June Challenge, Figure Dwg. and Nature Journal

Above is another of my pen and ink drawings done from a Challenge  photos in the WetCanvas Pen and Ink forum. This one is for the month of June. I fear I rather dashed it off, and am repenting at leisure, as it were. I see lots of errors in this one, errors that I wouldn't have made if I had spent more time on it.

But I haven't had a lot of patience with my drawings so far this month. I had several non-art related things that I have had to take care of the past couple of weeks, but just spent 2 hours resolving one of them today. Had to renew my Drivers License, and I needed to have a new photo made so... Thankfully I am now all set for 5 years, and hopefully I will now be able to get to work on one of my longer projects, like finish my Border piece.

Above is a spread from my Nature Journal. We had a beautiful day Saturday, and originally I was going to go up to the Blue Hills Reservation but decided to head out to Stony Brook in Norfolk, MA instead. I am glad I did as I had a good afternoon in a lovely spot watching wildlife.

Drawings in the Journal are on top a leaf from a Grey Birch. Looks a lot like the European Birch leaves I have drawn in the past except it is flatter along the bottom edge. Now that trees are again leafed out I though it was time that I get back to drawing some for identification purposes.

The bottom image is of a turtle I spied hauled out of the water and under some bushes along a path, believe it or not, it wasn't really that noticeable and I almost walked right by it. Since this was one very large turtle (about 14 inches long) I have to admit feeling a bit strange about that. I believe this is a snapping turtle, though I didn't really investigate it that thoroughly, if it was a snapper I didn't want to disturb it, they are not friendly animals.

Also seen on this visit, Wood Ducks (too far in the distance for me to photograph but view-able with the binoculars), green frogs, a yellow warbler, red wing black birds, painted turtles, muskrat and a large dragonfly. The muskrat was more heard than seen, I heard a loud splash near me then noticed a dark brown sleek body dashing over/through some bushes on a small island and then watched a head swimming away from me.

Above is Monday nights figure drawing. Scott is off to his Graduate Study Program for the next 2 months so Monday's session was run by our model. She decided that with Scott away she should change up the pose significantly. We don't often get backs when Scott is around so this was a real change. I rather like how it came out. I certainly used my 4B pencil on this one getting those darks in place.

Above is a photograph I made at Stony Brook. If you look closely you will see a green frog in the center right portion of the image. It really blends in but is there. I don't normally get to photograph frogs, at this time of year I can hear them but they are usually not close enough to me to photograph.

That is it for today, they are predicting some really nice weather so I may make a dash for the Cape in the next couple of days, I haven't been down there since last fall and I am due. In the meantime comments are always welcome, and I hope everyone is having a great June.