Over the 4th of July weekend we had some hot weather, well hot for us here in the Northeast US. Temps were in the low to middle 90's and the night time temp didn't make it out of the 70's as a low. When you add high humidity to the mix it makes for some very uncomfortable weather. However prior to the heat setting in I managed to draw the above drawing of a skipper butterfly feeding at a clover flower. The drawing is from a photograph I made this spring
I don't usually draw the butterflies I photograph so this was a change and a challenge for me. I am rather pleased with how it came out, though I didn't try to put in too many background details. Skippers are usually fairly small butterflies, about an inch in length so they are a challenge to photograph. This one is sort of an orange color with not much in the way of markings making it one of the easier butterflies to draw.
This second drawing I finished just this week and is also from a photograph I made this spring. This is of some yellow tulips planted by a near-by town in one of their road islands. I am thinking about redoing this drawing with colored pencil.
I find tulips are a very satisfactory flower to draw, large with some what simple petals, but still enough shape to offer a challenge to the artist. I can see why the Dutch were so taken with them back in the 1630's.
The above and the following drawings were all made at the last June short pose drawing session I attended. The model for that evening was stuck in traffic on her way to the Studio from work so Scott posed facial gestures for us to get us started. Above are just 2 of the drawings I made while we waited for her to arrive.
The model did finally arrive, there had been an accident that totally messed up traffic, not fun for the driver, been there done that. Anyway because she was late she didn't do any 2 minute poses for us but went straight for 5 minute poses. Above are some of my better efforts.
She ended the evening with some longer poses (10 and 15 min.), above is the only one that I liked, though I have to say that the more I look at it the more problems I see with it. Ah well such is life. I have to say that the short poses can be a real challenge esp. when there is a lot of foreshortening involved with the pose. I keep reminding myself to draw what I see, not what I think I see.
Because of the heat I haven't been out doing a lot of walking or making photographs, still I do have a couple of interesting ones to share. The above photo is of Indian Pipe, a parasitic plant that grows in the woods when there has been enough rain. They take their nutrients from either leaf litter or tree roots. I didn't realize that they actually had pollen until I photographed this bumble bee at one of the flowers. I thought they were a relative of mushrooms and had spores. The white stems will turn black as they age. Photographed at Oak Knoll a MA Audubon site in Attleboro, MA.
Above is a photograph of a dragonfly resting on some Daisy Flea Bane. I just love the colors on this type of dragonfly, black with the blue accents. This is probably a male letting off pheromones to attract a female since it wasn't actually landing on a flower. Photograph made in my local city park here in Brockton.
That is it for today. Per usual comments are welcome, though I have to admit that I made a change to the blog settings a couple of weeks ago and now don't seem to be able to comment on my own blog, I apologize to those who commented and I haven't responded to, I am thinking about changing the setting back to where it was so I can comment again.
