Grey Squirrel in Colored Pencil

The grey squirrel is done. Yeah, it took what seemed like forever to finish. Of course it didn't take that long, but I think this squirrel is the drawing I have spent the most time on in this series. The ducklings also took a long time, but the issue with them was the feathers and then the rocks. Again this one was started years ago and then put aside. I got a bit nervous about my abilities to render it so ended up putting it away while I worked on others. Finally I pushed myself to just get back to it and get it done.

It is the same size as the others, 6 x 6 inches on Stonehenge paper. I think the tree trunk took the most time to finish and I admit that it gave me the most anxiety. I worried that it wouldn't look like a tree trunk when done. Now that it is done I am relatively pleased with how this came out.

Again not photo realistic, but then I wasn't aiming for that. I did simplify the background behind the squirrel, in the photo there were more tree branches. I didn't want to draw attention away from the squirrel so left them out. 

It was a cold cloudless February day when I made this photo in Boston, MA. There was a couple of feet of snow on the ground so some of the light is reflected. The squirrel was looking for a handout, which I wasn't able to give as I had no food with me but it was a fairly close encounter.

The Wood Lily above is one of my next projects. For this one I had an almost finished drawing that needed to be transferred to the correct paper, and outlined in ink. I have all of the first layers of color applied. In fact the background is almost done. Again I used a red wax based pencil (Derwent) covered with a green wax based pencil and then a final layer of a Polychromos dark green. There are some areas that need a touch up and a bit more work but the background is mostly finished.

Wood Lilies are a native New England wildflower, found in open meadows, it is a lovely reddish  colored flower. Each plant usually has a single bloom. I photographed this one in the Power Line cut at Ames Nowell State Park in a nearby town.

I have just about run out of prepped drawings for the next in the series. I want to do at least 13/14 drawings so I can put a calendar together.

I love birds, though I admit to being a bit leery about using one of them for these drawings, color patterns on feathers can be very complex. Flowers are usually so much easier.  Still I want a variety of subjects so I expect that I will use the above bird as one of my drawings.

The bird is a Cat Bird. They are mostly grey so I won't have much of an issue with color patterns, except for the black cap that is. It is still just in the pencil stage, I need to check it for correctness but I think it is about good to go.

I am also trying to get back to some sketching with pen (no pencil) I have been away from it for so long that I am fairly sure my efforts are going to be pretty bad. But they won't get better unless I bite the bullet and just do it. The flowers above are Spiderwort an early June garden flower that has escaped to the woods. Drawn in a sketchbook with just pen. Not terrible, but not very good either. I will keep at it.

Early June is also the time when the peonies are in bloom. These two photos were made in my local neighborhood and show the varieties of peony's that can now be found in the garden. When I was young we had Peony's in our yard, all white ones that had a large multi petal bloom. I remember that at the time there was also a deep red color, but I don't recall pink of the above flowers or the brighter red in the flower below.

I love the smell of Peonies, but I don't love the ants that love the sweet sap the plant produces and seem to accompany all flowers. A problem if you wanted to bring some of the flowers inside.

Hope you enjoy these two photos. That is it for today. I need to motivate myself and get another of the colored pencil drawings finished. Per usual comments are welcome. .

Playing with Watercolor

Since I am not driving all over the state in search of early butterflies I have been trying to get back to my art work. My main focus is improving my watercolor skills, with mixed results. For subjects I am going through my photo archive and selecting photos that I think will be relatively easy to paint, mostly flowers at this point.

Above is a columbine, I selected a photo of an individual flower and tried to paint it without any preliminary pencil or pen work. I am relatively pleased with how it came out. Native columbines are such a  pretty late spring flower and it was fun to try and paint the rather complex shapes.

My next attempt was the above image of 3 cosmos flowers. I have painted this subject before with as I recall not much more success, for some reason these are tricky flowers to paint.

Perhaps it is the color of the flowers, pink. There is no such thing as pink watercolor paint, there are various shades of red but no pink. So to get pink you have to add water, lots of water, which makes a wet paint that I find tricky to control. I am finding it hard to get the brush loaded just right. Paper towels are necessary, at least for me so that I can remove some of the moisture from the brush prior to painting. Still I think this attempt is better than my previous attempt, which isn't saying much. After a lot more paintings maybe I will try again.

 

I tried something a bit different with these daffodils. I drew the image first with pencil, then inked the outline lines and then added color. I started with a light yellow wash, removed some of the paint in some areas, then allowed the paper to dry. The next session I added some darker yellow and orange shading. Allowed that to dry and then added the shadows and the background. I am fairly happy with how this one came out. At least they look like daffodils. Again the reference was one of my personal photographs.

For all my paintings I am using a half sheet of Fabriano Studio Watercolor paper, the cold press, 140 lbs 9 x 12 inch sheets. It contains 25% cotton so isn't as expensive as 100% cotton paper but stands up better to water etc. than a 100% wood pulp paper or a lighter weight paper. 

These next two photos are both of "Violets", though the ones above are wild (and I think native) while the ones in the photo below are house plants that come from another continent. I don't think they are actually related but I may be wrong.

Anyway I usually have at least one African Violet plant that I keep in my bedroom (the windows face North which my African Violets seem to love). Right at the moment one of the plants is in bloom so I thought I would share a photo of them This plant flowers a kind of salmon pink, not my favorite color, I prefer a dark purple but I tend to purchase plants that are on the sale table so they usually don't have flowers when I buy them.

Earlier this week I took a trip into Boston, got off at Park and walked across the common and through the Garden. The flowering trees were putting on a show and the swan boats were out and about on the pond. Above is a photo of a swan boat at the boarding shed. It was a beautiful day, I ended up at the Library for lunch and then headed out to the smaller Blicks store for some spare colored pencils. Next update will have a colored pencil drawing. Something old that I have finally finished.

In the meantime that is it for today, comments are always welcome.

Finally Spring

It is the First of May, hope you have a happy May Day. I almost can't believe how long it has been since I last did a blog update. But to be honest I haven't been doing much to blog about. Playing games on my tablet, reading or listening to books, food shopping, those have been my main activities, and there isn't much in the way of interesting blog content in those activities. Hmm book reviews maybe but that has never been my thing, so I will spare my readers.

That said in the past few weeks I have pulled out my brushes and the watercolor paints and paper to do some playing around. First I painted some imaginary flowers, then I cut the resulting painting into 2 inch strips and then using an ink pen I added some top doodles. The results are in the top image, a couple of almost done bookmarks. I plan on coating them with Acrylic Medium and then calling them done. I have plans to do some more watercolor painting. I am not very good, but hopefully well get better.

These next two photos show what else I have been doing since Christmas, knitting socks. So far I have 3 pair finished, and a couple more pairs where the first sock is about half way done (I am doing the heel)

I am working with mostly wool yarns that has some nylon incorporated, the grey socks above have some Alpaca, which means a soft yarn with a lovely hand. I am knitting on double pointed needles, size 2 for the grey socks, and size one for the multi colored socks below, they yarn is dyed with gradations of color, I just knit. The socks don't have the same color gradations, but then the yarn didn't seem to have repeat gradations. I wasn't sure I would have enough for the 2nd sock so I didn't even really try to look for a repeat. Still I don't care, I love the colors in this yarn and found the gradations fun to work with.

For those who haven't tried it, sock knitting is fun and sort of addictive. Esp. if you can find a pattern that is well written and have had some experience knitting. There are various on-line sites that offer free patterns, though I found the Paton's Next Steps Four, Socks and Slippers booklet excellent for the beginning sock pattern (grey socks). I also recommend the Ravelery web site for all things knit, they have free patters and a large community of knitters. You need to join to get the patterns but the site won't bombard you with e-mails.

Our weather, here in Eastern MA was fairly warm in February (for that time of year) but March was snowy and cold so I wasn't doing many trips into Boston. Above is photo I did make on of my late March Boston visits. This is a photo of Boston City Hall from the Quincy Market area, the statue is one of Boston's past mayors, Kevin White, I think but I need to check

The above photo was made from Boston Garden looking toward Beacon Street. The pink azalea was inside the garden, and the white tree was in front of  one of the buildings on Beacon. The photo was made about a week ago, in late April. 

I made the above photo of a violet in bloom this past weekend here in Brockton. There are also various bushes in bloom and some of the trees in my neighborhood are starting to leaf out. I can say that Spring is finally arriving here in Southeastern MA.

Not sure when I will be updating the blog again. I am not currently driving so my access to woods has been severely limited. This means I won't be visiting my favorite sites for spring wild flowers this year. Lack of mobility is also going to limit the number and kinds of butterflies I can photograph. Maybe I can get back to doing more art which I can post, only time will tell, and I am sure there will be more socks.. In the meantime comments are welcome. 

Asters

 It is officially Fall, the autumn equinox was last Friday, Sept. 22.  Here in New England Asters are the native wild flower of fall. They are mostly white flowers with yellow centers, though there are some pink, violet, lavender or purple ones also. They bloom in the woods in the shade, and also in the open fields in the sun.

The photos today are of various Asters I have photographed in recent weeks. Identifying an aster isn't always easy, there are 100's of varieties world wide and about 40 here in New England.

I am not sure if the flowers above are Flat Topped White Aster or Toothed White Topped Aster, I didn't photograph the leaves which would tell me, though I know I photographed the flowers at Nasketucket Bay State Reservation in Mattapoisett, MA. on Sept. 1, 2017

Also photographed at Nasketucket Bay was this Whorled Wood Aster. I lucked out with a splash of sunlight to illuminate this plant as it was growing beside the path in the woods.

I think the above photo is of Calico or Starved Aster flowers, I photographed this in the power line cut at Ames Nowell State Park, Sept. 21, 2017. In this instance the flowers were a pale lilac, quite pretty.

I believe the flowers above are from a Small White Aster, though there is at least one other species that is possible. I suppose I should be taking one of my field guides with me on my walks, but I hate carrying the extra weight. Photographed at Great Blue Hill, in the Blue Hills Reservation Sept. 23, 2017.

These next two photos are both of New England Asters, our largest and showiest of the Native Asters that bloom in the fall. They can have a fairly wide color range from pink to a dark purple. These were photographed at Forge Pond, Hanover, MA. Sept. 24, 2017.

The yellow in the above photo is one of our many varieties of goldenrod. 

I found this web site if you are interested in reading more about Asters, also the New England Wild Flower web site lists all of these species, links to their site are attached to their names above. Please note  my Wild Flower guides are old, recent genetic information has caused the Asters to be reclassified (Latin names) and NE Wild Flower Society uses some different common names. If you garden some of these asters have been developed as garden plants, usually easy to grow, it is nice to have some flowers that wait until fall to bloom.

I thought I would end this post with a Dragonfly photo, this is one of the Autumn Meadow Hawk dragonflies, which one I am not sure, I am told that to make a correct ID the dragonfly needs to be examined under a microscope. Since I never capture what I photograph I have to be satisfied with just a general ID. Still I think it is a pretty picture. I can tell you that this is a male, males are red, females yellow, and it is one of the white faced species.

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

Wildflowers I have found

I have been trying to come up with the number of years I have spent hunting wild flowers, both before my digital camera (making photographs) and after its advent. Not quite sure but a ball park number of 15 years (give or take a year or two) sounds about right. Considering my age that is not a huge number of years, but since I am not and have never been a professional botanist I think it is a good number. I will of course check out wild flowers anywhere I travel and they can be seen, but the majority of my hunting grounds are fairly close to home in a pretty limited region, Southeast MA, with some excursions a bit further north. Habitat is mostly fields, woods, pond (lake) edges and some boggy areas that I can easily access. I don't have waders so I don't venture deep into bogs. What I am trying to say is that while I haven't by any stretch of the imagination "seen it all" I have seen and identified a lot of flowers/plants I see on my outings.

The flowers in today's post all share one common feature, these are the first photos I have made of the flower. Some flowers I knew about and the photos are just the icing on the cake so to speak. I was/am happy to finally have them, but I didn't have to do much research to pin a name on them. Others I had to look up, and in a couple of instances ask for help identifying. Oh, another common feature they are native to north America if not originally to MA and they have all been photographed in the past week or so. 

The above little yellow flower (and I do mean little) is Northern Yelloweyed Grass. I found this in a boggy area between two lakes at Massasoit State Park, East Taunton, MA, August 30, 2017.  This is one of those plants that I had seen drawings of but had never seen the actual flower until this past week. In one of my Wild Flower Guides the drawing of this flower is on the same page as Stargrass, a yellow flower that I think I have seen every year I have been looking for wild flowers.

Also found at Massasoit State Park, East Taunton, MA, August 30, 2017, Nodding Ladies Tresses. This is one of our native orchids. Not very showy flower like Lady Slippers are, but still pretty, and I was very happy to find it growing so profusely at Massasoit. It was in the same boggy area as the yellow-eyed grass above.

These next two flowers are both types of clover, actually they are both Bush Clovers, and I found these in my local city park, D W Field Park, Brockton, MA., August 31, 2017. The pink flowers above are Slender Bush Clover. 

The above is Round Headed Bush Clover. I have photographed this plant for years, but this year is the first time I have actually managed to find it in bloom. The flowers aren't very obvious and they don't last long. Found along the same path as the Slender Bush Cover above.

Not the best photo but for some reason I had a hard time photographing these flowers. Still is shows a flower and some of the plant leaves so it is representative. This is Partridge Sensitive Pea, and I found it at Nasketucket Bay Reservation in Mattapoisett, MA. Photographed Sept. 1, 2017. 

This last plant had me totally stumped, it is semi parasitic like Indian Pipes as it links to a fungus network in the soil for its nutrients. In this case the associated trees are Oaks. Many thanks to the members of Native Plants of New England Facebook group for helping me to identify it. This is Hairy Pine-Sap, and is my missing 4th Parasitic plant. See my post on Parasitic Plants back in September, 2017. Photographed September 2, 2017, Ames Nowell State Park, Abington, MA.

That is it for new to me plants that I have seen in the past week or so. Actually there were a couple of others but these are the most interesting and the post was getting too long so I will stop here. Please note that there are links to GoBotany for each flower if you are interested in Latin names or other facts, or if you wish to view other images.

As a final image today, above is a young Great Blue Heron that I photographed waiting for dinner to swim by in my local park.

One last comment, on my trip to Mattapoisett I photographed 2 (new to me) butterflies, a Red Banded Hairstreak and a Zabulon Skipper that I have added to the Butterfly page. That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome. Hope you enjoyed this post.

Some Flower Photographs

OK I sort of promised flower photographs in my last update.

A little personal history. Back in the 1980's I started walking in the Blue Hills Reservation which is just outside of Boston, MA. I decided to sign up for a sponsored walk that would take a group from one side of the Reservation to the other, about 8 miles. We didn't finish the walk, one of the hikers in our group blew out her knee and couldn't finish, but along the way our leader had pointed out the various wild flowers that were just coming into bloom. I got interested, and thought it would be a good way to motivate my walks, looking for new wild flowers to ID. So I purchased a Petterson Guide to Wildflowers and spent the next several years on the hunt. No camera, those were back in the days of film and I couldn't afford either the film or the camera, but I did try to draw some of the flowers I found. After several years I had to give it up, just walking in the woods would cause my eyes to water and my nose to run. I had become allergic to something, probable leaf litter molds.

After a break of about 20 years I started walking again, wanted to get in shape and loose some weight. Thankfully I seemed to have outgrown (aged out) of the allergy. But I also try to stay on trails that don't have leaf litter. By that time I had acquired a digital camera (for the blog actually) and it was a no brainer to begin making photographs of the flowers I found.

So here we are thousands of photographs later, above is a clump of Blue Eyed Grass, photo was made at Massasoit State Park, East Taunton, Ma. this June.

Not a wild flower and certainly not a native one to MA, but I love poppies. This one was blooming in the bird/butterfly garden at Oak Knoll a MA Audubon Sanctuary in Attleboro, MA. Also photographed this June.

Not sure if these are native Iris or imported ones, but these were growing in the water at Lake Rico in Massasoit State Park, East Taunton, MA. I don't believe the blue iris are as invasive as the yellow ones, so please if you want to plant water iris plant the blue not the yellow.

These next two photos I just like the lighting (image) I captured. Another not native flower, I believe this is Evening Lychnis, or as Go Bottany calls it White Campion, but I could be wrong, there are a couple flowers that look a lot alike with just small variations. But I am pretty sure I am right. Photographed at Ames Nowell State Park, Abinton, MA. also in June.

Last flower image, is Daisy Fleabane, this is a native plant, one found in open fields and waste areas. Still I think it can be a pretty flower and I really like this photo. Photographed at Ames Nowell State Park, Abington, MA. June 2017.

Sorry I can't resist, the Checkerspots are back at Attleboro Springs field. Not in huge numbers but they are back as of this week. Above is a photo of a Baltimore Checkerspot I made at the site, love their orange eyes and tips of antennae. Checkerspots are a very pretty mid sized butterfly.

That is it for today. As noted previously comments are welcome. Though I have a feeling I have lost most of my readers. There will be art again, eventually, I just don't want to promise when.

More Watercolor and ink with some pencil sketches

Above is another of my studies using a watercolor wash background and then ink on top. The ink this time was Acrylic Indigo Blue with a dip pen. This is OK, but not what I am looking for so I have another in the works, but the inking I want to put on top of the next one is taking more planning. For the tulips I used a couple of my reference photos, but the end results don't quite do it for me. Might  have been better if I had put leaves in the background, but by the time I realized that it was too late.

Spring is arriving, the world is turning green around me, the flowers and butterflies are starting to emerge for the season. After seeing photos of a Kestrel on the facebook bird group I belong to, and knowing that there are some spring flowers that bloom in the Oak Wood, I took a trip over to Daniel Webster. The flowers were just budding so not as far along as I had hoped, I didn't see any of the Kestrels, but I did see one of the Osprey who are again back on their nest stand, and I think I saw a blue bird pair. Not a total loss but not the most successful visit either, so there are no photos, and least none I want to share. I did sit out at Fox Hill for a bit and drew the nearest tree and the line of power poles above. Done in my sketchbook with one of my technical pens. The view is open fields and wetlands, a perfect spot for Kestrels and Osprey.

I also went into Boston last week, hoping for some beautiful blooming trees on Commonwealth Ave., nada, I was either too early or too late. Even Boston Garden didn't have a lot of trees/shrubs in bloom, only one or two trees, again too early for some trees and too late for others. On the bus driving in I made the above sketches in graphite, fellow passengers.

I also visited the MFA, my main goal was to look at the Techstyle Clothing exhibit that I have been walking through but not really viewing. The clothes are very out there, and I found myself a bit impatient with some of what they had on display, totally unwearable unless you weren't going to sit down for hours. I am neither young enough or thin enough to even dream about wearing that stuff even if I had some place to wear it, which I don't.

Anyway I took the time to revisit some galleries that are old friends, Late Egyptian period, and then some early Greek statues and wares. The above sketches were made in those galleries, the woman from a relief panel, the small vase from an actual alabaster jar, and then a bust in the Greek gallery.

Spring is coming to the Fens, you can see the weeping willow is starting to green up a bit, actually it is yellow since it is starting to bloom. Anyway I just like this photo so I thought I would share. Hard to believe this is in the middle of a fairly large city, but it is.

Another trip last week had me driving down to Myles Standish State Forest in Carver, MA. I was looking for butterflies, and found several but I also found this, Trailing Arbutus, our state flower. I had never seen it in the wild before so I was thrilled when I made the ID. There was a lot of white blooming bearberry (a low ground cover) in the area and if I hadn't realized that some of the white I was looking at was different I might have missed it. That was a very good day out, two new Elfin Butterflies for my list and the Trailing Arbutus.

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

Watercolor and Pen and Ink Experiments

The above is an outgrowth of some of the exercises I have been doing from the Bert Dodson book Keys to Drawing with Imagination. The exercises I did are below. The first was the butterflies in silhouette, then since it is spring I got the idea of doing the same with a tulip shape. I was looking for some contact between shapes and I thought the tulip shape might be easier to work.

Once I finished the silhouette mode of the tulips I went on to the 2nd part of the exercise, which was to draw the images in contact and then darken the background or do a reverse silhouette. Since I had been playing with some new watercolor (to me) paints I though why not put the tulips on some painted water color paper. Above is the finished drawing. The tulips with just a darkened background didn't have a focal point, so I picked one of the tulips and added some details. Sort of OK, but I am glad this was an exercise and something I was more invested in.  Paper here and in the 2 other works on this page is cold press 6 x 6 inch Fluid Watercolor Paper that I purchased in block form from Dick Blicks last summer.

Original exercises for silhouette mode with pen and ink. I actually think I like the butterflies better, but I couldn't get the contact areas to work smoothly so used the tulips for the reverse exercise.

I purchased some additional paints, and wanting to see how they would work with one of my other paints did another wash study. The colors are Hansa Yellow Medium and Quinacridone Rose along with turquoise. The yellow and the rose are my new colors. This is another wet in wet wash which I started with the Hansa yellow in the center, then added the rose and finally the turquoise.  When it dried I thought it would be fun to add some ink work, and decided to keep to the circular theme. I drew 3 overlapping circles (using a roll of tape as a template) and added ink using my technical pens. No particular look in mind up front, I just wanted  to use various fills/textures. When I finished the outer rings I added the inner circle. Circles were drawn with pencil and then inked.

Not wonderful but kind of fun. and I do like the colors, might have been better if I had overlapped the colors a bit more, but I didn't want to muddy them which can be a concern with watercolor.

 OK at this point I was on a roll so I painted a third sheet, using the yellow and the pink but adding some purple instead of the turquoise. There is also a bit more color overlap in the wash with this one.

For a reference I selected one of the WetCanvas pen and ink forums challenge images, and using acrylic black ink and a dip pen drew the flowers in over the wash.  I did pencil sketch the outlines of the flowers first, mainly for placement but details were all done with the pen. This one I rather like, and think I need to play around with this technique a bit more to see where it can take me. Maybe I will use one of my own flower photographs next time. Maybe by the time I finish a series of these I will be more experienced with wet in wet watercolor washes.

Wednesday I took the bus into Boston for a visit to the MFA (wanted to finish viewing the Megacities Asia sculptures) and then a walk through a different area of Boston for photographs. I ended up walking the Rose Kennedy Greenway from the North End to South Station, there are some additional photographs on my Facebook page if you are interested. Anyway I did my usual on the bus ride into Boston and made this sketch of a fellow passenger. I did do other sketches but I liked this one the best. Done in my small sketchbook with a Copic Fineliner pen the .1 tip.

The above photograph is from my walk yesterday. I finally found some spring daffodils that hadn't been badly damaged by our snow and cold weather of over a week ago. I just thought these were pretty and the photo came out well. Oddly enough daffodils can be a bit hard to photograph.

Also from my Boston trip yesterday, this is the Christian Science Mother church. I am photographing this through the stand of trees that they have planted on one side of Christian Science Plaza, I like the tunnel to the left along with the still bare branches and blue sky. The reflecting pool is still empty so the plaza wasn't the best location for photos yesterday, not to mention the cement mixers that were doing something toward the front of the church.

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