Rejected Photos and some art

I have been working on next years (2018) calendars. Every year I try to select the best photographs I have made over the past year and create calendars for family and/or friends. This year there are 3 different calendars.: one with bird photographs, another with butterfly photos, and the 3rd with, this year anyway "Landscape" photos. Not that all of the photos in the Landscape Calendar are really of landscapes. Feeling that just landscape photos would get boring (the area I make my photographs in is fairly limited) I included some photos that are more close up photos of nature, not long distant shots so I have fudged a bit.

The bird and butterfly calendars are in a way a bit easier to pull together, I just pull out my best photographs and select from there. Since I need 14 photographs for each calendar I usually don't end up with a lot of extra. Esp. as I don't want to repeat species in each year. But with the landscape calendar there are some months that are harder to make the final selection for. So this blog post includes my "rejected" calendar photos. They didn't make the final cut, but were selected as possibles.

The above photo was a possible March. For the Landscape calendar, photos are made in the month they represent. This one was made in March at Ponkapoag Golf Course, showing the Sugar Maples that line the road leading back to the Bluehills Reservation area around the pond.

The above photo was made in Ames Nowell State Park, Abington, MA in April. Powered boats are not allowed on lakes in the state parks, but some visitors bring inflatable kayaks or canoes such as seen here.

This photo was made in my local city park in August, and shows this year's swan family, parents and cygnets swimming away from me. I used another photo of the swans in the calendar, one I liked better, and didn't want to repeat the image, so this one got cut.

The photograph above was made at the Governor Ames Estate, Easton, MA in July. This is what I mean when I say that not all of the photos are "Landscapes". Still nature, but not a long distance shot. I really like this photo of water lilies, but it just didn't fit in for that month.

This photo was made at Daniel Webster, MA Audubon site in Marshfield, MA in June. It shows the fields where the bobolinks make their nests. The fields are mowed toward the end of every summer so that the trees don't take over, but it is done after the young birds have fledged so are out of the fields. I just liked the range of values and colors in this photo, but it just didn't fit so got eliminated.

Hope you enjoyed this peak behind the curtain so to speak and like viewing my "rejected" photos.

Lately I have been trying to get back to some of my other loves (drawing and sewing) so above are two bookmarks that I have been working on. I painted a made up landscape on some watercolor paper, then cut the paper into strips and added ink work over the painting. There are a couple of more that I need to finish, but these two are the ones I have done so far. I apply acrylic medium to the fronts and backs which not only makes them waterproof but pretty durable.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are welcome

More Sketches, Titmouse and Stuff

 The reference for the Tufted Titmouse above was another of my more recent bird photographs. I suppose I should have darkened the background a bit more, but the reference isn't that high contrast and I wanted to keep the same soft feeling for this drawing. Done with 2H, HB and B grade pencils it wouldn't have been easy to go a lot darker in any case. Just trying to get my drawing chops back up to par. Not totally displeased with this, it does look like a Titmouse.

 I know the circles are seriously out of shape, and the "leaf" motifs aren't all the same size, nor are the center segments. The reason is that I did this drawing entirely by hand, usually when I am doing circles I pull out my campuses and use them (it can bother me if circles are too wonky) but I was just exploring designs so decided not to do that. After I finished the pencil drawing I inked the whole thing using a dip pen and one of my new crow quill nibs with India Ink. The paper in the sketchbook I was using seemed to spread the ink a bit so the lines aren't as fine as they should be. After I finished inking (and let it dry overnight) I erased out the pencil lines.

Design is based on some architectural motifs that I photographed on Chicago buildings over Christmas. I am working on another piece the same shape and wanted to play a bit with designs, and how to shade the background for the outer ring. Not sure how I feel about this, it seems to cry out for color, but I also like the black and white version.

 Managed only one page this week for the WetCanvas Scavenger Hunt. Part of my excuse is that a lot of the prompts called for outside (meaning outdoors) images and our weather here in MA just hasn't been sitting outside weather (too cold, too wet, rain and snow). Hopefully I will do better next week. Done in the sketchbook I seemed to have dedicated to this with a .1 Copic Multiliner pen. Again these were drawn directly in ink, no pencil underdrawings. The screwdriver isn't too bad, considering.

From a walk last week in one of the Blue Hills Reservation sections this is a photo of lichen covered boulders, left by the glaciers at the top of a hill that goes down to Ponkapoag Pond. Note the smaller rock balanced above the gap between two others. MA not only has a foundation of granite but it also has a great many rocks and boulders left loose on the surface by retreating glaciers. That is one reason why we have so many stone walls, they had to get the rocks out of the fields to plow them, so why not build something. Oddly enough early settlers mostly didn't use stone for their houses, they preferred wood or brick for those.

A photograph from Friday of snow left by Thursday's all day snow storm, a small local park. I think we only got about 8 inches but other areas of the state got several inches more. Yesterday (Saturday) we had another couple of inches of snow then clouds for the rest of the day. Since there was no sun I didn't take the camera out. Today we again have clouds only today we are getting some rain which is expected to turn to snow overnight then we are scheduled for another storm tomorrow. ACK one winters quota of snow storms in about 5 days. It is more fun when they are spread out over several weeks.

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

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.

A Barn and some other landscapes

I have been trying to push myself to do more drawing. I worked hard to get my drawing skills up to a fairly high level and I really don't want to let them get too rusty. So the above pen and ink drawing done from one of the July reference photos in the Pen and Ink forum on WetCanvas. An old barn, drawn in one of my small notebooks, so it isn't very large, approx. 4 x 6 inches and it was drawn with my technical pens.

I see some mistakes, but am otherwise not displeased with this small drawing.

The above is actually a plein air landscape, drawn with pen and ink in one of my smaller notebooks while I was visiting my local park. Not wonderful, but not too bad either. Trees are supposed to be birch trees. I need to work on how to depict leaves on a tree without drawing each and every one what I did in this drawing isn't entirely satisfactory.

In the same park where I drew the landscape I also spent some time trying to draw the ducks and geese that live there from life. Very sketchy drawings as live animals tend to not hold still. The advantage of drawing ducks and geese is that I have done a fair amount of drawing them from references so have some basic understanding of how they should look, which helps, but I have some pages with some pretty weird looking sketches, where I wasn't very on the mark with the drawings.

Another park, this time a State Park in Abington, MA, and another landscape. Foreground is actually a huge rock which I was sitting on to make the drawing of the woods beyond. Should have spent a bit more time on this to get the values a bit more accurate, but it was getting late so I really didn't have the time.

People make fires at this spot even though the park is supposed to be closed after sunset, probably local teenagers who come to drink beer, no one would be able to see or hear them. The rock is off of a main trail along the edge of the lake so would be fairly easy to find even in the dark.

Two photographs today, the above was made in Boston during a recent visit and is the fountain in the Christian Science Plaza, in the summer the kids love to play in the fountain, which is allowed I have a feeling that by allowing them to play in the fountain they hope to keep them out of the reflecting pool behind. Beyond in the background is the dome of the Main CS church.

The above is a head shot of a bumble bee gathering nectar and pollen from a Milkweed flower. Even if you don't like bees I hope you like this photo, It isn't easy getting a good photo of a bee they move so much so quickly. I really like this one, and hope you do also.

That is it for today, per usual comments are appreciated. One last note I have been collecting so many butterfly photos that I though it was time I set up a separate page for them. I have just started working on it so don't have all the butterflies I have photographed posted yet but if you have a moment do take the time to check it out.

Inktense, watercolor and just Pen and Ink

This piece has actually been in the works for a while. I know it looks fairly simple, pen and ink, but I used Inktense pencils for the color on this and they needed to be activated in stages so sometimes I would need to let the work dry before moving onto another section.

The original drawing was the flower with the stems and leaves, I added the triangles as background and then added fills to the triangles. Once the inking was finished I use my Inktense pencils to color in the various areas and sections. Then came activation of the ink with a damp brush. I think that took longer to do than any other part of the small drawing.

Am I happy with it, I am not sure, it sort of does what I wanted it to do but... Colors were chosen to be complements of each other, red/green, blue/orange, yellow/violet. and the one background triangle repeating all main colors. That one I overlaid with grey to tone down the colors.

The work was done on Hot Press Watercolor paper with my technical pens and then Inktense pencils, size is 4 x 6 inches, so relatively small.

A real plein air watercolor, I hadn't done one of these since last summer, and I think it shows, not a very good watercolor, but I suppose it could be worse. I was at Ellisville Harbor where they have an Osprey stand. I chose the stand and the background hills to be my image for the painting. Not sure you get the sense of open marsh which is what I was going for. I did leave the Ospreys out of the painting, the female was sitting on her nest and while I was working on this the male stopped by to check me out. He never came to harass me so I wasn't close enough to the stand to bother them.

Photograph of what I was painting, with Osprey on the nest. I wasn't going for a lot of detail in the painting, just wanted to get the colors semi right which I found easier said than done.

Another of my "exercises" or pen doodles. This one sort of looks like an egg with bows on, no clue where this came from.

Yesterday I was at Broadmoor MA Audubon Sanctuary in Natick, MA.  I didn't see to identify a lot of birds, though I did have my glasses and I did hear a lot of birds, cardinals, chickadees, phoebes, and saw robins, canada geese, and various sparrows. I also saw and photographed a green frog, a couple of water snakes and a couple of garter snakes, it was sort of a good day to see snakes. I saw the lodge for the beavers but didn't see any, I know I was there at the wrong time of day for them to be out and about.

I didn't see a lot of flowers: several wild oat plants/flowers, a few wood anemones, some winter cress was blooming by the edge of one field, and the lily of the valley was setting buds for flowers by the path to the Sanctuary Office. That said I have been busy photographing wild flowers this week, several of those photos have been posted to my facebook page.

The photo above is of some ferns unfurling for their summer growth. The dark green sections are the reproductive fronds for this fern which will create and release the plants spores. Ferns don't flower, and don't create "seeds" but create spores that they release to the woods. If you want to read more about ferns and their reproduction you can go HERE

The above photo is still Broadmoor, and is just a section of woods with a marshy area. I rather liked this photo as it shows how the woods are slowly turning green, leaves aren't quite out yet, but they are starting to get there, a couple more days of warm weather and this scene with dappled sunlight will be mostly in shade.

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

Pen and Ink Landscape and other

I started this over Christmas vacation but then sort of dropped it, no particular reason just didn't feel like working on it. It is from a reference photo I made a couple of years ago in a local State Park. I don't recall the tree species. I just liked the line of it with the fence, open field behind and then the line of trees in the distance. Time of year was October, so the tree has lost some of its leaves. Haven't decided if I like this or not. I think it works but might have been better on white paper. Course I can always do a re-make.

This is done on Strathmore toned grey paper with my technical pens, the 3x0 as I recall, size is 4 x 6 inches.

More play with my technical pens, got to keep that ink flowing. I start with a basic shape and then work from there as I feel like it, the squares were the start of this piece.

This was drawn for another of the WetCanvas Scanvenger Hunts. I mostly used the F lead in one of my clutch pencil holders but added some 2B. This is one of my Grandmothers china cups, Lemoges, and purchased in Canada while they were on their Honeymoon over 100 years ago. Is there such a thing as Antique China? The squiggle around the rim is a gold pattern. Done in my dedicated sketchbook it is a fairly small drawing, about 4 inches.

I spent yesterday in Boston at the Museum of Science visiting their special exhibit on the Inca's. The above is a photograph of one of the statues on exhibit and is of one of their kings. These statues contain images that have to do with the Kings right to rule, claiming linkage and ancestry to past kings and to the Gods. I found the exhibit well put together, with short video clips, informative blurbs, and covering a wide range of Inca culture, from ball games to war, it was worth my time if not my money.

I wasn't happy about the price I had to pay to see this, and since I don't have kids or grandkids membership in the museum isn't worth it to me. It has been years since I visited the museum and it will probably be years before I visit again. The museums regular exhibits and activities are geared toward the under 14 age group. They might be found interesting by an adult who hasn't been exposed to some of the best Science museums such as the Smithsonian or Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, but not really to me. I know museums have to support themselves and one time visitors are one way they do that, doesn't mean I have to like though.

Upon leaving the museum I walked along the Charles River, as I wanted to make some photographs. I walked down from the museum to the Red Line stop at the end of the Longfellow Bridge. Along the way I collected 4 squirrels that obviously expected me to feed them. Unfortunately for them I didn't have any food. But it was fun to make photos of them. Since they were running along the top of a snow bank which was about waist high I had no trouble getting this in-your-face photo. That black bar to the right is the back of a bench that has been mostly covered in snow.

Again I have posted more photos from my day out to my Facebook fan page. You don't have to be a facebook member to view it.

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

Jan. Pen and Ink works.

Better late than never I guess, the above pen and ink drawing of a farm house is from the December WetCanvas pen and ink forum challenge images. I started it back in December and just never got it done. I even took it with me to Chicago but ended up not working on it, not feeling in the mood to do this type of pen work.

Size is 4 x 4 inches on Bristol Board Smooth. Done with my smaller nib technical pens. This is mostly line not cross hatch, the toning is just lots of thin lines close together. I am still playing with pen techniques, for this drawing I didn't use outlines just directional lines. Not sure about the trees in background, They don't exactly look like trees, but I am not sure it is necessary that they do. The house is the focal point, trees are just in the background and wouldn't really be noticed by a viewer.

The WetCanvas channels/forums have one dedicated to drawing plein air, or rather from life, no photo references. Part of their usual activities is to generate a list of things to draw from life, it isn't quite weekly since each "Scavenger Hunt" list runs for 9 days but it is frequent enough. I have been missing this kind of challenge. The Everyday Matters group used to have a weekly theme but new themes haven't been issued for over a year. Anyway I may not join this group very often but felt like it this past week.

So above is my own vegetable peeler drawn from life. This little guy is old, dating back to when I first went out on my own, oh over 40 years ago. But it still works just fine so I have never replaced it. Drawn in the sketchbook I had previously dedicated to the Everyday matters drawings I used graphite to show my peeler.

I haven't done a new bookmark for ages and figured it was time that I got back to making some, so above is the finished drawing part of a new bookmark. Done on Stonehenge paper with colored pens. Fish, more or less based on the fish I drew for #Inktober. Still needs some finishing details including a tassel, but at least I have it started. I worked on this while listening to an audible book I borrowed from the library. Need to get more books to listen to this way, lets me draw at the same time I listen.

I don't think the above is finished. I am thinking about adding color. All it is right now is a stipple background for the darks. I drew this first with pencil and then stippled around the drawn shapes. Once I had the stipple mostly done I erased out the pencil and made corrections. I just made up the design as I went along with no particular image in mind.

Still thinking about what colors to add. I will be using colored pencil as this is done on Bristol Board Smooth which doesn't like water. If I had used hot press watercolor paper I think I would be using some of my Inktense pencils, but because I didn't think that far ahead I think I will go the safer road and just use regular colored pencils.

A photograph from last week. We had a light dusting of snow on Friday morning, here is a photograph of the sky and rooftops showing clearing clouds and that snowy frosting. Looks monochromatic, but it is really a color photograph, just not a lot of color to show in this one.

That is it for today. I hope to get back to being more productive than I have been art wise. It does seem like I need to take these little breaks from creating. Anyway per usual comments are welcome.

More Doodles from Chicago

The above wasn't done in Chicago, this piece was actually made in the past couple of days after I got home. Not quite sure what I was thinking or tying out here, but the idea came to me to draw some flowers, then decided they needed some color so I added it. Various colored ink pens and one of my technical pens with black ink. Not very large only about 4 inches high, done in one of my sketchbooks, flowers are from my imagination.

I have something nibbling at the back of the brain that wants to be a project, eventually it will either come out into the light or go away, If it decides to make itself known you will read about it here.

During my Chicago visit my sister and I visited the Art Institute of Chicago. We often make a visit there at this time year. I enjoy seeing what they have in their drawing Galleries and usually we visit the Textile Galleries to see if there are any quilts hanging. On this visit we didn't make it down to the Textiles and instead went up to the Modern wing to check out the surrealists. There was a Dali painting I wanted to see, turns out it wasn't on exhibit but I did enjoy seeing some early Picasso, Chagall, and Matisse works. After the moderns we took a break for lunch then headed back toward the front to see the Drawing exhibit, Strokes of Genius, Italian drawings from the 1500's. It is marvelous by the way, if anyone reading is in Chicago prior to Feb 1, stop by the museum and check it out.

Anyway on our way to the drawings we wandered through an exhibit of Byzantine art, a couple of the exhibits were carved crosses, inspiring me to draw one of my own when I got back to my sisters. My drawing is very simple compared to the carvings but I had fun doing it just the same.  Drawn with Technical pens in one of my sketchbooks.

Above is another small drawing inspired by a museum visit. The museum this time was the Chicago Nature Museum and its butterfly room. They raise live mostly tropical butterflies in this room. I spent a fun hour or so trying to make some photographs. Not terribly successful but it was fun anyway. The museum is a great place to take kids, they have a wonderful interactive exhibit on rivers and water flow where kids can dam a "river" and see what happens. In another room they have live frogs and other animals on exhibit.

My butterfly with the rose is totally from my imagination, and isn't really based on any one butterfly. Just needed to exercise the technical pens. Another drawing in my sketchbook.

Another drawing from my imagination, this time I used a brown ink pen. The goal was to see if I could draw clouds and portray distance in a landscape. I consider this only semi successful, some of these clouds are pretty oddly shaped, and have a bit too much outlining. Was also trying different strokes to create texture, my conclusions I need to do more of this type of sketch to further develop my skills in this area, right now they are sadly lacking.

As a close a couple of photographs. Above are two of the butterflies in the Butterfly room at the museum. These were thinking about mating, but for one reason or another didn't actually do so.

For the above image I have one comment, Baby it is cold outside. Our outside temps this morning when I got up were about 1 degree F, cold. And yes I know Chicago is probably even colder, still for us this is cold, and made me reconsider my plans to travel into Boston today. Think I will put that off until tomorrow when it will be warmer. Anyway the above is a photograph of frost on one of my storm windows. I enhanced it in Photoshop so there is a bit more contrast, But frost does make pretty patterns on glass. As I write this the frost has melted so I am glad I was paying attention and made the photo earlier.

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

Again #inktober and a note on the care of brushes

This post is mostly made up of drawings I have done for the #inktober challenge.

For the 7th I wanted to do something with my dip pen and my new ink (Pelikan), so for once in this challenge I just winged it. I started with the snowman and went from there. The resulting landscape is totally out of my imagination. I am not happy with it, but didn't have time or energy to do anything else so I went with it. One thing I did learn from this quick sketch is I need to practice drawing clouds. And yes those are supposed to be clouds in the sky not mountains.

I spent more time with prep work for the drawing for the 8th. This is one of the feral cats my neighbor is feeding. I am off and on trying to get semi good photographs of all of them, and at some point hope to draw them all. I think there are 4 or 5, most of them I have at least one semi good image of, but there is one who is very shy and I have yet to really capture.

This is the grey tabby that I have sketched before. For this image I restored the ear which isn't all there in the real cat.

I used my technical pens for this drawing using mostly the very fine tipped 3X0 pen, though for the stipple work I used the 0 tip. I wasn't in the mood to be stippling forever, and besides the cat was sitting on a concrete step so the courser stipple more reflects the rough surface. I see things now that I am not totally happy with but for the most part I think it came out well.

 

After the cat I wanted to draw something less elaborate for the 9th. And I had been thinking about hauling out one of my brushes and doing something with brush work and ink instead of just pen. For a simple seasonable subject I thought pumpkins. 

I am semi pleased with the result. I like the shadows, but I don't like the all the black lines I used on the pumpkins. I started with those and added the shadows later when I should have done it the other way around, put the in the shadows and then added a few black/dark lines. I think I need to try something else with brush and ink to see if I learned anything from this experiment. 

Oh there are a few pen lines here also, I used a pen to put in the stems and added some lines to the background and foreground after I had done all the brush work. 

One further note on the care of brushes. India Ink has shellac in it which will damage brushes if not washed out. So when I finished with the brush I rinsed it first in clean water until I got  most of the ink out. Then I put a drop of dish washing soap in the palm of one hand and proceeded to rub the wet brush into the soap, pushing bristles around so that the soap was worked thoroughly into the brush, it is amazing how much ink can be cleaned out this way. Then I rinsed the brush in clean water and wiped it on a paper towel to check for ink. If I had seen any I would have redone the soap step. 

A last comment try to not dip the brush too far into the ink, you want to keep ink out of the ferrule if you can. Ink or even paint in that area of the brush can bleed into other colors when the brush is next used. 

After the disaster with the clouds in my pen and ink landscape I thought I should practice drawing clouds so on one of my shopping trips I sketched the above. Not totally happy with it, even though it is pencil and not ink, I think I need more practice.  I can understand why landscape painters in the past did many cloud studies. 

Yesterday instead of going back to the MFA I felt I should visit some different museums so I headed off to Harvard Square and the Peabody and Harvard Natural History museums. I did make some photographs there but won't inflict them on my reader at this point. Instead I have a photograph of Cambridge and some Harvard University buildings to share. Bicycles seem to be the mode of transportation in and around Harvard, so here is one on MA Ave. with some fall foliage in the background.

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