Drawings, challenges and a nature Journal

After a break of a couple of a week or so I have finally finished another of the WetCanvas Pen and Ink forum's challenge photos. This one was actually for May, I have downloaded the June photos I might want to tackle but so far haven't done one. I had gotten it started over a week ago but put off finishing it when I was faced with putting in the fence and not being in the mood to tackle it.

Not totally thrilled with how this turned out, I didn't get the value of the trees in the mid distance correct so they don't stand out from the distant mountains. Ah well there are parts I like, I like the cabin, and I think the fence works. I maybe should have brought the photo into photo shop and then changed it to grey scale, I might have done better with those mid values. Maybe next time I will. Done on Stonehenge paper with a Prismacolor Fine line Marker (005).

The squirrel is just one of my animal drawings done because I need the practice. I have been drawing only birds or plants it seems lately so felt it was time for an animal, and I had a fairly good photo of this squirrel to work from. Done with graphite pencil in my sketchbook, and I didn't labor over it all that long.

My Nature Journal spread from Monday's visit to Daniel Webster. It was raining for most of this visit so I didn't get much further than the two blinds. There wasn't a lot of wild life to observe either. I think I only saw one Canada Goose, a most unusual occurrence, as there are usually groups of around 20 or so someplace either on the ponds or dining on grass, but not Monday. There were goose feathers on the paths. I think the geese are molting, as it was just scattered feathers here and there. But they were the large flight ones which I don't normally see.

The top image is the journal is the flower head of some Field Garlic, I say flower head though it has no visible flowers, just those strange green tendrils and purplish bulblets. There was a lot of this growing along the side of the path on the way to the North blind. Wouldn't have been good in the hay, at least not in hay meant for cows since it can flavor the cows milk. Probably wouldn't be noticeable today since Milk processing is done on such a large scale, but I can remember it happening occasionally when I was a kid.

The lower drawing is a couple of those feathers that I saw on the path.

I have two photos to share today:

A photo of a rock in the man-made pond, you can just see the top of it, but not much more. Last week I think it was totally underwater so despite the rain we have been having the water level was down a bit on Monday. But note how green everything is. Love this bright green of early June.

The swan photo above I made in my local city park. For some reason this swan doesn't have a mate and was by itself on one of the lower ponds. I just like its pose, and the lighting with the perfect shadow. That whitish area toward the upper left is just reflected cloud.

That is it for today per usual comments are welcome.