:

Above is from a visit to Borderland State Park, Easton, MA on October 15th. The drawings are just leaves, top is a Yellow Poplar leaf, in the middle is a leaf from a Box Elder and the bottom is a fern of some variety. I have tried to identify it a bit more specifically, but so far no luck.

It was a beautiful day and the park was full of visitors, human, dog (on leashes) and mallard ducks. The ducks were on the ponds, the humans and dogs on the trails.

Below is from my Monday visit to Daniel Webster Sanctuary.

A very breezy day, but also another nice one before the rains came back to visit us. Drawings on this page are the tree stump the turtles love to sun on, saw 8 of them crammed together at one point. I draw it because I can use it as a guide for how high or low the water level is. This week it was lower than last week but not by much.

The next two drawings are both of a Wild Radish plant, the middle one of the flower/seed stalk, and the bottom of one of it's leaves. These plants grow around/in the stone dump which is up on Fox Hill, an observation point in the Sanctuary. They have been blooming all summer, and I thought it was time to recognize them.

Below are two photographs from my park visits.

Not sure what these are, a type of grape I think, it isn't the best photograph but I love the colors of the grapes. I have not used Photoshop on this other than to crop the photo, the colors are as they were, amazing aren't they, ranging from turquoise to purple.

It is so easy to walk by this type of thing and not notice just how beautiful the natural world can be.

This last image was made Monday at Daniel Webster. Canada Geese flying over the pond. I can't recall right now if they were taking off or landing, but either way I rather like this photograph.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.

Figure Drawing, Journal Pages and Mushroom update

2011-10-18T11:40:00.001-04:00

Another update on my mushrooms colored pencil drawing. I am sure at this point you are wondering why it is taking me so long. Well that is sort of the nature of colored pencils to take a long time to do. The color has to be layered, and layered again before you get the depth of color I, at least, am looking for. This drawing is getting there but still have some background and foreground work to do, then probably some touch up on the mushrooms. But it is getting there.

Below is a spread from my Nature Journal about a visit to Daniel Webster Sanctuary Oct. 10th.

Drawings are top: a rose leaf. No flowers but with the cooler (but still warm for this time of year) wet weather we have been having a lot of plants have been putting out some new growth including some of the rose bushes on the property. This leaf is from Multiflora rose, those are the roses with the very small clustered blossoms. I can tell the species from all the rose hips that are still on the plant. Many areas in the US consider them an invasive species since they were brought from Asia in the 1860's and are not native.

The lower drawing is of two geese either flying into a field or coming in for a landing. I was able to make several good photos of geese doing both while at Daniel Webster that Monday. The background is a bit made up but works for the sketch.

I am getting a bit behind posting these pages, and may sneak in an additional blog post to catch everyone up. It will depend on the weather and if I manage another outing this week.

Below is my figure drawing from last night:

Not much to say about this. My problems last night had more to do with the couch than the figure which is unusual for me. The fabric drape is from the first session, as when the model retook the pose the fabric went everywhere but where it had been. So I couldn't add a lot of shadow detail.

It was a very quiet session, with just one other person other than myself showing up to paint/draw. Not sure where everyone was, to early to be Holiday rush and weather wise it was a nice evening.

Last image for today is a Photograph I made at North River, Marshfield on Monday, Oct. 10th:

Yes that is a monarch butterfly, looks newly emerged from its chrysalis doesn't it. There were actually two butterflies at the sanctuary. Hopefully they are both now long gone and on their journey down to Mexico for the winter. This one won't make it back here of course, but it's descendants will sometime next summer.

That is it for today, per usual comments are always welcome.

Mushrooms update, Journal Pages and owls

2011-10-14T11:51:00.000-04:00

Above is an updated scan on my mushroom drawing. I have put more work into the mushrooms and started doing some of the background/foreground fill. So far I am enjoying this and am fairly pleased with how it is coming along. I am not going for hyper-photo realistic but do want them to look like mushrooms growing under a tree.

Below are a couple more pages from my Nature Journal:

Last Saturday I went up to visit the Blue Hills Reservation starting at Trailside Museum where the animal exhibits and bird feeders are. To my surprise they were having an open house event. One of the on site naturalists brought out a couple of owls to show the visitors. I took advantage of not having any cage bars between me and the birds to make some photographs. So the drawing above of a Barn Owl is a result.

The other drawing on the page is of a stem of one of the pine trees growing in the exhibit area along with its pine cone. The trees (there are several) are Eastern Hemlocks. I feel sure that they were planted, my local woods mostly have White Pines as the naturally occurring pines, but I suppose it is possible I am wrong. These are quite large, therefore old trees, so I am fairly sure no one probably knows how they got there.

The pages below were from my Sunday visit to D.W. Field Park here in Brockton.

Not very exciting illustrations I fear. I did have another leaf but managed to loose it, besides I am not sure the species of tree it came from (I have a photo of its' bark) so I will try some other day.

The top leaf is from a Sassafras tree and had turned a lovely red. This is the 2nd Sassafras leaf I have drawn the first having the more identifiable 3 lobed shape. But Sassafras leaves have 3 different shapes, and this is one of the alternates.

The bottom sketch is of a Swamp Milkweed with pods. Somehow I don't notice the plants when they are in bloom but the pods always seem to catch my attention. So I have no photos of the plants in bloom and to be honest I am not sure what the flowers look like. The seed pods are much narrower than the more common milkweeds and smooth. I find these plants around the ponds in the park.

Below are a couple of the Owl photographs I made last Saturday.

Barred Owl

The owl above is a Barred Owl, one of our Native MA owls (we have quite a few). By the time I realized a naturalist had one of the owls out on display the bird was getting tired so I don't have a lot of photographs of this one. A hansom bird though isn't it? The naturalist took this one back to its cage and was going to bring out a Great Horned owl (a young female) but she wasn't feeling happy about being out of her cage so the naturalist decided to leave her be and brought out a Barn owl instead.

I made quite a few photos of the Barn owl, I used one as reference for my Journal sketch above, below is another:

Barn Owl

This is the back view of the owl. I am showing this one because of the beautiful colors of its feathers. I was told that barn owls show a fairly wide variety of coloration differences between birds. This one has a white chest, but there are some with brown on their chests.

I want to make a few comments here, Owls do NOT make good pets. The barn owl above was taken as a young bird by a family who though they could make a pet out of it, only to realize later that it just wasn't possible and that the bird was more work then they wanted to deal with on an ongoing basis. The result is a beautiful healthy bird that can never be released to the wild, partly because it isn't afraid of people but mainly because it doesn't know how to hunt and kill its own food. Being released to the wild would be a death sentence for it. At least it is being used to educate children about wild owls, but it isn't the life it should have had.

Owls really aren't very smart, anyone who wants a smart bird for a pet should buy a parrot (and try to make sure it wasn't a wild caught bird, but bred for the market) Also realize ahead of time that birds require a lot of attention, and are a great deal of work, at least a Parrot won't want a couple of mice everyday for dinner.

There is lot of young adult, or even adult fiction out there that makes the raptors (including owls) out to be smart birds that bond with their owners, in real life they don't/can't. They really aren't smart enough. Falcons have been kept for hunting for thousands of years, but they aren't pets. Not to mention that it is illegal to own one of these birds unless you have a license. Sorry for the long rant, but it really annoys me when people think they can take wild animals and make pets of them.

That is it for today, comments per usual are welcome.

Colors of Fall, Nature Journal, and Figure Dwg.

2011-10-11T14:42:00.000-04:00

I am going to call this done. There isn't much tooth left on the paper anywhere so even if I wanted to make more changes my ability to do so is limited. Didn't come out quite like I expected. The old issue (for me) of a clear focal point again raises its head. I almost used a tan for a background color but decided to go with the turquoise instead. Ah well, I think I am done with this concept for a while anyway, though it has been interesting to work on. This is a bit larger then I usually work, 7 x 9 inches, on hot press water color paper, ink and colored pencils.

Below are a couple of Journal pages from a trip I made down to Massasoit State Park last week:

Drawings are from the top down: Tamarack leaves/needles, leaf from I think a Amur Honeysuckle bush, leaf from a Big Tooth Aspen, and a sketch of Running Ground Cedar, a type of club moss.

Massasoit has a pair of Tamarack trees that stand in a clearing near the parking areas for Lake Rico. This type of pine tree actually sheds it needles each fall. I had tentatively identified the trees from the pine cones I drew earlier this summer, but it took finding some newly sprouted needles for me to really verify it. This is not a tree I am very familiar with, so really couldn't believe my initial ID. I hope to make a photo of them when the needles turn a golden brown. Wish me luck.

I had a hard time identifying the leaf from the Honeysuckle bush, and I am still not sure if I am correct. This bush has red berries which are slightly translucent, but not as translucent as some I have seen. I didn't find a photograph of the Honeysuckle berries on-line just descriptions so the more I think about it, the more I am convinced I have the wrong identification. Will just have to keep researching this leaf I guess.

The ground cedar was fun to draw. This is another of those low ground covering plants that are found in our local woods. The plant has sent up a spore stalk. It is a member of the club moss family, and as a moss has no flowers.

Below is my drawing from last night:

My only comment on this is that I am not quite sure that her folded leg reads correctly. Otherwise it came together fairly well, I only wish it was a bit larger. For some reason I was drawing small last night. I am using a ledger sized sheet of paper and this drawing would have fit on a 12 x 9 inch sheet. But by the time I realized what I was doing I was so far into the drawing that I didn't want to start over. Next week I need to remind myself to work larger.

Below is a photograph I made while visiting Massasoit State Park:

One thing I really noticed on my visit to the park last week was all of the dragonflies, there were hundreds (maybe thousands) of them on both sides of the roadway I was walking on. Mostly they were on the sunny side absorbing the sun as the day was a bit cool, but they were everywhere I looked. I only made a few photos of them, but above is one. The wings are almost invisible against the grass/ground, but believe me they are there. We will probably have a hard frost in the next week or two so this is probably my last dragonfly photograph for the year.

Journal Pages and Leaves In Progress

2011-10-07T16:42:00.000-04:00

I am making progress with this drawing. I have finished the inking (all that I am going to do anyway) and have started adding the colored pencil fills. The tentative title for this is Colors of Fall, so the colors are going to range from browns, greens, reds (more or less) and orange.

I was trying something different with the light green but looking at the scan I am not sure it works so I will probably be reworking that in the next few days. Otherwise I think I like how it is going.

Below are a couple more pages out of my Nature Journal.

Above pages are from another trip to Borderland State Park in Easton, MA last Saturday. The first drawing is of berries on an Indian Cucumber Root. I had photographed this plant in bloom earlier this summer so couldn't pass up the chance to photograph an update with the berries.

The other two images are from a Sweet Pepperbush, a leaf and a stalk that recently held flowers and is growing seeds. The bushes like damp soil and are often to be found along the shores of ponds, streams and other wet areas.

Otherwise I spent some time walking the trails that wander into the hills away from the ponds. What a lot of rocks this site has, it must have been very poor farmland and the hill areas must have been good only for pasturage. Beech trees with their shallow roots are not at all adverse to spreading their roots over the rock ledges, had to really watch my footing so not to trip.

The second spread for today's posting is from my Monday visit to Daniel Webster, Marshfield, MA:

The mosquitoes were fierce, so I never made it out to Fox Hill. But it was fun to watch the swallows flying over the fields swooping in and out, catching their dinner, hopefully mosquitoes. I picked up the feather, drawn in the middle of the journal page, on the path. There were a lot of smaller feathers scattered around it, so I have a feeling it was the kill site of a small bird by one of the visiting hawks.

I did see a hawk, it was perched on one of the empty bird houses, but too far for me to attempt to photograph it, also too far for me to even make a guess as to what kind of Hawk it was, largish is all I can say.

The other drawings are top: an apple leaf. There are about a half dozen apple trees left on the property, probably an old orchard, they had quite a crop of apples earlier this fall. On one of my visits I noticed a lot of apples on the ground under the trees, but then the deer discovered them and by my next visit they were gone. Since the fallen apples made the air smell like cider I had to wonder if the deer didn't get a bit drunk on their feast.

The bottom drawing is of part of a stem, with berries and a couple of leaves, from a Winterberry shrub. I see a lot of these bushes with their bright red berries at other Audubon sanctuaries. The birds love the fruit so these bushes are a great source of food for them. The berries will stay on the shrubs after the leaves have fallen, bringing a spot of color to a winter garden.

Finally a couple of photographs, the first of a Milk Weed Pod bursting open and releasing its seeds.

I made this over a week ago at Moose Hill, but thought you might enjoy it.

This second photo is from Borderland State Park:

Just a sample of some of the boulders I saw on my walk. I have uploaded more rock/stone wall photos to my flickr account, you can follow the Blog link to view if you are interested.

That is all for today, per usual comments are welcome.

Leaves In Process, Figure Dwg. and Journal

2011-10-04T15:57:00.000-04:00

Above is an in-progress scan of my second version of my leaf pattern. I have almost inked in all the fill areas, then I will have to think about how I want to color this.

Thinking up different fill patterns is both fun and tiring, the first ones of a drawing session come fairly easily, but then I have to think about what to do in the next area. After a bit I sort of run dry and need to put it aside. One reason why this is taking me so long to get to this stage.

The other reason why I have been so slow with this is that I have been working on drawings in my Nature Journal. The image below is from a visit to Stony Brook, MA Audubon Sanctuary last week.

The sketches on the above page are varied. Top is several views of Beech nuts and the enclosed seeds, each nut has 2 seeds, sort of triangular in shape, with the side where the two abut in the middle flat. The seed pod has short bristles and splits into four sections. They are relatively small and I probably wouldn't have found them except I could hear the nuts falling and really looked for them. The sanctuary has a resident population of red squirrels, they are slightly smaller then the grays, and I am sure will be scarfing up these nuts just as quickly as they can not leaving any for other visitors to find.

Next are a couple of birch tree leaves, to the left another of the European White Birch, and I believe the leaf next to it is a native Paper Birch leaf. The leaf below those is a White Mulberry. The tree is on the grounds around the Center building at Stony Brook, not far from the mill pond.

The last drawing is a sketch of a Great Blue Heron against the background of the mill pond. I was walking back toward the center when I came to the area they call the spillway (one spot where the surrounding ponds feed water into the main mill pond). To my surprise just on the other side of the bridge was a Great Blue Heron. We gazed at each other briefly then it took off and I grabbed my camera. Those birds are big, and oddly look a darker gray closer up then from a distance. It didn't go too far and I was able to make a couple more pictures. The sketch is based on one of those photos (actual photo at the bottom of today's post).

Below is my figure drawing from last night.

Model is in a classic drawing class pose with traditional lighting. I am pleased with how this came out. After the struggles of a couple of weeks ago it was nice to have a drawing that seemed to just come together. The only area I am not thrilled with is her foot. Ah well feet can be tricky, what else can I say.

The Great Blue Heron is that white/grey area in the lower center of the photo. Actually for my lens this is a good photo. The Great Blues are very shy, and usually I need field glasses to make them out. Wish I had been faster with the camera, then I would have had a wonderful photo.

Enough for today, I am running late with this update as is. Per usual comments are welcome.

Sun Take 3 progress, and some Journals

2011-09-30T12:42:00.000-04:00

Well this will probably be (for me anyway) a relatively short post. Above is the current status of my third try with my sun design. Note that I have darkened the background significantly with an olive green. I went back to the lighter lime green in the ribbons while leaving the center and the purple alone. I like how the center design and lime green pops against the background, while the purple is still dark enough to also show up.

I have a bit of tweaking left to do, but I think this will be the final version

Below is a scan of an interim step, I had darken the ribbon green a bit and added an overlay of yellow to the gray.

It is OK, but obviously I wasn't satisfied with it. Not sure why I picked the olive green, but once I started adding it to the background I decided that was the way I wanted to go. Then I needed to lift out some of the brighter green and redo the lime green. Both greens show up darker in the scan than they are in real life.

I think I need to live with this for a bit, before deciding how I actually like it.

Below are a couple of pages from my Nature Journal:

These drawings are from my Monday visit to Daniel Webster and North River in Marshfield, MA. I drew the log in the pond at Daniel Webster for the third time. The water level in the pond was as high as I have ever seen it and I wanted to document it. There were about 4 or 5 painted turtles all sharing the same log and catching some sun.

Otherwise nothing particularly to note, no new birds (for me) but the mosquitoes are viscous. I am beginning to look forward to the first hard frost. Esp. as here in MA there is the concern about 2 diseases, West Nile and Triple E, Triple E is by far the worse of the two carried by mosquitoes, but West Nile can be no fun. I do use bug spray and thankfully haven't been bitten yet, but they do sometimes swarm a bit so are a concern.

The drawing of the trees is from North River, note the stone wall in the background. My problem with the leaf and the trees is that I am not sure what they are. The nearest I can come is some kind of Cherry. I think they are Choke Cherry trees, but only spring will really verify that for me. I know what the Choke Cherry flowers look like, even if I am not sure about the leaves or the bark. It is too late for the berries, which I just realized are very eatable, not just by birds and animals but by people.

When I was a kid living in Ill. we had a Choke Cherry tree in the front yard. I am positive that I was told then that the berries were poisonous. Though perhaps I was just told they were bitter and I made an assumption. During my research I recently learned that the Native Americans would crush the whole berry eating pit and flesh together, it was a valuable food crop for them.

The pages below are from my visit to Blue Hill Reservation on Tuesday Afternoon.

The top sketch is of the bird feeder area at the Trailside Museum location. The feeders were busy with Titmice, sparrows and some Chickadees. Over by the pond area the chipmunks were out in force collecting scattered duck food and maple seeds. I was able to make a few good photographs of the chipmunks, though they move so quickly I also made quite a few blurry ones.

The leaves are from trees around the parking lots. The maple is from a large Silver Maple located in the north lot, while the Black Locus leaf is from the lower lot along the roadside.

One last photo:

These pretty red leaves belong to a poison ivy plant. Needless to say I just photograph and don't touch these, though I am not sure how much of the chemical that most folks are allergic to is left in them when they are changing colors.

That is it for today. Comments are welcome.

Mushroom Progress, Journal, and a Figure

2011-09-27T13:05:00.000-04:00

Thought you might like to see the work in progress on the mushrooms. I have added a violet/purple for the shadows. Some of the shadows have had brown or yellow overlaid on the purple, which actually grays the purple and darkens it. Amazing how just a bit of a darker color to indicate shadows can really give the illusion of depth. I am pleased with how this is working so far, but need to do more foreground and background work. I also added a bit more color to some of the mushroom tops

Below find a Journal Page from my visit to Wompatuck State Park in Hingham, MA.

I visited this park for the first time last week. According to the history of the park they have up on a placard it is a fairly young park. Only created in the 1970's when the land was purchased from the Military who had used the site for munitions. The park has lots of camping sites off numerous small roads. Not sure I will be going back any time soon, as it is mostly wooded with fairly young trees, not my favorite walking grounds. Oh, it was named for an Indian Chief who deeded most of the lands that are now in Hingham and other south shore communities to the English Settlers in 1665.

The drawings above are of a couple of leaves, top one is an American Beech. The woods in the park are full of these smooth gray barked trees. The second leaf is a Sassafras leaf, a semi common tree in the woods here in MA. The tree I picked this leaf from was growing beside a roadway. On the bushes underneath it I spied a couple of interesting insects. One was rather large and green, I believe it was a False Katydid. I did make photographs, but they really don't show the insect well so I won't inflict them on you. For the other check out the photo at the bottom of this post.

The last sketch is of the building that covers the faucets for Mt. Blue Spring, a covered spring of fresh water that is safe to drink. The water is free to visitors. Open springs in MA are not safe to drink from, unless the water is boiled.

Below is last nights figure drawing.

I am much happier with how last nights drawing session went. The pose was a bit tricky but I rather like the finished piece. We didn't have a very large group last night, but that is OK with me, I enjoyed the session anyway.

Below is my photograph for today:

A beetle of some sort, I really liked the colors which are what first caught my eye. I have no clue what it is or even might be. There are so many types of beetles that my casual search wasn't able to come up with a name for this one.

That is it for today. Comments are welcome.

Sept. Progress Update

2011-09-24T15:25:00.001-04:00

Sun Take 3 isn't finished but I wanted to post an update today. The background esp. needs more work. I am thinking about overlaying an entirely different color, hopefully something that will make that lime green stand out more. If I don't manage that I may overlay the green with a darker color to make it more apparent. I am also not sure if this is right side up, it may be upside down or sideways.

Below is another scan of a work in progress:

I have started the fills on the 2nd version my leaf pattern. Got sidetracked with other things so I haven't made as much progress here as I would have preferred.

On a slightly different note, I was prodded by a question about the focal point of first version of these leaves to look at the finished work in gray scale. Oops, turns out the outer blue and the bottom yellow orange have almost the same value. And while the red really pops to the non-color blind, its value in gray scale isn't as dark as I expected. All in all it was apparent to me that the over all balance of the piece doesn't work without color. Not sure all of this is totally relevant but it is something for me to think about while working on this new version.

Below is my Journal page from Monday's visit to the Daniel Webster Audubon Site:

More leaves, the top leaf above is from a White Birch that turned out to be an import from Europe. I don't mean these exact trees I mean the species. They do make lovely ornamental trees for the yard so at some point trees (or seeds) were brought to America and planted around homes. The seeds escaped as seeds often do and now they can be found growing where they weren't planted.

The leaf below that is a red maple, a tree which will grow in swampy ground. Since most of Daniel Webster was a farm in the past there are only a few stands of trees on the property. These stands tend to be in swampy areas not suitable for farming, so the presence of the Red Maples is no surprise. The young red maples have lovely smooth grayish bark, a way to identify them from other maples.

As fall has just officially started I am trying to capture as many leaves as I can before they disappear from the trees until next spring. I am finding them quite interesting to draw, each so similar but so different.

The top drawing is of a type of bedstraw, not really sure the variety, there are a lot of different ones. This one has little white flowers with 4 petals, and leaves in whorls of 4. There were lots of these plants growing beside the mowed paths. This is an unobtrusive plant, so the drawing isn't very elaborate.

A last photo for today:

The above was made at Daniel Webster this past Monday, and is of some of the European White Birch trees that my leaf came from.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.

WIPS, Journal Page, and Figure Dwg.

2011-09-20T14:54:00.000-04:00

These first two images aren't very exciting right now, but I wanted to post them anyway. They can give you a glimpse into how I go about making some of my art.

The above drawing is my 2nd take on the leaf design I created a couple of weeks ago. This will be a larger work about 7 x 9 inches for drawing area. So far all I have done is trace in the leaf pattern and outline it with ink. Will probably start inking areas today.

The rather faded image below is Take 3 on the sun design I was working with last month. This is actually smaller then the first two works, only 6 inches square. The light marks are still just pencil as I design the elements I want to add to the sun.

Sorry the pencil is so light, but I don't want to add ink until I am sure I want to go this way with this. The sun is already inked.

Below is my field page from an outing I made Saturday to Ames Nowell State Park, Abington, MA.

I visited this park for only the second time on Saturday. I really don't know a lot about this park other than the lake is man made and there is no swimming only fishing and some boating (no motors). The trees seem to be consistently young so I am guessing that it hasn't been a park for very long. The write ups I can find on-line for this park don't give any history or even a date when it was established.

My drawings are of the group gather shelter (worked on by a Eagle Scout troop) which is near the lake but not on it, and of some Wintergreen plants. Wintergreen is another of the common ground covers found in our local woods. The glossy oval leaves will stay green all winter. Both the leaves and berries when crushed give off the scent of wintergreen.

I got a bit, well lost isn't the correct term, but confused might work, not knowing that the trails don't go around the lake, I tried to do just that and ended up making a much longer visit and walk than I intended. My knees are still recovering.

Below is my figure drawing from last nights session.

Not much so say, I wasn't in good form last night, and spent way too long trying to get all the parts in the right place and in the right relationship. The eraser really got a work out, and there are areas I am still not sure about. I seem to be struggling a bit with my figure drawing these past couple of weeks. I know I just have to continue working on it and hopefully things will work out. Rough patches are part of creating art.

I am leaving you with one last image.

The photo above is a rocky outcrop I came across in Ames Nowell. This is a fairly typical formation for this part of the country. Rocks are far too common in fields, which is why the early settlers built stone walls. The lake is just on the other side of this outcrop. Notice how young the trees are, fairly typical for many areas in the park. I would guess that not that long ago this was once all open farmland.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are welcome. Thanks for looking.

Fall Leaves Finished

2011-09-17T12:28:00.000-04:00

Above is the final version of Fall Leaves, color is colored pencils, at least two different colors for each color you see above. In each area I would lay in one color then lay a second color over it. I think it gives the colors more depth then just trying to use a single colored pencil. Layering the colors has given the original more vibrancy which the scan lacks.

I think I like this, and am thinking that a slightly larger work which is more rectangular might be interesting. Something to explore if/when I feel the need for a new project.

Below is a scan of the current status of the mushrooms:

Sorry that it looks so light, but that is about where it is. I have transferred the shapes to my final paper and have started laying in the mushroom colors. I used red/orange as the transfer color so I won't have to fight any graphite on this. There is graphite marking the outer edges but I have lightened it a lot and will lighten it some more before I finish. The paper looks a bit orange here, it isn't actually, I am using cream colored Stonehenge for this drawing. More of my exploring the various Stonehenge papers.

Below are a couple more of my Journal pages:

The above page is from a visit to my local city park. Field Park in Brockton, MA is the home of the city's water reservoir. This summer has been good rain wise so the water levels are actually high enough that water is flowing over the spillways. I have seen years where that wasn't true. I have really spent a lot of time in this park, esp. with the camera, though this is the first time I have written about it in the Journal. It is a popular place to walk and to feed the water fowl.

Images are of a Northern Red Oak leaf that I plucked from a tree. It is similar to the Black oak leaf I drew in another journal entry, it has more tips so it looks more jagged. The second drawing is of a youngish gull. It was the lone gull in a mix of ducks and Canada Geese being feed at one of the lower ponds. Not totally pleased with how this came out, but it will have to do. The gull still had a lot of brown in its feathers. As it ages they will turn white with some grey, I believe this is a Herring Gull.

Yesterday I went back down to Massasoit State Park. They have a cranberry bog right next to the park, and though I really couldn't get a good photo the bog looks to be full of cranberries. I expect the growers will have a good harvest this year.

The images from yesterday are a Sweetgum leaf at the top and a couple of different views of a ground cover called Partridge berry. The Sweetgum tree is a bit odd to find in the Park as we are really north of its usual growing range. Still the south shore winters aren't as cold as the rest of the State and from the size of this tree it has obviously adapted very well. Since it located in the Park entrance area I am guessing that the tree was planted and wasn't a volunteer.

The bottom drawing is actually two different views of a low ground cover plant called Partridge Berry which at this time of year has red berries. They are very pretty against the glossy green leaves. The first view is from the ground, while the second is from directly above looking down on the plants. They tend to congregate together and form a mat covering the ground. It is a native plant that has been transferred to the garden because it stays green through the winter.

The last image today is of Jerusalem Artichokes in bloom. This native sunflower is known for it tall yellow flowers and its eatable roots. I made this photo at Rico Lake in Massasoit State Park.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are always welcome.

Mushrooms and Journals

2011-09-15T11:10:00.000-04:00

Above is the initial pencil drawing I did of the mushrooms I photographed in Great Blue Hill's Reservation last week. Not a bad design but not wonderful either, very ordinary with the clump in the center of the drawing.

Below is the actual photograph I was working from.

I wish I could figure out what these mushrooms are, but there are various yellow/orange mushrooms that grow in clumps, and so far I have only guesses but no positive I.D. If anyone reading knows I would love a suggestion.

Anyway I had sketched these same mushrooms in the Field Journal, and as I was scanning the journal page for a blog update, I realized that I preferred the crop I used in the Journal to the one in the above drawing. Thankfully in this day and age you don't have to actually redraw a sketch to make changes to it, esp. when those changes are only size and scale. So I scanned the drawing, brought the scan into Photoshop and played around with it. The photograph below shows some of the printouts I did of that play.

Sorry for the poor quality of the photo, I was using an old small camera and the batteries didn't want to support the flash. Still I think you get the general idea. I increased the size of my drawing and moved it around the rectangle to view various crops. I don't think I will tell you which one I decided on. I am in the process of transferring it over to good paper and will hopefully have an update if not this weekend then next week for you.

Below are a couple of my Field Journal pages from this past week.

Last Saturday I went over to Borderland State Park in Easton, MA for another visit. The drawings above are either materials I picked up in the park or an interesting site that I noticed during this visit.

The top image is a Shag Bark Hickory leaf, with a couple of Hickory nuts, one without its protective case and the other with part of it still on. Hickory nuts are yummy to eat, but the nuts are small and hard with not a lot of meat in them. Native Americans used them as a food source, and would certainly have known every tree in their territory. The squirrels also love the nuts so I was amazed at the number that were on the ground below this tree. Still the tree is in an area of high people/dog traffic so that may be keeping the squirrels away.

The next leaf drawn is of a White Oak, I picked this one up in the woods. Most of the forests I visit are a mixture of Eastern White Pine, various oaks, and some Beeches. I am trying in the Journal to document the various varieties of trees in each location.

The last drawing is a bit of a mystery, not the drawing the structure. Someone/sometime went to a lot of effort to build this small stone structure. It is about 4 feet high and wide, and maybe 4 or 5 feet deep (will have to pay better attention the next time I visit the park). The area in front of it looks like it could have been a house foundation at one time. Anyway it is too small for any livestock to have been penned in it, except chickens, and I can't see anyone doing that, it would be very hard to clean out. There is no mortar between the stones, but that top stone is very large and really the whole was very well constructed. It is built into a hillside so there is earth around the back and sides. I hadn't noticed this on my prior visits (and yes I had walked by the area before) but some of the undergrowth is beginning to die back so this time I did notice, a puzzlement.

My Journal pages from Monday's visit to Daniel Webster:

The top sketch is of the log they have in the pond. Water level in the pond was up this past Monday from all the rain we had had the previous week and I wanted to document it. I had drawn this log before when the water level was much lower, quite a change. As usual a couple of turtles were sun bathing when I arrived.

The bottom sketch is from a photo I made just as I was leaving the sanctuary. A crow was sitting on the fence near the road and another was sitting on top of the visitor building. Not my best drawings of crows, but it sort of works.

Enough for today, this ended up longer then I expected it to be. Per usual comments are welcome. Thanks for reading.

Leaves, Sort of

2011-09-13T11:50:00.000-04:00

Above is my one of my latest works in progress. It looks complicated but is really very easy to do. I am sorry I don't have more in-process photos to post for this as I suppose some of my readers might have enjoyed seeing how I got to this point.

I was thinking about Zentangles and how you start them with a "string" (a simple line or shape). Then I recalled an exercise from I think my Color and Design class a couple of years ago. But I am sure I learned to do this much longer ago then that, it is sort of a standard exercise that has been around for a long time.

Take a simple shape, in my case I drew the stylized leaf below. Sort of based on the shape of some oak leaves I have been drawing in my nature journal.

I then used tracing paper to copy the shape and to transfer the image to an 8 inch square of Stonehenge paper. I marked 1 inch borders on the Stonehenge but when I was tracing the leaf I sometimes placed it so part of the leaf would be outside those lines.

I traced the leaf ~~five~~ six times, rotating and flipping the design so that the leaves overlapped each other and some of the edges of my paper. The idea is to break up the white space into smaller sections. I then used one of my technical pens to trace the outlines of all of the leaves. I am now in the process of adding fills to some of the sections. When I finish with the fills I will add color, not sure right now if it will be watercolor or colored pencil. Most likely it will be colored pencil as Stonehenge isn't really a watercolor paper, though I understand it will take some water. Come back later this week and I will hopefully have a progress update.

Below is one of my latest journal pages:

Last Friday after 3 1/2 days of rain and clouds, the sun finally came back out and I was able to take the camera off to one of my haunts for a walk. In this case it was Blue Hills Reservation, first Trailside Museum then Houghton's Pond. The mushrooms I saw and photographed growing in a clump at the base of a tree in the Great Blue Hill area. I really like these shapes and have plans to do at least one larger work with them, but am saving it for another post.

The man and dog I saw at Houghton's Pond. He was tossing a tennis ball into the water for the dog to fetch. I think the dog was having a wonderful time.

Last but not least is last nights figure drawing:

I am not happy with the face, I drew it over at least 3 times and just couldn't seem to make it work for me. Part of the problem was the head tilt, complicated by the angle, just not in the groove last night I guess. The one thing I am happy about is that she is lying on/in the couch, not floating above it.

We did have a fairly good turn out last night, three other women and one of our regular males, so it was a good evening otherwise.

That is it for today. I will probably be doing an extra update this week, as I have a couple more Journal pages and my mushroom project to post. In the meantime comments are always welcome.

Gloomy Days

2011-09-09T11:08:00.000-04:00

Today's title references the weather, we have had rain and clouds for the past 3 days and this morning I woke to more clouds. Now the sun is peaking through occasionally and the forecast for the afternoon is sunshine. I just hope they are right, I want to get out and about today after being stuck inside. Poor camera is feeling neglected.

The only good thing about the weather is that I have been working on a couple of drawings. The first two images are of the same drawing, the one above is the final with a more definite suggestion of a horizon, the one below is my initial finished version. I posted it on Wetcanvas and someone made the suggestion that a horizon might be a good idea. So what do my viewers think. The drawing isn't sprayed so I can take the lightly drawn horizon trees out if I want. Just not sure I want to. They do break up that empty middle space.

Obviously parts of this drawing are fantasy while the dragonflies are based on photographs I have made this summer. My title for the work is Tethered, but I am open to other suggestions.

Below is the second version of a work with my stylized sun:

Went with a different format for this one, square instead of rectangle, and I used the white Stonehendge instead of the grey. Some parts of this I like but others not so much. Not sure what that birdhouse is doing there except I needed something in that lower right corner and I was drawing birdhouses in the Nature Journal not too long ago.

I am thinking about trying again to use that sun, third time the charm, right?

No Journal pages today, with the rain I haven't been out to any of my sanctuaries or reserves. Below are a couple of photographs I made last week at Stony Brook.

Not sure what this fungus is, the dead tree they were growing out of was still standing so that made them easy to photograph. Then the sunlight was in the right direction for some great cast shadows. Sometimes a photographer gets lucky.

Then there was this:

Again I haven't been able to identify the type of fungus, the photo is a bit misleading as it is only a couple of inches high. I noticed the color in the leaf litter otherwise might have missed it altogether.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are always welcome, and today I would love your opinion about which version of Tethered you prefer.

Flash to the Past with some of today

2011-09-06T13:28:00.002-04:00

The drawing above is old, really old, I drew it back in 1973, and no I wasn't a child prodigy, I was in my early 20's and exploring drawing shapes and textures with graphite. Here it is over 40 years later and I am back doing the same thing. Well, not quite of course, I am not the same person I was back then, though I think the core me hasn't changed that much. I feel I am now a much more proficient artists, being far more skillful with the human form than I was back in my youth.

I have shown Scott, the artist whose studio I attend for the weekly life drawing sessions, some of my current pencil abstracts. He likes them and is encouraging me to continue working in this style. Since I find it relaxing and enjoyable to draw these I don't need a lot of encouragement to do so.

Below is a wip scan of my current pencil drawing, and no it isn't finished, getting there but not done. I started this when the ink/colored pencil drawing I was working on wasn't going the way I wanted it to. That one is a revisit to the sun I drew in the last colored pencil drawing. The jury is still out on it so you will just have to wait for another post to see what I am up to.

The tentative title for this is Tethered, subject to change of curse, but right now I think it fits.

Next are a couple of more of my Nature Journal pages.

Last Friday I drove out to Stony Brook sanctuary to see if they had any butterflies. I did photograph one, but it isn't my best so I won't post it. The drawings in the Journal are of an acorn and an oak leaf, as there were quite a few leaves on the ground from our Hurricane and some immature acorns. Not as many acorns as I would have expected given the time of year, so I will be interested in seeing how large the crop is this fall. It may be a bad year for squirrels and chipmunks.

Speaking of chipmunks, I watched one scurry down its hole, I wasn't fast enough to make a photo though I did capture another one in a photo a bit later on. I don't think I had realized they lived in holes in the ground which seems silly as I know they live in the woods and not in trees like squirrels, so why I didn't connect them to the holes I occasionally see I don't know.

I went slightly off trail to photograph a downed tree and ended up photographing the green frog in the drawing above. I don't usually see the frogs much less get to photograph them so this was fun for me.

Yesterday I made my weekly trek to Daniel Webster sanctuary:

The Canada Geese are migrating, and they find Daniel Webster a perfect spot to rest on their journey. The mowed fields are a great food source and they use the pond as a large bird bath before they continue their flights. It was fun to sit in the hide and watch the flock behavior. The geese really immerse themselves in the water when having a bath, some even looked like they rolled over on their backs, at least I could see the light under body feathers. After getting thoroughly wet they preen and flap their wings to dry. When the group is finished bathing they pull apart from the rest into an open section of the pond. Then one starts honking and the others take it up, I think it is sort of like a roll call, when it is done one bird will take off first and the rest will follow.

The sketches in the book are top, several geese at the pond preening. Middle is a sketch of some bittersweet with leaves and berries. I think this is American bittersweet which isn't as destructive as the Asian variety, but I may be wrong. The last image is of a Canada Goose in the process of taking off from the pond.

My last image for you today is last nights figure drawing.

Not much to say about this. I am not sure I have her sitting "in" the chair, but am otherwise fairly pleased with how it came out.

That is it for today. We have cloudy sky's and off and on rain in the forecast for the next couple of days. I am sure we need it. The Pond at Daniel Webster was down from last week. Per usual comments are welcome and appreciated.

September Sun and Journal Updates

2011-09-02T10:57:00.000-04:00

It is finished, I think, but I haven't sprayed the fixative on it yet nor have I signed my name. The sun doesn't work the way I wanted it to when I started this. Course I am not sure why or I would fix it. Hmm, maybe if I had put it a bit further up in the sky. Ah well, I was really just wanting to spend more time with my new Stonehendge paper, so this exercise does serve that purpose. Not sure I really like this paper for my colored pencil work. It takes a lot of light layers and I find I get impatient with it.

I am not done with this sun by any means, in fact I just traced it over onto a new piece of Stonehendge and will try something different with it this time. No pillar for one thing.

In the aftermath of our Hurricane Irene, we have had beautiful weather this week so I have been out and about to my various nature sites. Below are 2 pages from my journal.

I was in Massasoit State park for the above page. Mostly in the areas around Lake Rico. Though the day wasn't that hot (upper 70's) it was muggy so it was uncomfortable under the trees limiting how far I wanted to walk. The drawings are of some pine cones I picked up, just about actual size. Not sure what the tree for the smaller ones is, but the longer top cone is from a Eastern White Pine. The bottom two sketches are of a seed pod on a Lady Slipper. Looks like the bloom dries up and just hangs off the front of the pod. I only saw the one seed pod, though I saw a lot of Lady Slippers with the flower stem still standing. At least I know where to go looking for Lady Slippers next spring.

Yesterday I drove up to the Blue Hills Reservation. I started around the Trailside Museum where they have the birdfeeders and a wildflower garden. Not much activity butterfly wise, though I did manage a photo of a yellow butterfly, and did see another Common Buckeye. I have two images in the Journal from that site, the top drawing which is of some seedpods, dry and empty, of daffodils of all things. And a drawing of a New England Astor bloom, plants of which I found blooming on the grounds.

I then drove over to Houghton's Pond and walked around the pond. What I found most to photograph were mushrooms, all sizes, many different shapes and colors. I used two of those photos to draw my last 2 images in the Journal. The first one is a yellow mushroom, and yes it is that yellow, and I had to add the colored pencil color to do it justice. The last mushroom I drew in just black and white as the mushroom is basically black and white. I don't recall seeing that last before and I found it only in one location.

There are a lot of Eastern White Pines in the woods around the pond, this means there is a lot of area with little undergrowth and just pine needles for a flooring. Mushrooms seem to love this environment as I certainly saw a lot of them.

I thought you might like to see the photos of the mushrooms I drew:

This is Not photoshopped, well I did crop the image but the color is the color it was. I have tentatively identified this as a Amanita muscaria var. guessowii, but this stem is smooth and the photos I have seen of the guesowii have rough stems. If it is guessowii it is a poisonous mushroom, though it would probably take a several to do you in, still with this one I would look and not touch.

Last photo, my tentative identification of this one is Old Man of the Woods, eatable, but all sources say not worth bothering with as it doesn't have much flavor. Please note: I am NOT a mushroom expert, even though I think I have identified this one as eatable I may be mistaken, and mushrooms in the field can often look like different species at different stages of growth. Please don't pick and eat wild mushrooms unless you have a guide who knows what they are doing. I am only photographing not picking mushrooms.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are welcome.

Journal Pages, Figure Dwg and a WIP

2011-08-30T10:24:00.000-04:00

Starting out today's post with a couple pages out of my Nature Journal. The top one is from my walk at Daniel Webster made last Friday afternoon, I consider it before Hurricane Irene. The page below I made yesterday prior to going to my drawing session, so it is after. The image above (drawn from a photo when I got home) is of an Eastern Phoebe who somehow flew into the entrance building at Daniel Webster and couldn't seem to find it's way out. Poor thing, I did finally chase it in the right direction, but it did fly into windows a couple of times before it managed to go. I hope it didn't injure itself.

The other excitement for the day was to see a large white Egret/crane at the pond. It was too far away for me to photograph, but I was able to view it well enough through my field glasses to say it was either the white morph of a Great Blue Heron, or a Great Egret, I couldn't see the legs to really identify it. There was also a Hawk who stopped by, and I spent time watching another Eastern Phoebe swooping down toward the pond surface to catch bugs and its dinner. They are very fun to watch. They perch on the dead trees between flights looking for bugs, when they see one off they go only to return to their perch to eat.

Yesterday I did notice some wind damage at the sanctuary, at least one downed tree, and some broken branches. The bird in the drawing above is a Northern Mockingbird, there was quite a small flock of them, I think I counted at least 5 at one point, perhaps this years fledglings. There were also a fairly large number of Canada geese, at least 3 flocks though they tended to merge when they were in the fields feeding so there may have been more. The parking lot also showed evidence of visiting geese.

Some other visitors came into a Hide while I was there and mentioned that they had just seen an Osprey, I didn't see it, but later another couple and I were watching a very large bird in the top of a distant tree. It was too far for us to ID, but now I wonder if it was the Osprey, it was certainly one of the raptors.

Below is a scan of my current work in progress:

I am not entirely sure where this is going, or even what it is, but it is fun to work on. I am working on another piece of my grey Stonehendge paper with ink and colored pencils.

Below is my figure drawing from last night:

I am not totally thrilled with it. Drawing foreshorten legs is not easy, well the actual drawing isn't that hard, but giving the viewer the visual cues they need so that they "see" it as foreshorten is not so easily done.

Irene has left many areas without power, I noticed a lot of non-working stop lights yesterday on my drive over to Daniel Webster. Scott said that the power only came back on in the studio around 4:00 p.m. but that he had brought candles so if it hadn't come on we would have been working by candle light. I have to admit that would have been interesting, though tricky for the painters as it is hard to see color in low light. The color receptors in the eye shut down if there isn't enough light.

I was lucky where I live and didn't loose power except for a few flickers, but I noticed last night as I was driving home that there were still some major sections that were without light. Irene dropped a fair amount of rain on us with lots of wind, still she could have caused even more damage then she did so I am thankful it wasn't a stronger storm.

One last photograph, made last Friday at Daniel Webster:

Not the best photo, I fear it is just slightly out of focus. Problem is this is my best photo out of the series I made of this Short Tailed Swallowtail. Pretty isn't it, so I hope you will forgive me for posting it.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.

Ferns Finished

2011-08-26T11:17:00.000-04:00

I consider this done, well I have done just a bit more tweaking since I made the scan but I doubt it would be noticed so I haven't re-scanned the image. I rather like how this came out. Though I don't think I will use Stonehendge paper for any ink work other than stippling. The paper seems a bit soft. Still it is rated for ink and in this case I think the black and grey paper really work together. White paper would have been too harsh.

I only wish it didn't take so long to do a stipple piece. I have spent many, many hours on this in the past couple of days.

Next just a little drawing:

On my visits to Long Pasture on the Cape I have been photographing the sheep. On my second visit the woman who takes care of them arrived and let them out of their pen. I was able to make several good photos including the one I used as reference to the above drawing. I didn't spend lot of time on this, but I rather like how it came out. A very woolly sheep, which had been sheared the last time I visited.

Another page from my Journal:

In this case I wrote most of the Journal while visiting Borderland State Park in Easton, MA. but did the drawings at home using my photographs as reference. The mushrooms which I wanted to do needed color. While I was on my walk making photographs of the various mushroom that had popped up do to our latest rain, I ran into a woman who was harvesting them. The mushroom in the book are 3 eatable varieties that she had harvested to take home. She had a couple of bins of various types of mushrooms that she had harvested. From her accent I would say she was from Central Europe so probably grew up harvesting mushrooms in the wild. Not something I plan to take up, way too easy to make a mistake. But it was fun chatting with her.

The building in the Journal is the lodge which is down by one of the ponds and has a couple of fireplaces inside. I am sure it was used by the family for summer evening entertainments.

A couple of photos from my visit to the Park:

A view of one of the ponds. There was an intermittent breeze that day but when when I made this photo the pond surface was so flat it was a perfect mirror of a very blue sky.

Not the best photo of this Common Buckeye butterfly. I have one showing both wings but the focus is a bit off, so this will have to do.

That is it for today. Hope everyone on the East Coast of the US is preparing for Irene, my wish is that she down grades to just a tropical storm, but I have a feeling that isn't going to happen soon. Stay safe, stay dry if you can.

Drawing Thread, Journal, figure, ferns

2011-08-23T10:39:00.000-04:00

Above is a sketch of a bowl of thread, another drawing of "everyday" objects. I don't use thread everyday, in fact I haven't sewn anything for months. But this bowl of thread sits on the table where my sewing machine sits and I see it every day. Not my best drawing, but I think I still managed to capture the look of a bunch of spools of thread in a bowl.

Next image is another page out of my Field Journal:

I was out at the Daniel Webster Sanctuary yesterday prior to heading over to the Studio for the weekly long pose session. What a beautiful day, partly cloudy but still lots of sun, a lovely breeze, and temps only in the upper 70's to low 80's, low humidity. I wasn't the only one who felt it was a good day to get out and about. I saw more people yesterday at the sanctuary then I have seen in all my other visits this summer combined.

No special birds though I did watch one grayish bird catching insects at the pond for a bit. I can't figure out what it was, maybe a Mockingbird, though I have never read that they caught insects on the wing as this one was doing. Sorry don't have a good photo of it.

I did perform a minor rescue. When I arrived there was a Monarch butterfly trapped inside the visitors building. I caught and released it outside, I hope it survives OK, it was able to fly away so there is some hope. I didn't make any photo's of it. Seemed cruel to do that when it was trying so hard to get out through the glass of the window.

Below is last nights figure drawing:

Our model was the one we were supposed to have a couple of weeks ago only she didn't show. Humph, well she sat the pose very well last night so I suppose we will have to forgive her. Scott arranged the pose in a very different manner, usually our models are semi lounging but last night she was sitting upright in a chair. Light source was basically on the floor and gave some very strong shadows. Makes it so much easier to draw the model when there are strong shadows. I am fairly pleased, though I struggled a bit to get the shapes blocked, location positions of hands and feet were the issue.

One last drawing, just an update on the stippled ferns:

Progress is slow on this, but there has been progress. More of the background has been filled in and I have started working a bit on the third fern head.

One last photograph:

Made yesterday at the Daniel Webster Sanctuary. Canada Geese coming in for a landing at the pond. There were several bunches of geese at the sanctuary yesterday. I can only assume the geese have started their fall migration and were using the sanctuary as a fuel and rest stop.

That is it for today's post, per usual comments are welcome.

A Field Journal - Sketchbook

2011-08-20T12:42:00.001-04:00

Daniel Webster First Visit May 30th

I want to apologize up front for the poor quality of my scans today. The book I am scanning has gotten wet, and to be honest I am not sure my home scanner is the best option for scanning book pages in the first place.

I have been carrying this book around with me on most of my walks for several weeks if not all summer, but yesterday was the first time I actually opened it to make some notes and a couple of sketches. It was a fairly nice day yesterday sunny, warm, though very muggy so I decided to head over to the Daniel Webster Sanctuary for my weekly visit. Monday is my usual day for visiting but it was pouring rain so I didn't go.

While I was sitting in one of the hides around the pond, I was noting changes from the last time I was visiting and though I need to document this. I happen to have the blank book with me (I have been meaning to do this all summer) so I opened it up and started.

I am not a plein air artist, the bugs get to me, and I don't want to haul paints, brushes and water around, I have too many colored pencils to make it practical to bring them so I will be using just plain black ink. A waterproof Micron is my preferred tool. I will try to do some field sketches but I always bring the camera and will sometimes supplement those images with sketches from my photos.

The top page is a combination of a sketch I made yesterday and others I made at home last night from photographs made on that first visit. I wrote in the journal what I can recall seeing as prodded by reviewing the photographs.

Green Heron

The page above is to mark the visit when I saw the Green Heron. I didn't do much else that day other than sit in the hide watching and making photographs. The sketch is from one of my photos.

Rabbit

The visit documented above was notable for seeing some yellow warblers, at least I think that is what I saw. I tried making a photograph but the birds were feeding on berries in the bushes so not really visible and my camera lens isn't powerful enough to make a good photo under those conditions. I noted that the pond water level was getting very low and watched the dragonflies. On my way out of the sanctuary I saw this rabbit eating grass at the edge of the car park. I made quite a few photos and used one to do the sketch above.

Above are the pages that I actually wrote in the field yesterday. The top drawings on the left of the turtles and dragonfly were done on site. The bottom sketch of the geese feeding in the field was done last night from a photograph I made.

Now that I have actually gotten started doing this, I will try to keep it up. The Daniel Webster is the perfect place to use because with the two hides I have a spot to sit out of the sun, observe nature, and write or draw.

Above is a photo I made yesterday at Daniel Webster. They mow the fields to keep the trees from growing back and turning the fields to forest. Most of what grows in the fields are grasses of various types, you can see them turning golden in the above photo.

One last photo for today. To date, this summer, my best photo of a Monarch Butterfly, made at the North River Sanctuary yesterday afternoon.

That is it for today, if you enjoyed the views into my Nature Journal check out Sketching in Nature, a blog by various artists around the world and their drawings of nature. Per usual comments are always welcome.

Everyday Objects and Butterflies

2011-08-16T12:43:00.002-04:00

The camera and I have been housebound since last Friday. Well I could have gone out Saturday, but I was exhausted from the previous two days so spent it recovering instead. Being inside I though I would do some more sketching for the Sketchbook Challenge August Theme.

The drawing above is of a planter I have. A friend gave this to me years ago and I have always loved the face. I don't actually put a plant in the planter, I keep the plant (an ivy) in a pot that slips into the hole but otherwise it does serve its purpose. I have to keep it on a plate as it is made of a porous material that leaks water on my table top if I don't.

I have also spent some time working on the Ferns, below is an updated scan of progress.

Mostly I have been focusing on the background areas. Still lots of works to do on this before it will be finished, but so far I am pleased with my progress. I also continue to like the soft gray color of the paper in contrast to the black stipple work.

Below is last nights figure drawing:

Not a lot of artists turned out for this session, just the usual standbys. We had a "rare" summer nor'easter yesterday, chilly, with periods of downpours and a heavy drizzle the rest of the time. The ground was dry enough that they didn't issue any flood warnings other than for roadways, so the rain was needed.

Last nights pose looks deceptively simple, but was not quite so easy to draw. The model is a lovely slender young woman with blond hair. I know I didn't do a good job on her hair, and am also dubious about the hands and feet. Still I enjoyed the evening out despite the rain.

Because I haven't been out with the camera since my last post I thought I would share a couple of my recent butterfly photographs with you.

The above is a Purple Red Spotted Butterfly. Well I think that is what it is, even though mine only has a couple of red spots and no purple (that I could see). I made this photograph last Thursday in the Great Blue Hills Reservation over by Houghton's Pond. I was actually on a path through some trees when I saw this one flitting along, it obligingly settled in the only patch of sun light for me to make the photograph.

The above photo was made last Friday at Long Pasture Sanctuary on Cape Cod. I have been totally unsuccessful identifying the species. It is one of the pair I showed you in my last posting, just a different photograph. Ah well, I keep hoping I will figure it out one of these days. More butterfly photos are posted in the Insect Album on my Flickr Account.

That is it for today, per usual comments are always welcome.

Drawings and Photographs

2011-08-13T10:45:00.001-04:00

The Sketchbook Challenge theme for August is Everyday Objects. Since I didn't manage to do any drawings last month based on their theme (Elements) I decided I had better do something this month so selecting an object that is part of my everyday drawing life I drew. Not sure how much time I spent on this, not all that much, maybe an hour or so. For those who don't recognize it, it is a 3mm mechanical pencil lead sharpener. When I posted this to the flickr Sketchbook Challenge group someone commented that they thought it was a sippy cup at first glance. I suppose it does look a bit like a sippy cup, esp as from the drawing you can't tell how large it is. In real live it is much too small to hold something to drink.

The photo below is of a new stipple drawing in progress:

This spring I made a photograph of a clump of ferns popping up out of the ground and starting to unfurl their fronds. They were still pretty much curled when I made the photo, as you can see in the lightly penciled drawing above. Anyway I really liked this photo and decided that it would be a good subject for a pen and ink drawing. The paper is really gray, one of the tinted Stonehenge papers to be exact. Stonehenge is a fairly sturdy paper popular with Color Pencil artists. I purchased several sheets a couple of weeks ago and am still experimenting with it to discover what I like and don't like about it.

You will note that I am not that far along with the stippling, the reason is that I have been out and about making photographs. The butterflies are finally semi cooperative and I have posted several of my better ones to my Flickr account (link to my account is on the right). The past couple of days have been beautiful weather wise and I really had to take advantage of it.

Yesterday I drove down to Cape Cod and finally spent some time in Sandwich. Photo below is the old Grist Mill near Sandwich center.

I also finally managed a visit to the Thornton Burgess Museum and garden which is located on the Mill Pond, the photo of the Dill blossoms below was made in their garden. The museum is housed in a very old home with examples of his illustrations for his many books and stories hung on the walls. The wooden floor in the house is amazing as the boards used were about a foot wide, not something you would ever find in a more modern house. The museum is well worth the time to visit.

Finishing my look around Sandwich I drove further down the Cape to again visit Long Pasture, the MA Audubon sanctuary. I strolled the paths through the fields checking out the small wild flower garden areas to see what I could find to photograph. The photograph below of two butterflies on the same plant was my reward.

I have no clue what these guys are, I spent a fair amount of time last night researching various images, but still haven't managed to ID them. I also saw a Tiger Swallowtail, several monarchs, a couple of yellow butterflies, and a small brown butterfly, but wasn't able to make any good photos, frustrating. Photographing butterflies takes patience and luck as they often don't want to cooperate. Still I really enjoyed my day out and about even if it did leave me exhausted.

That is it for today. The weather is supposed to change this weekend with rain moving in sometime tomorrow. Good for the lakes and ponds which are a bit low, still for August everything is still fairly green, so there is no drought here in MA. Per usual comments are welcome, and if anyone can ID my butterflies please let me know what they are.

What can you do with a doodle?

2011-08-09T10:47:00.001-04:00

Fold in Space

Make a colored pencil drawing such as the one above.

I would have reversed the order of these first two drawings except that the colored pencil one is prettier so I wanted it to show up first. A problem with blogs is that the first image is the one that will be used as a reference image for a post. Because of that I prefer to post the best/most colorful images first. It does take away the ability to unveil a drawing but there it is.

Anyway the above drawing started out as a pencil doodle. The doodle turned into the drawing below. I liked the shapes so decided to transfer the basic drawing to better paper and add color. The paper is 8 x 8 inch Stonehenge, a paper that many color pencil artists seem to love. I have to use a bit more of it I think before I decide if I like it or not. It does require that the color pencils be layered in light layers until you finally reach the coverage you want, but otherwise it does take pencil well. I have been playing with it using some of my ink pens and will let you know how I like it for ink some other day. Pencils used were my Derwent's, Artists, Studio and some of the Signatures.

Below is last nights figure drawing:

Not sure about this one. It did turn out a bit better then I thought it would at the first break but I think the legs aren't quite as well drawn as they could have been. Her body doesn't look like it is actually sitting on the bench. Maybe if I had taken the darks a bit darker. Oh well there is always next week when I can try again.

Last week here in MA we had absolutely beautiful summer weather, temps into the low 80's most days with sunny sky's and no rain. The rain arrived this weekend, which on the whole is a good thing as after a week without we need it. I visited another MA State Park last week. This one is in the next town over to me, Easton, MA. I didn't even know this park existed until a few weeks ago. It is called Borderland and was the home of an artist and her family. After the artist's death the Estate was purchased by the State and made into a park.

Below are some photos:

Upper left are some riders enjoying a canter on the lawn in front of the main Estate house. Middle left is a view of one of the 3 ponds on the Estate. Bottom left is a photo of the old farm house (now empty) that is also on the grounds. They keep the old pastures mowed so they won't return to forest. The top right photo is of some wildflowers blooming along the fence bordering one of the pastures. I needed another photo for my contact sheet so added the lower right of a Goldfinch eating thistle seeds, made in Field Park, Brockton. Goldfinch do love thistle seeds so this time of year is a real feast for them when the thistles are blooming and going to seed.

I was over in Marshfield yesterday at the MA Audubon sanctuaries and manged to photograph these 3 butterflies.

The top two photographs are of skippers, though I don't know their exact names. The upper left really shows how the wings are formed. The bottom photo is of a Monarch, and is the best photograph I have made this year of a Monarch. The background is not good (the roadway at North River) and the angle even worse, but it is in focus.

Ram, Sandpiper and Swallowtail

2011-08-02T12:57:00.000-04:00

A very mixed up title this week, but it does reflect the content of today's blog post. Above is my sketch of a ram from a reference photo posted in one of the WetCanvas forums. I call it a sketch because I didn't really spend a lot of time on it. The photo reference called it a sheep, but I think this is more correctly a ram. While I believe there may be some wild sheep where the ewes have horns this guy looks male to me.

Below is my figure drawing from last night:

Scott is back, well semi back he will be away next week on vacation (he has been at school) but he was back for last nights session. Last night's model was one I have drawn before. She was wearing gloves so those lines across her forearms aren't me being creative.

All in all I think I am happy with last nights drawing. The feet could use some work, but I think the rest of the pose works. I am deliberately leaving the pencil lines a bit rough and not blending them together. I think it is in reaction to all of the photo realistic work I have been looking at on the WetCanvas forums. Don't get me wrong some of the work shown there is amazing and beautifully drawn. But I find myself wondering if it is art. Where is the artist in those drawings/paintings? Mostly they are reproducing photographs, but why spend hours making a piece of art that looks like a photograph?

Ack, enough I need to get off this hobby horse and just go and make my art. While my personal goal is to accurately create an image of my subject on paper, I am not trying to create photographic accuracy. I don't need or want my art work to look like a photograph. I make enough photographs, and they are sometimes artwork in and of themselves my drawings don't need to look like them. I want my art to have my stamp on it, hopefully I am beginning to develop my own recognizable style.

Yesterday prior to the studio session I spent most of my day wandering around the Marshfield Audubon sanctuaries below are a couple of photographs:

The little bird above was photographed at the Daniel Webster Sanctuary. I believe it is a Spotted Sandpiper either a juvenile or an adult that is no longer in mating plumage. The Daniel Webster Sanctuary is not that far from the ocean, so having one of these little guys come for a visit probably isn't that uncommon.

It had a funny little bounce/wriggle to its walk, every couple of steps it would sort of bounce/wriggle its tail. It was really funny to watch, but from my bird book typical for these birds.

Below is photo of a butterfly I made at the North River Sanctuary:

I believe this is a swallowtail. I don't want to admit how many photographs of butterflies I made yesterday because I deleted almost all of them. Mostly because I was too far away to have a clear photo, but the swallowtail just wouldn't stay still. Even when it was sitting on a flower it would flutter its wings giving me a blurry image. So this is my best shot. I also tried for a couple of skippers but just couldn't get close enough to them. I did make a couple of photos of a clearwing hummingbird moth and I will post the best of those to my flickr account. Besides the hummingbird moth I did see a real hummingbird feeding from cardinal flowers, but I wasn't quick enough to even try to photograph that little one. Oh well it was just fun to see it.

Three H's, Hosta, Hearts, Heron

2011-07-26T09:45:00.001-04:00

I finally finished the above drawing. Poor thing was put aside for a couple of weeks while I adjusted to the summer heat and nerved myself up enough to go in and work on the details. Not terribly large, the drawing area is approx. 4 x 5.5 inches, but when you are doing it all one dot at a time it takes a while to do even a small piece. I am rather pleased with how this came out. The drawing is based on a photograph I made earlier this spring/summer of a Hosta starting to put out its flower stalk. I believe I posted that photo on the blog.

I rather enjoyed doing this piece but have a feeling that it will take me a bit before I want to attempt another stipple drawing. They do take forever to do.

Below is the colored hearts and shells drawing that I posted last week:

I used mainly Derwent Inktense pencils for the color. When water activated these pencils display a brilliant color, brighter then most watercolor pencils so they are really fun to work with even if the resulting colors can be a bit tricky to prejudge. This wasn't a preplanned drawing, just something I did for fun as a break from the Hosta.

Below is my figure drawing from last night.

Due to several factors we only had one 45 minute session last nigh instead of our usual 2 1/2 hours so the above drawing is really more of a sketch. It is mostly done with a 2H lead, though just before the break I had switched to the 2B lead which can be seen in the sketched in background.

This drawing at least lets you see how I go about doing my weekly figure drawings. I start with a 2H lead (lighter marks, easier to erase) to rough in the figure/face and any furniture. Erasing and redrawing until I have the figure blocked in the way I want it. This usually takes me through the first posing session. After the break I will go back in with a 2B lead to refine and darken the face/body putting in shadows and shading during the 2nd session. In the last session I add details to the hands/face and work on the background details. Though usually I have the figure pretty much finished by the end of the 2nd posing session and spend the last session filling in the cloth shadows and background.

My last image is a photo I made yesterday at one of the MA Audubon Sanctuaries:

The bird pictured above is a Green Heron, and I photographed it at the Daniel Webster Sanctuary in Marshfield, MA. yesterday afternoon. Yesterday was the first time I had seen this bird other than in a photograph. They are MA's 2nd native Heron species, the other being the Great Blue Heron. These guys are quite a bit smaller then the Great Blue's, but still larger then most of your backyard birds.

I was thrilled to have see it, and probably spent over 20 minutes watching it wander around the shore of the pond and feeding. I think it was catching tadpoles, but even though I was fairly close (in one of the Sanctuary's hides) I couldn't really see what it was eating, other than it look black and wriggled a bit.

Well that is my three H's for today, I think I much prefer my three to the weatherman's three. Per usual comments are always welcome.

Heat Wave?

2011-07-23T09:58:00.000-04:00

It's hot, OK, I know compared to the rest of the US we have had cool (relatively) weather so far this summer, but this past week the heat in the rest of the country caught up to us. Temps have been in the 90's and even up to 100 degrees in some communities. I don't have AC so have to find other ways to deal. One way is to sit in front of a fan. Makes it hard to do any art work so that is the reason why there is only one blog update this week.

The above pen and ink drawing isn't quite done yet. I am going to add color to it, but need to wait until I can find a morning cool enough that I don't have to sit in front of a fan to do it. I am not sure where this came from. I had a piece of hot press watercolor paper marked with a square and a pen so I just started drawing. The hearts came first then the "shells" then the drops. Done with stipple using my technical pens. The weather is supposed to be cooler tomorrow so hopefully I will have a colored update for you next week.

Our Monday night life sessions started up again last Monday. Above is my effort. ACK, 2 weeks off has not been good for me, though I did do those portrait studies that first week off. Wouldn't know I had done that work from the above drawing. She looks human, which is nice, but she doesn't look like our Monday night model. Not to mention that I think I have her head a bit too small. Well I can try again this coming Monday and hopefully do a better job. The only thing that makes me feel a bit better is that the other attendees were having issues also so I wasn't alone.

This is going to be short, with the heat I haven't been out photographing so no new pictures. I did make a few last Sunday when I visited a friend so we could go see the last Harry Potter Movie (it's OK, not the movie I wanted to see but OK) but I didn't make anything that I want to share so that will also have to wait for another posting. In the meantime comments are always welcome, and thanks for looking. If you are in the States stay cool if you can.

Lemons and Photo's

2011-07-16T10:02:00.001-04:00

Apologies for the lack of postings this week. It has been hot here in the Northeast, and when it is hot about the only thing I feel like doing is reading. Doing art will take my mind off the heat, but as my hand starts to stick to the paper it does get a bit more difficult. So most of my drawing has been on hold since last weekend. I did manage to do a quick drawing last night of these three lemons. Done with a Pigma pen, the 005 tip on just sketchbook paper from a reference photograph. Not great but not bad and at least it is some art for the week.

Next week the life sessions start up again so I should have more work to show. I was going to get a bunch of portraits done. Oh well, no reason why I can't fit them in between other works anyway. I really need to finish that flower stipple work. Wish me luck.

Though I haven't been drawing I have been taking advantage of breaks in the heat to take some walks in either State Parks or MA Audubon sites. The photo's above I made last Saturday in Massasoit State Park, East Taunton, MA. Pictures are Purple Loosestrife on the top left, Depford Pinks on the upper right, a green dragonfly lower left, and Blue Vervain in the lower right.

We have just had 2 days of beautiful summer weather. Actually Thursday was almost too cool, with temps only in the mid 70's as a high. Yesterday was a bit warmer with temps in the low 80's. I took advantage of the fact that it was a Friday to head down to the Cape for another visit to the Long Pasture Audubon sanctuary.

Above are just a few of the photos I made yesterday. The upper left photo is Heal-all with an Ox eye daisy blooming right next to it. The top middle photograph shows a copper colored beetle sitting on a old clover blossom. The top right photo is of one of the few orange flowers, Butterfly-weed. This one has a bee visitor and I photographed it in the center's garden so you can see some day lilies blooming behind it. The lower left pink flower is one of the mallow's not sure which as I wasn't really paying attention to the leaves. Also this is a planted garden so while I think they mostly choose wild flowers it may also be a garden variety. The lower middle is a butterfly on some clover. I am sure the butterfly is a type of Skipper, but no clue which one. The image at the lower right is a seed head of some Dandelion like flower.

One photo I wish I had but don't is of the blooms on the Mimosa Tree. Problem is the only branches blooming were up high and as there wasn't a ladder handy I could only photograph from the ground and the results just don't look like much. The tree on the site is quite large I would say it probably reaches the max. size for this variety of tree (30-40 feet).

I wanted to photograph butterflies yesterday, but they weren't cooperating. However, I did see quite a few, several monarchs (I did photograph one but the photo isn't good), some yellow butterflies I wasn't close enough to identify, and a lovely black and gold one that just wouldn't stay still long enough for me to photograph. Oh well I will have to try again another day.

I also heard and saw a lot of birds, several chickadees, probably a nuthatch or two, song sparrows, and a pair of cardinals, both the bright red male and drabber female. Can you tell I really enjoyed my outing, and will try to get back again this year. The tide was in when I arrived so there are no beach photos from this trip.

Enough for today. I hope you enjoy looking at my flower photos as much as I enjoy making them. I try to select the best to show on the blog. Photos are often cropped and sometimes lightened but otherwise not manipulated. Per usual comments are welcome.

Portrait Studies and more

2011-07-08T11:29:00.000-04:00

A couple more of my portrait studies today. The first above is of a young girl who has been swimming so her hair is wet. She is leaning forward because she was about to get into a wading pool and was talking to another child in the pool. Not sure how well I have done this.

The drawing above is done from a photograph in People Magazine. He is an actor though not one that I recognize. I think I have the face too long, between the eyes and the mouth. I hope the shadow at the top of his forehead works to indicate that his hairline is receding, despite the amount of hair he has elsewhere on his head.

As you can probably guess I am selecting my subjects to give me variety, young, middle aged, male, female, African American. Part of the purpose of this exercise is to give me practice drawing various faces with different expressions.

Below is an update on the flower pen and ink drawing I am working on.

Background darks are filling in nicely and I have started with some of the flowers and the leaf areas. So far I am pleased with how this is coming along. Stippling takes forever esp. to get the really dark areas. It should go faster when I am working mainly on the flowers.

One last photo to share:

I made this Monday during the sunset. It is a view looking toward Boston, MA. (the skyline in the distance) from Nahant. I love the colors that grey/blue with the pink sky.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.

4th of July, Sunset and Fireworks

2011-07-05T10:55:00.000-04:00

Hope everyone State side had a fun and safe 4th of July. A bit more about mine later in this post, but first the drawings I have been working on. Above is my 2nd try at a portrait this go round. Done from a photo in an old Discover Magazine I had around the house. Not bad but not great, I have to continue to practice.

I have decided to try and do different ethnic faces if I can find source material. They are a bit more of a challenge for me, and good practice.

With that thought in mind I selected the next source drawing of an actor. It isn't quite him, the face should be a bit thinner and I didn't spend enough time on the mouth and teeth, but it is close enough that others who have seen this have guessed his name, Will Smith.

Next image is a work in progress and not a portrait:

This is done from the photograph I made of a Hosta starting to bloom. Not sure at this point if I will add color. I may or I may just leave it black and white. This is stipple work and so far I haven't used any lines (don't count the pencil lines they will be erased later)

Next I have a couple of photos from yesterday's 4th of July celebrations:

The first isn't a man made image, this is not photoshopped, the clouds actually did obscure parts of the setting sun last night long enough for me to make the above photograph. Looks like a face doesn't it. The location was Nahant looking across the bay to Revere/Lynn, MA. The tide was almost fully out and you can see the sun light reflected across the sand flats. The photo is cropped, but otherwise I have haven't made any changes.

We had had a lovely sunny day with a few clouds until toward evening some clouds moved in and some areas had thundershowers. Where I was we had only a bit of rain, but on my way home it was easy to tell that other areas had had far more. Thankfully the rain was early enough to not cancel the fireworks.

One last photo of some fireworks. Everything is blurred because the lens stays open too long, but still I sort of like this photograph. It does give some sense of the beauty of the fireworks last night. They had some really beautiful and different shells. It is amazing what the makers can do with them now a days. I don't recall many of the elaborate shell patterns we see now from when I was younger. But fireworks are always fun, and it was a great way to end my evening.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are welcome.

First of July

2011-07-01T12:59:00.000-04:00

I can't believe it is already the first of July. We have been having some lovely June days this week, mostly sunny skies (with a few puffy clouds) temps into the low 80's during the day and falling into the 60's at night so it has been good sleeping weather. I haven't done a lot of drawing this week. But in thinking about what I want to do next week since I won't have the figure session to go to I decided to try some portraits.

Above is my first attempt in a while to draw a portrait. I chose a photograph I had made this spring of a young relative of a friend. I am semi pleased with it, but it took me a lot longer to do then I expected. Course the faces I have been drawing haven't been detailed portraits and they have all been adults. Children have different proportions to their faces and I was looking down at her when I made the photograph so it was interesting to say the least to get the distances even semi correct.

I picked up a People magazine at the store yesterday to use the celeb photos as references for my drawings. It will be interesting to see if I can create recognizable portraits from some of them.

I am thinking about doing another flower colored pencil drawing. The sketch above is the preliminary drawing of some Birds Foot Trefoil. I think it is OK, so now I just have to transfer it to better paper and get started. Hopefully I will have some progress to show next week.

One last photograph.

Above is a photo of Indian Pipe. A common (at least here in MA.) parasitic plant. They feed on the leaf litter in the woods and have no chlorophyll to produce their own food. I have been trying to years to get a good photograph of a clump of these and think I finally managed it. A combination of a better camera and a good flash with a dark background to show off the white stems and flowers. I had the camera last year, but didn't find any of the plants growing with the right backdrop. This photo was made earlier this week at the North River Audubon Sanctuary.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are welcome. I want to wish any Canadian visitors a good Canada Day, and for my US visitors have a wonderful 4th of July. Don't go too crazy with the fireworks folks, they can be dangerous.

Walkabout

2011-06-28T13:12:00.000-04:00

Finished, I am calling this drawing Walkabout as the parent goose is taking three of his goslings for a walk. The parents of geese, ducks, and chickens don't feed their young they just take them to where they can find food. They do guard them and can be very protective. The above image is party my imagination and partly based on photographs I have made.

As a total digression: I was at one of the Audubon Sanctuaries yesterday and ran into a young couple with child as they were starting their walk. We chatted for a bit and the father told me about his encounter with some wild turkey's the previous week. He had been walking in one of the wooded areas of the site and saw a turkey, a couple of minutes later he spied a lot of young speckled chicks, somehow he managed to get too close and the next thing he knew he was being attacked by a turkey parent who was flying at him to drive his away. As they are fairly large birds this is no joke, luckily for him he managed to get away with no major damage. I was in one of the pond blinds and didn't see any turkeys on this visit. I did however see a fox just outside of the Sanctuary. I was driving so didn't manage a photograph.

Back to my drawing:

When I last posted this drawing I was debating whether to mask any parts of it. In the end I decided to mask the goose and goslings. The goose so I could paint the water without worrying about painting him/her blue and the goslings because I wanted an even color for the pathway. Again I didn't want to have to be that careful painting around the small birds esp as I knew I need to paint them yellow first. So the above image shows the masked drawing.

Below is my figure drawing from last night.

I am not totally pleased with it. Actually I wanted to move and take a different position, but for a change last night we had lots of artists coming to paint so there wasn't a good spot for me to move to.

I think I have her neck too long, and I know her foot isn't well drawn. I am fairly sure this model was once a ballet dancer, at least her toes look like they were once crammed into toe shoes. Not a pretty foot so I tend to not draw it in detail. Currently she is working crew at one of Boston's theater productions, and of course modeling.

This will be the last figure drawing for a couple of weeks. Next Monday is 4th of July and the Studio Session won't be held as most folks will be busy with friends and family. The following week the Model who is running the sessions has something she needs to do so won't be available. Not sure what I am going to be drawing instead so stay tuned and find out with me.

Indian Cucumber Root

This last image for today is a photograph I made yesterday at North River a MA Audubon Sanctuary, (not the one with the turkeys, that is Daniel Webster). I am fascinated by these flowers and usually I seem to miss them actually blooming. But yesterday I lucked out and found a couple of plants blooming in the woods. Apparently the roots are eatable, but I don't think I will ever check it out for myself as I usually see the plants on protected lands. This is a native species and the native american's probably did eat it.

Well enough for today. Per usual comments are welcome.

June Sketchbook Challenge Dwg and other stuff

2011-06-26T13:54:00.000-04:00

Above is the pen and ink stage of my latest drawing, a goose being followed by some young goslings. A composite drawing from a reference photo (the bridge) and a couple of my photographs of geese. I am planning on painting it, I am just in the vegging state I sometimes get into with these works. I think I am deciding on colors, but it isn't totally a conscious process so it may just be nerves coming into play. Not sure I will do any masking prior to starting this painting, the larger background areas such as the pond don't need to have a solid color applied, in fact visible brush strokes are something I will be going for.

The path is another large area to be painted but again here I will be using various colors so I don't think I need to mask the goose or the goslings, though I may mask the goslings to just make sure I don't over paint them with a wrong color.

Below is a pencil drawing I have been working on for the Sketchbook Challenge theme for June.

The theme for June is Pathways. The image above is drawn from a photograph I made this spring at the MA. Audubon Daniel Webster site. It is of a boardwalk moving through a small grove of trees. The sun was coming through the leaves creating patterns of light and dark. I am not sure if I am totally done with this. I think I need to let it sit a few days and then compare it again with the photograph. Drawing woods is not as easy as you might think, but hopefully I have pulled it off here.

Below is a composite image of four photographs I made yesterday at Massasoit State Park. After several days of clouds and rain the sun finally came out yesterday afternoon and I was able to enjoy some time with the camera. More photos from this outing will be posted on my Facebook Fan Page.

Upper left photo is of some Black Eyed Susan's with Daisy Flea Bane. The upper right photo is of a bumble bee on some Purple Vetch (or it might be Cow Vetch). Note that orange packet of pollen she has collected. Probably from the Day lilies that were blooming not too far away. The lower left photo is a mushroom with some ferns, no clue what the mushroom is. The last photo on the lower right is Lake Rico, a view across the lake showing the blooming Pickerelweed.

However, I am wondering where are the butterflies? I have been photographing bees, dragonflies and other insects but I am seeing very few butterflies. Maybe it is still a bit early for them, or perhaps the bug spraying from last year has hurt their numbers. I have yet to see a monarch butterfly, and even the cabbage butterflies seem a bit scarce. Ah well, not much I can do about it, but I did want to comment. Enough for today. Per usual comments are appreciated.

Museum Visit, MFA, Boston

2011-06-23T13:05:00.000-04:00

Today I am recovering from my visit yesterday with a friend to the MFA (Museum of Fine Arts) in Boston, MA. The main focus of the visit for me was to see the Chihuly glass exhibit. I am including a few photographs from the exhibit. You are allowed to make photos as long as you don't use a flash. It took me a bit to realize that I needed to switch to manual settings and then had to play with the Fstop to get a few semi good photographs. The glass exhibit was dark with only spot lighting on the glass. Not the best conditions for photography, a tripod and no people would have been better. Still I hope the photos will sort of give you a feel for the exhibit.

The Chihuly exhibit is arranged as rooms each with a theme, the first area the glass looked like flowers arraigned on the wall and on a platform. The next room was a long boat filled with glass objects. The written commentary said that he had gotten the idea from when he had been in Finland and had been throwing pieces into the river to see if they would break. Needless to say once thrown they had to be collected and that was done by young men in boats.

In the room above the glass was arranged on the ceiling with the light shining down through the pieces. It looked like an upside down view of a reef that contained lots of multicolored sea life. I lucked out and was able to photograph a fairly empty room so you can see the patterns of light on the wall.

The photo above is of the 4th or 5th exhibit room (right now I don't recall exactly which). In this case the room contains these shelves with Native American woven and his blown glass baskets. There was also a long table set with blown glass baskets. Against the rear wall was a large display of Native American woven blankets. Needless to say the room was amazing and this one photo doesn't really give you the idea of how beautiful it was.

This is a close up photograph of one of the chandeliers in the Chandelier room. There were 5 or 6 of these structures made in various colors. They all hang from the ceiling, but aren't strictly speaking chandeliers since the lighting isn't from within the structure but is provided by spot lights. The glass is blown into various long organic tube shapes and then attached separately to a supporting structure.

The above photograph is of the last room in the exhibit. The purple glass tubes are attached to the logs, obviously the spot lighting is part of the effect. Very lovely, and I am not sure the photograph does it justice.

After going through this exhibit we had some lunch and chat to recover our energy and then went on to visit other areas of the museum. We went through several special exhibits, one with photographs from Cuba, another of Fantasy Prints, Dutch Drawings (I enjoyed that one) and on into the European Art Wing. We visited a couple of Turner's, several Monet's and Van Gogh's, and strolled though several other galleries containing paintings by painters I recognized.

I don't even try to photograph paintings or drawings or photographs on display so don't have any images from those Galleries. I will photograph other artifacts if they have designs or patterns that interest me.

The photograph below is of a beaded figure that was part of a special exhibit of Dress and Textile patterns created in Africa. This guy is made up of seed beads strung together, he was about 14 inches tall.

The exhibit also contained examples of textiles dyed in several African regions and other examples of beadwork. The beadwork was amazing.

The last image for today is of a jar to be found on the lowest floor of the new American Wing. It is an example of pottery created by Southwest tribes. I am always on the lookout for patterns that I can use in my own art and the patterns on this jar interested me, simple but beautifully drawn.

That is it for today. I need to go work on some art so I have something to show in my next blog update. Per usual comments are always welcome. But sure to check out the link to the MFA to read more about the exhibits I viewed.

Summer Solstice

2011-06-21T11:54:00.000-04:00

It is the first day of summer, and the day of the most daylight here in the Northern Hemisphere. After today the days will start getting shorter, meaning a bit less daylight every day until the winter solstice in December. For all my readers in the Northern Hemisphere happy summer, hope you have a good one.

Above is the pen and ink drawing I was working on last week finished. I thought you might like to see some in process images. Well, not totally in process as the pen and ink work was done when I did the first scan shown below. I was always intending to add watercolor to this so I left some areas without fills, like the area around the mouse and in the sky.

I stippled the tree instead of using other fancier fills. I think the stipple effect is less distracting, and while I wanted the tree, I didn't want it to grab attention away from the mouse and mushrooms. The next image is more in-process, showing the masked drawing with the sky painted in.

The outside edges were masked with Drafting tape (less sticky than masking tape) and the sort of cream colored areas are where I applied fisket. By masking the mushrooms and tree edges I was able to use a larger brush to apply the blue paint. I much prefer the sky painted with a large brush, fewer brush strokes show, and color is more evenly applied, so even though it takes time to mask I think I will continue to do so. The blue is a mixed color done with my tubes of watercolor. My Illustration Instructor would get very annoyed with us if we used a color straight out of the tube, so even though he will probably never see this drawing I still remember and abide by the restriction. Though I can't exactly mix a color with the watercolor pencils, I do layer washes of different colors over each other so the resulting color isn't exactly the original pencil color.

I think the tree color works, I was trying an experiment with this drawing. First I applied a light yellow wash to the tree, then I covered that with a purple violet wash, then added in some green, and some brown, and some grey. I used the watercolor pencil directly on the trunk to add the grey. Hopefully I have successfully covered the yellow though I think it adds some depth to the trunk color.

One last comment, in real life the mushrooms grouped together would all be the same as they would be growing out of the same underground network of fungi hyphae so I took some artistic license to make my mushrooms different. But I wanted the red to add color, though I didn't want 3 red mushrooms. All I can say is that it is my drawing and I can do what I want with it.

Below is my figure drawing from last night.

Not sure I did the model justice as she is a lovely young woman. I seem to be working with a looser more sketchy style. There are parts of this drawing that I like and others that I would like to rework. There is almost always something I would change if I were doing a do-over. I guess that is what drawing is all about.

We have a beautiful June, first day of summer, day here in MA. Blue sky's and while it will be warm (in the low 80's) it won't be oppressively hot. I hope to get out later to enjoy the weather while we have it, one thing I know from living in NE, that the weather is changeable so I need to enjoy the nice weather while we have it.

That is it for today. I have been busy photographing flowers and may share some of my photo's in the blog post later this week. Till then I have uploaded a bunch to my Facebook fan page and to my flickr account. Links to both are on the blog page. As always comments are appreciated. Oh if you have a title suggestion for my Mushrooms and Mouse drawing I would love to hear it.

Clematis Finished

2011-06-17T14:05:00.000-04:00

The clematis colored pencil drawing is done. Well, as done as I am going to make it. I am sure I could have done more fussing with it and even improved on what I did. But as far as I was concerned it was time for it to be done. I don't think I am cut out to do photo-realistic drawings. The above is about as close as I want to come I think. Not bad but I have seen much better works shown in the Colored Pencil Forum at WetCanvas.

Even at the size I was working (drawing area 4.5 inches square) this drawing took hours to finish, and I wasn't even attempting a realistic background. In the end I did use a black colored pencil to help darken some areas and to add an edge to the petals. It like most of my recent drawings/paintings was done on Hot Press Watercolor paper, the 140lb weight.

I have started another pen and ink work that I will hopefully have done by the next blog posting. In the meantime we finally had a sunny day and I took advantage of it to drive out to Stony Brook, one of the MA Audubon sites. Below are a couple of photographs I made that day. More photographs are on my Facebook Fan page in the Summer Photograph album, and I will probably be adding them to my flickr albums in the next few days.

I have no clue what the insect above is. It flies and sort of looks like a butterfly, but the wings were a bit strange, I don't think it shows in the photograph but it was like it had double wings. One set is down with the round lobes and the 2nd set is more vertical, you can sort of see an edge along the left side of the body. And note how fuzzy the body looks. If anyone knows what it is please leave me a comment. It wasn't very big, maybe an inch across.

The photograph above is of what probably was the mill pond at Stony Brook back in the day. This photo is about as close as I am going to get to making a photograph of a Great Blue Heron without a telephoto lens. That fuzzy gray area in the center left is a Great Blue flying across the pond. When I approached one edge of the pond he took flight and I attempted the photograph. Someday maybe I will be able to afford a lens, then I will actually be able to photograph birds, in the meantime small blurry images are where I am at. Still it was fun to see him/it, I don't know if they have a nest here or just look for food but they can often be sighted at the edges of one of the ponds.

Enough for today. Comments and questions are always welcome, and I would really love to know what that insect is.

Figure Drawing, June 14

2011-06-14T14:38:00.001-04:00

Above is last nights figure drawing. I seem to be working in a slightly looser style, not as finished or polished as what I was doing last fall even. I am not saying this is good or bad, just making a comment. The model was sitting upright on a chair last not, not a typical pose for these sessions, and though there were strategically placed pillows I think the model was feeling some pain by the end of the session. Still she did very well for her first time posing holding pose between the breaks extremely well. There was a bit of shifting, esp. with the arm that was resting on the chair back (there was a pillow underneath some draped fabric)

For the most part I think I am pleased with it, but I will have to let it set a few weeks before I really know for sure.

We didn't have a large turn out for this session, some of our usual attendees took part in a special class over at the North River Arts Society (Marshfield Hills, MA) with a visiting instructor. Still it was a good evening.

The image above is a work in progress. It is a colored pencil drawing of a clematis bloom. I think I have the background the way I want it. and now need to finish the center, and the petals. The petals are almost there, just need to add a bit more blue to the edges and then the pink stripes down the middle. I think I will need to do some test drawings to find the right pencil color/colors to give me the proper pink.

The dark green areas in the background have been done using a under layer of red (Geranium Lake) with an over layer of green. A reminder from my Color and Design II class that to darken a color add it's complement. The rule was for paint, but it also works with colored pencils. The ideal is to avoid the use of black in a painting as it is a dead color. Using the complement creates a dark value that has more life.

Below is the photograph I am using as reference for the above drawing.

I made this photograph a couple of weeks ago of a beautiful clematis blooming in a neighbors front yard. The other side of the lamp post has a lovely purple clematis blooming, but I thought this pink and white flower more of a challenge. Notice that I am brave enough to only tackle the one flower. I will think about doing another version if the first comes out well.

Since I have been a member of the Wetcanvas site, I have been reading the colored pencil forum, looking at others works and picking up some tips on how to use colored pencils. One piece of information that I picked up and want to pass on to my readers is the Colored Pencil Studio web site. There you will find all sorts of information about colored pencils and watercolor pencils. Evaluations on the best pencils on the market, what kinds of papers to use with your pencils and tips on how to draw with colored pencils. I consider it a great find.

I do have one final comment for today. For years I have tried to be as realistic with my work as I could possibly be. I am slowly discovering that I while I may admire works that are photographic realistic, I don't think of them as works of art. I think it is because there is nothing of the artist in such drawings. I find I want to see the artists hand in the artwork. If this makes the works less then perfect so be it. Just my thoughts for the day. Per usual comments and questions are always welcome.