Plein Air in State Parks, just graphite

Spring is well advanced here in MA., trees are mostly leafed out, flowers are blooming, some butterflies and Odes are flying and I have been doing a lot of walking and photographing in my "local" state parks and Sanctuaries. Course with the leaves come those pesky caterpillars for winter and gypsy moths. UGH, I hate walking through woods and hearing the poop and leaf bits dropping. Not much I can do about it, though I do kill every caterpillar that lands on me or that I see hanging by a thread. I know not much of a defense against the on-slot but I feel better doing it.

On some of my walks I will take a small break to rest my feet and knees, and have taken to doing some small graphite sketches while I do so. So today I am showing 3 of these. The top one is from Borderland State park, shows a tree, one of the ponds and more trees in the distance. Hmm, I think I need to work on some textures for the trees in the distance. And I am not sure I conveyed the water very well.

Above is another image from Borderland State Park. There is an old farm house on the property (actually there are 2, but one is off to the side and I only drive by it, I don't walk by it) any way they have put in a couple of small garden areas near the house, this is a sketch of some of the plants, the rocks that surround the plot, a field with distant trees. Still need to work on the distant trees, but I almost like the way I blocked these in better than what I did in the first sketch.

The park represented here was Massasoit State Park, East Taunton, MA. I was down there looking for Pink Lady Slippers, it is that time of year for them to be blooming. And yes I found my Lady Slippers. Near the entrance there is this "table" made of a flat rock piled on more rocks and a concrete block, that is what is supposed to be in the drawing, with a bulletin board in the background that has a map of the park along with a couple of notices. I didn't spend a lot of time on this, but not too bad.

I am hoping that by doing these graphite sketches I will work up the nerve to do some watercolor ones. But a huge part of a successful plein air painting is knowing what to put in and what to leave out, and learning to narrow ones focus. You can't paint everything you see after all, so with these drawings I am trying to learn how to narrow my focus. Wish me luck.

I recently achieved a goal with my watercolor paints, acquiring Artist quality pigments for all the colors I had in Student paints. Now I just need to learn what they can do and how to use them.

So to help with that I am mixing color swatches. Since yellow tends to be the lightest color I am starting with my 6 yellow/orange colors and using a selected 7th color mixing swatches. The 7th color is shown in the right column, at various strengths (dilutions with water). The pair of cards above shows the yellows with turquoise. I inadvertently purchased 2 different tubes of turquoise but they are from different manufactures and actually are different pigments so the resulting color is different even though they have the same name. I found working on these cards very interesting, first the greens I was mixing are more like what I see on my walks but 2nd was the difference between the two manufactures. Now to decide which goes in my travel pallet.

I have finished more of these and will be posting them in other blog updates.

This spring I discovered that there were many more pitcher plants in Borderland State Park than I ever expected. I have been keeping an eye on them all spring and this week was rewarded by seeing them actually in bloom. Course the blooms face the water, and I don't have boots or a boat so can only photograph the back side. Still isn't this photo fun, with the new green pitchers (leaves) and the reddish blooms.

Another photograph from Borderland State Park. This year there has been a heavy I almost want to say infestation of Swollen Bladderwort, a pretty yellow flower on an aquatic plant. All of the yellow in the above photo is this plant in bloom. I don't recall ever seeing this before. Pretty but also a bit disturbing,there have to be thousands of plants to create this show.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome. As I write this it is Memorial Day in the US. It was initially started to remember and honor the solders who fought and died in the American Civil War, it has since become a day to remember all of our War dead. I am not sure their sacrifice was always given in a good cause, but we owe it to them to remember and honor it and them.

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.

Plein Air, watercolor, pen and ink

I am trying to push myself to do more Plein Air work, or painting and drawing from direct field observation. Don't get me wrong I love being outside, but I prefer to be moving, going from point A to point B, listening and observing and occasionally stopping to make a photograph or to try and ID a bird or flower. I don't really care for sitting in one spot waiting for the bugs to find me and attack. But I can't draw or paint while on the move so I am trying to push myself into sitting and doing either at least a couple of times a week.

The above is this past weeks plein air watercolor painting. I was at Borderland State Park in Easton trying to paint the area by the outflow stream for the ponds. When I finished it, I though, ugh, this is terrible, but looking at it now I still find it pretty amateur but the tree isn't too bad, at least it is better than a lot of trees I  have painted in the past and I rather like the greens on the distant shore.

I really need to spend more time painting with watercolor as doing the paintings is the only way to get good at using watercolors. It can just be so fussy that sometimes I don't have the patience for it. But I sometimes need to add color to my pen and ink drawings and watercolor is the best method so I must just keep at it.

I also got in a trip into Boston this week and instead of heading into the Public Gardens I headed over to Quincy Market and then on to Columbus Park over by North Wharf on the waterfront. They have 3 of these trellises set up with wisteria vines climbing up and over. I was hoping the flowers would be in bloom and putting on a show. I was a bit disappointed as while the flowers were just starting to bloom they had pruned the vines so heavily last fall that there isn't going to be much of a show.

Anyway I sat for a while on a bench, had some lunch and then did a pencil drawing of one of the trellises. After finishing the drawing I added a bit of pen work to help shade and define features of the structures. I think I need to work on my buildings and structures.

Above is another of my pen and ink doodles with all of my technical pens. Using the larger tipped pens means that I put in dark areas as that is what they are best at. I sort of like this and think I may be using these designs for something else, Will just have to wait and see what develops.

Photographed at Borderland the same day I did the plein air painting, it isn't exactly the same view though I was sitting not too far away. I have photographed this view often as it is a favorite of mine, so here it is with spring greens in the background also with a blue sky and some clouds, looks like a perfect spring day, which it was.

I love Jack in the Pulpits, they aren't flowers that scream "HERE I AM, LOOK AT ME" esp. as they are often totally green as this one was. But their elaborate shape with the hood hiding the spadix below is so wonderfully elaborate you just have to admire them. I photographed this one at North River, a MA Audubon sanctuary in Marshfield, MA. I had been on a trip to World's End in Hingham to look for Juniper Hairstreaks (a small butterfly) and decided to go down route 3a and visit North River before going home. I was rewarded by being able to photograph and see quite a few Jack in Pulpit plants and flowers.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome, and if you are curious I place a photo of the Juniper I saw on my facebook page, link at the bottom of the blog page.

Pen and Ink, Watercolor and a new project

Another of my pen and ink WetCanvas challenge drawings for June. This is a stone barn not sure what country but I expect either Europe or Great Britain. I drew this out first in graphite since I often have a problem getting the perspective angle correct the first time around. I didn't on this one, you can still see the smudge where I tried to erase the original drawing. I think I need to do more perspective drawings so I can get a better handle on the angles involved.

Otherwise I am rather pleased with how this came out. Much better than my last pen and ink drawing. Course I did spend more time on this one so I guess it shows.

Drawn in my sketchbook I used my technical pens to do the inking.

The other day I was in one of Brockton's parks and though I would try a more close up drawing of trees and foliage so made the above drawing. I used a new to me pen which turned out to not have waterproof ink so the results got a bit smeared when I added the watercolor.

I played with mixing different colors of green for this drawing. The results are a bit of a mess but for some reason I still rather like it. That said I don't think I will be combining this pen with a watercolor wash again in the near future.

I was just fooling around last night trying different sketches to investigate some possible future drawings and ended up drawing my hand, well mainly my thumb, I was holding a pink pearl eraser. Not wonderful, but at least it looks like a hand. If I had chosen a slightly different position it would have been a good exercise from a book on drawing that I am currently reading Bert Dodson's Keys to Drawing. The book has been around since the 1985 but from what I have read so far it is one of the good ones for people who are trying to learn to draw.

I don't like books about learning to draw that take a rote approach to drawing, ie learn to draw this shape, learn to see this shape in the human form (or any form for that matter), draw that shape first then modify it. It is sort of the approach of the last book I had out of the library. When you learn to draw that way every new subject has to be broken down and analyzed and you have to commit shapes to memory. My belief is that the best way to learn to draw is to learn to see and translate that seeing to paper. If you learn to draw what you see then you can draw anything.

I am making a book, it is for me to use as a sketchbook for my plein air watercolors. Above is where I am currently at in the project. I have the signatures sewn together with the tape that will be used to attach the covers. The boards for the cover have been cut and I have selected some fabric to use to cover them. My stopping point was that I needed some glue. Now I have various glues around the apt. but I didn't want to  use any of them. The DVD I am using to assemble this book suggest Elmers Glue, I only have Elmers School glue so decided I needed to get the real deal before I went any further with my project.

I am using Bookbinding A Traditional Technique by Larry Withers as my guide. I am having to wing a few things, like the tape I am using, and also the cloth that will be glued to the back. The materials I am using as substitutes should be OK but they aren't authentic. Oh well don't think it really matters too much as this is just a first attempt and just a sketchbook for me to use. Wish me luck, so far so good but I still have quite a ways to go. From previous attempts at bookmaking I do have the correct thread, needles, awl, and bone folder so I am not winging all my materials.

Photo for today's update is a white peony flower in bloom. I was using manual settings for this photograph so the background is a bit darker than it would have been if I had use Automatic settings. It was a sunny day and I have found that on sunny days my automatic setting tends to allow too much light for some flowers giving them a washed out appearance. Even though I have lost the background I have lots of details in the flower so I am happy with this photograph.

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

An ATC, Watercolor and pen and ink Drawing

If this looks familiar it is because this ATC (Artist Training Card) is based on an image I posted a few weeks back. The bee started out as a doodle and then just evolved. For the card I changed a few things while leaving it basically the same. I don't do whimsy often so like to take advantage of it when I do.

Done on Stonehenge paper, pen and ink with colored pencil added.

Over the weekend I thought I would try to make another plein air painting. I needed to return a book to the library so after that stop I traveled on to a local park and made the above. I sketched it first with pencil added a few ink lines, erased the pencil and then painted it with watercolor.

Hmm, well I suppose not the worst painting I have ever done (that had to be a watercolor I did back 40 years or so ago) but it certainly isn't the best either. Very muddled, design wise, and my greens are not the best, even for a sunny day in June. Though it is probably hard to tell there is a granite sculpture toward the right of this painting that was supposed to have been the focal point.  Somehow the trees sort of took over. I can see working plein air is going to take a lot of practice before I even start to get this right.

The painting is small  5.5 x 7 inches but even so I am finding that the brush that came with my Cotman watercolor travel kit is just too small. I am going to have to figure out a way to carry a larger, better brush with me without damaging it. I suppose there are other brushes that I could purchase but that isn't something I want to do at the moment. I will figure something out, just have to think about it a bit.

A quick pen and ink sketch, well quick only in the sense that it didn't take me long to do the inking, or even to do the preliminary sketching with graphite. But the concept behind this drawing has been kicking around in my brain and even occasionally as attempted sketches in my sketch pad for years.

When I was a kid I had a fish tank that sat on top of a book shelf, I also had a cat, well the family had a cat, Taffy was never really mine. Anyway it was Taffy's habit to jump to the top of the fish tank and attempt to catch a fish. I don't believe he ever caught one but he sure tried hard enough.

All my previous attempts to draw this action just weren't working, I was trying to be much too realistic with the cat. Not sure this is my final version but I am liking this one much more than any I have done before. I have a lot of "Taffy" stories and have been wanting to make illustrations for some of them for a long time, maybe I now have a start. Wish me luck.

Done in my sketchbook, graphite first then added pen and ink using my technical pens.

As my photograph for today above are a couple of Dogwood flowers. These aren't the same species of Dogwood as the earlier pink flowers, those trees bloom prior to leafing and the ones in the above photograph are just in bloom now (in early June). There are quite a few varieties of dogwoods either native to North American or to Asia.

Our early spring bloomers (think pink) are native to North America, the tree blooming above is Japanese. Whichever, the flowers are actually the green center and the white or colored "leaves" are called bracts.  Our native tress prefer some shade while the Japanese variety can deal with full sun.

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