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.

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.

Drawings and Pen Exercises

Well that resolution didn't last very long. What I am writing about it the resolution to make a graphite drawing a day for 30 days. I managed 4 days then got sidetracked. Oops. Here are the last 2 drawings I did manage to do. One of my bottles of Acrylic Ink, in one of my small sketchbooks with various graphite pencils, I think HB, 2B, and maybe a 2H, but I can't really remember at this point.

Above is a piece of Ginger Root. I use a slice of fresh ginger to flavor my evening pot of green tea so I usually have some of this on hand. Again in my sketchbook with about the same range of pencils.

The day following this I got more involved with doing the exercises from the Dodson book Keys to Drawing with Imagination and let the graphite drawings slide.

Above is a sheet I put together of some of the exercises I have been doing. The top left was my attempt at what Dodson calls a tangle, lines are supposed to overlap, run over and behind. I found this type of "doodle" to be quite tricky to do. I certainly can't do them mindlessly. Maybe with a lot more practice I could, but since I don't entirely see the point of putting myself through that struggle I think I will just let that type of doodle slide.

The Upper Right page was me attempting Geometric doodles, much more my thing, and more like doodles I have done in the past.

The lower left sheet was done using what Dodson called a wave, I just enclosed it and repeated in in a spiral instead of across the page. Another type of doodle that I am more used to doing. I like drawing organic type shapes.

The last sheet in the lower right hand corner was from a different exercise, using Building blocks to make shapes. I didn't do a lot of these, though perhaps I should have done more, but again I felt comfortable working in this manner.  I have more exercises done but I will save them for the next blog update. Instead I wanted to write above my latest trip to visit Boston's MFA.

Last week we finally had another sunny day (we have had lots of clouds and some rain the past 2 weeks) so I made the trip into Boston on Wed. My goal was to visit the Museum of Fine Arts to take in the new exhibits and to wander around Boston with the Camera. The wander around Boston part was successful though there weren't as many trees/plants in bloom as I had hoped. Still it was just the end of March and there isn't usually much blooming at this point. Then on to the MFA.

At the MFA I was able (because I am a Member) to do a preview viewing of the new MegaCities Asia exhibit. Artists represented are all from one of the huge Asian Megacities. Many of the works were created with "found" objects. One made up of bags sort of melted together, another was old doors and windows, another bamboo and rope, another of molded and painted migratory birds. The one thing they all have in common is they are large. One area was given over to moving sculptures (made by the same artist) that cycle between movement and staying still, when they move they make noise so when all of them are moving it can get fairly noisy, sort of like a city depending on time of day.

While I was visiting the exhibit a couple arrived with stools with I think the intent to sketch one of the artworks, I thought it might be fun to sketch them with the artwork just beyond. Which is what you see in the above drawing. Below from a different angle is the construct that he/I was drawing. The "sculpture" is made up of purchased everyday objects, brooms, bags of food, an umbrella, cans of soda. The one thing they have in common is that they are predominantly green. I didn't even try to detail the sculpture in my drawing, I would have been drawing for hours, so all you see is a suggestion of some of the objects along with a rear view of a fellow artist. The pair didn't stay very long so I have a feeling they found the subject a bit overwhelming.

This is a view of the same sculpture I attempted to sketch in the above drawing, but from a different angle. Just wanted to give you a better idea of a very visually confusing structure.

There are several other new exhibits at the museum but I will wait to write about those after my next visit, which should be soon.

The red fabric flower above is also part of the Megacities Asia exhibit. There is an air blower at the base that inflates and then allows the petals to relax a bit when it stops blowing. The on/off cycle of air makes the flower seem to breath, add some wind and you get quite a bit of movement. This sculpture is placed on the lawn outside the museum. Sure hope no one attempts to mess with it.

Since it was still March when I visited Boston most of the blooming flowers I saw were in planters or window boxes. This box contained mostly white tulips with one pink one to liven up the mix. I am sure the pink was an accident but I enjoyed seeing it. White tulips lit by the sun. Happy Spring to everyone in the Northern Hemisphere.

That is it for today. As I understand it the MegaCities exhibit is on Tour and Boston is just one of the stops on the Tour, it will be here until July 17, but I am not sure where it goes next, or even if it really is on tour my MFA Preview Magazine really doesn't say. In the meantime all comments are welcome.

Graphite Drawings and some Pen Exercises

I think I have too many projects in the works at one time. LOL, the 3 main drawings for this update are from a challenge that I have taken up from the WetCanvas Drawing forum. Draw something every day from life with pencil for 30 days. So far I am managing, mostly by doing relatively simple drawings.

Why you may wonder am I doing this, well for my 6 x 6 inch ink and colored pencil works I decided I wanted to do a squirrel, I have a great reference photo and I have drawn squirrels before, some better than others so I thought this would be relatively easy, wrong, I have struggled with this drawing, which is finally I think good enough to ink. But my struggles just made me aware that I haven't been drawing enough, drawing from observation is a skill that needs to be maintained and to maintain it I have to draw so... a daily challenge is a good thing.

For day one, three whole green beans. I like having fresh green beans with my dinner so it wasn't hard to select 3 to save to draw. In my smaller sketch book with a couple of pencils, 2H and 2B, I believe.

These are seed pods that I brought home from a visit to Boston. The tree grows on the Northeastern University campus and isn't a native tree, but right now I can't recall what species it is. Again in my sketchbook with 2H, and I think the B or HB leads.

Another dried seed pod, this one from a Milk Weed plant that I picked last fall and brought home, my sketchbook again, with 2H and I think the HB and B pencils.

I don't spend very long on any of these drawings, somewhere between 15 minutes and a half hour, I think. How long I spend isn't relevant, the point is to make a drawing as accurately as I can from observation, not just shape but shading and shadows to make the drawing come alive.

And now for something completely different. These are  3 exercises that I drew in pen as part of my reading and study of Bert Dodson's book Keys to Drawing with Imagination. This very simple starting exercise called for drawing a line that meandered around ending with a closed shape and then filling the resulting shape with various fills. I have done so much of this type of work that I only drew 3 samples. I am currently working on exercise #2 and finding that one a bit trickier to do so will do the full number, 6 to 12. Starting in the upper left, a, to the right is b and the bottom is c. As you can see they got more complex as I relaxed into the project.

The purpose of this study is to see if I can pull myself a bit more away from realistic drawing so stay tuned, Right now that is something that I am not very comfortable doing so I am not sure how long this experiment will last.

I realized after I posted the colored pencil version of this Iris to the blog that I never posted the just the inked version, so here it is. Pretty simplistic after the ducklings, but just as I like the colored pencil version I also like this plain inked version.

We had rain showers on St. Patrick's day, and the rain showers brought a rainbow. The sun was starting to set so the photo looks pinker than I recall it seeming (you just don't know what a camera will pick up color wise) I didn't go looking for the gold at the end of the rainbow, but it was fun to see. The maple tree in the photo is starting to bud. Wish it luck as we are supposed to get some snow in the next couple of days.

That is it for today, hopefully for my next update I will have the inked squirrel to show off, in the meantime comments are welcome.

Mallards, a cat and Picasso

Above is the finished colored pencil version of my Mallard Ducklings. I posted the inked drawing earlier this year and am pleased to have finished it. Size is 6 x 6 inches on Stonehenge paper. I used Derwent pencils for the starting layers and then switched to Faber Castel Polychromos for the finish. The original drawing was based on a reference photograph I made last summer in my local park. 

It is only sort of photo realistic, the ink outlines put this in the Illustration category and I took some liberties with the rocks and some values. The ground the ducklings are standing on should really be darker, but if I shaded the drawing to the darkness of the reference, the ducklings wouldn't stand out as much. I also applied a finishing layer of light blue to all of the background to heighten the contrast between the background and the living birds. 

Time to move onto my next drawing, I am pulling pencils to start the Iris, and have started drawing some lilies that I photographed a couple of summers ago. The colors in that photo are really fun so I am looking forward to working on that piece. 

 I finally finished inking this cat that I photographed a couple of years ago. I am not happy with this, I should have drawn the cat much larger than I did. Size is 4 x 4 inches and I used the .05 Copic Multiliner pen.

 I can't be sure of course because I don't really know the cat or its owners but because of the size and slope of the hind quarters I think this is a true Manx Cat and not one with a docked tail. I do like this photograph so may redraw it so that the animal is larger, Then maybe I could get the face right.

I was in Boston earlier this week and made a visit to the MFA. While there I drew this Greek Sphinx sculpture. The Sphinx portion is ok, but the pedistle it is standing on isn't quite right, it should be more compressed, width is OK but it is too long. Course that might be partly because I was looking up at it. Graphite in my 5 x 7 sketchbook, the museum doesn't like artists to use pen inside the museum, which I can understand.

Above are two Picasso portraits of the same woman, but done at different times. I want to include a quote from Picasso about Portraiture which I agree with, though I don't think I would ever go to the extremes he used in his imagery.

"It's not important to me to know whether a certain portrait is a good likeness or not. Years, centuries pass, and it is not important if the physiognomical traits are exactly those of the person portrayed. The artist loses himself in a futile effort if he wants to be realistic. The work can be beautiful even if it doesn't have a conventional likeness."

The portraits and quote are part of a small show that has pairings of Picasso's art, two (or more) pieces done of the same subject, mostly portraits, but there are also 2 painting of the Rape of Sabine Women. Picasso loved to work in series and this small show demonstrates how he would approach the same subject in different ways. Photographs are allowed.

I also wandered through the Modern Art Wing (the performance artist was not in her room, which contained only a table, two chairs, a lamp and the clock workings), and also wandered through the newly reopened gallery with Song era artifacts.

As a contrast I am still reading and looking through the Sargent Artists Portrait book. I am taking my time and trying to notice what he chooses to depict in detail vs what he paints really very impressionistically. Such different Artists though their lifespans did overlap.

Photograph for the day is a re-imaging of a location I photographed last fall, then the leaves were in full fall color, this week the predominate colors are brown and blue, blue sky, brown leaves, brown stonework in the bridge.

I made this photograph on my way to Dick Blicks to spend money on some additional Lumance Pencils. Perhaps not the best photo, but I find the contrasts interesting.

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

Life Portraits and a butterfly

I was hoping to post this blog update last week, but poor weather here in the Northeast caused me to have Internet connection issues so I wasn't able to do any uploading. Better late than never I guess, but I admit to feeling a bit frustrated at the time.

Above is another of my 6 x 6 inch pen and ink drawings that are meant to be used like coloring book pages. This one was also started on my vacation in Chicago over Christmas. The butterfly is from a photograph I made a couple of years ago. Last summer I didn't see a lot of Tiger Swallowtails, while the previous summer (2014) I saw a great many, but then last summer got very dry and after July I just didn't see a lot of butterflies at all.

Drawn first with pencil on Stonehenge paper then inked with one of my technical pens. I decided to fill in the black areas with pen, I suppose I should have left them open but I know I found the areas a bit confusing so I thought it would be better if I just went ahead and filled them appropriately. The background is a bit abstracted. The butterfly was feeding on a Butterfly Bush which has lots of little flowers, a bit tricky to draw so I didn't even really try. Eventually I hope to get around to adding colored pencil to this.

Last Tuesday (Feb. 2) I took the bus into Boston to make photographs and visit the new Frida Kahlio painting at the Boston MFA. The painting which is a new acquisition is on display in the Rotunda but will only be there for a couple of weeks before it heads off to conservation for documentation, evaluation and any needed conservation before it goes on permanent display in one of the galleries. The painting is of two sisters who worked for Frida's mother, and I posted a photo of it on my Facebook page along with some of the photos I made of Boston on Tuesday.

Anyway on the trip up to Ashmont I entertained myself by making sketches of my fellow passengers. The woman above was done with pen, and I didn't really mean to give her a mustache, I just wanted to shade the area under her nose a bit.  Oops, used a bit too much pen I fear. Still the drawing isn't too bad. I think I still managed to capture her look.
 

 After my problems with shading with the pen I switched to a mechanical pencil and drew these three passengers. I feel the best one is the 3rd drawing of the African American older man. There are issues with the middle male figure as while I was working on the drawing he change how he was holding on (he was standing) and raised the arm closest to me blocking my view of the back of his head, I didn't want to add the arm, so the back of his head is mostly unfinished.  These exercises of drawing fellow passengers are one way for me to try and keep my hand in with figure drawing.

 At the MFA I decided to check out the Modern Art wing, which I usually avoid, but they do tend to swap out exhibits in those galleries so I thought I should check them out. To my surprise in one of the rooms a Performance Artist was in residence. The exhibit is called 100 Ways to Consider Time. The artist (Marilyn Arsen) is spending 100 days in this room, moving water from one container to another by eyedropper. Also present but not in the photograph is the mechanism of a Grandfather clock, no case, just the exposed gears and pendulum. There are also benches where visitors are encouraged to sit, and slow down while they observe the artist.

Sounds become important in this situation, the ticking of the clock, the sounds of the glass eyedropper hitting the sides of the glass beakers, the sounds other visitors in the museum make while exploring the outer galleries etc. I of course decided to try and draw the artist to capture a moment of time. I also made a photograph which you can see below.. Drawn in my sketchbook with a mechanical pencil, my visit was on day 80 something so she still has a couple more weeks on exhibit.

 Photograph of Performance Artist Marilyn Arsen, 100 Ways to Consider Time.

We had our first major storm arrive last Friday with about 8 inches of heavy wet snow which stuck to trees and buildings. This is a photograph of one of the dogwood trees in front of my local Library. I made the photo early on Sat. Afternoon. Because the tree is shielded from the morning sun by the Library building most of the snow was still on the branches. It looks pretty but can be deadly if the weight of the snow causes branches to fall, there were at least two deaths attributed to falling branches over the weekend.

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

Finished Colored Pencil and other

I wanted to finish the Purple Headed Sneezeweed work before I updated the blog. I really don't like posting in-process photos of works, I sort of feel that it is OK to post the beginnings of a piece, but once the drawing reaches a certain point (over half way finished) it seems to me that posting photos sort of ruins the final reveal. You are of course entitled to your own opinion.

Anyway above is a scan of the final work. The colors aren't quite right, scanners never seem to get yellow quite right, I have a feeling it has to do with the pigments used to create the color. So I have played with this a bit in Photoshop, this is a good as I could get it. When we get a sunny or less overcast day I will try to get a photograph of the drawing and see if I can do better color wise with the camera.

This was done on Stonehenge paper, size of the finished work is approximately 6 x 6 inches. I used a combination of many colors and different brands of colored pencils, mostly underlayers of various Derwent brands, Colorsoft, Artists, and Studio with final overlays of Faber Castell Polychromos. The flower is based on a personal photograph I made last summer the background is totally my imagination, but I rather like it.

The above piece is more of my playing around with a dip pen and colored inks. I decided I needed to take a bit of time away from the colored pencil work and do some sketching from real life, fruit is always good for quick studies so above are 2 pears and an apple. I really just wanted to play with the inks so I wasn't too concerned about accuracy. Done in my Strathmore Multi Media Journal, I used Red, Yellow, Antelope Brown and Indigo Blue acrylic inks for the fruit after making the initial outline with one of my technical pens in black ink. Not wonderful, but sort of fun anyway.

One day last week I took the bus into Boston, I wanted to visit Dick Blicks and the MFA. On the way in I sketched one of my fellow passengers. Just a quick sketch, but not too bad. I used a mechanical pencil for this in one of my smaller sketchbooks.

At the large Dick Blicks in Boston I discovered that they are now carrying open stock of the Caran d'Ache Luminance colored pencils. Oh my, I am in trouble now, well my budget is. These are very expensive pencils, but they are also the most colorfast pencils on the market so of course I want them. I already have a few and now I have the opportunity to acquire more.

At the MFA they are sort of between major shows. The artwork from the Americas showing the influences of Eastern art on western art is still on-going but the Dutch paintings are gone. There are a couple of smaller exhibits of some interest, one is some of the Photographs of Hiro. He was mostly a fashion/advertising photographer still some of his photos are iconic. The other is some of the fashion illustrations of Kenneth Paul Block. I found it interesting how over time he distorted the human form to feature the fashions he is illustrating, bodies and limbs become elongated, heads and feet were made smaller. In his drawings the clothes are what is important not the faces or accurate portraits of the models. The Illustrations range from some of his earlier works to later ones, and it is interesting to see how the figure is more distorted over time, the earlier illustrations show more realistic human models, the later ones are less and less realistic.

Since I am trying to get less realistic for my own art I am trying to pay attention to how other artists do or don't use realism in their works. Not sure I am succeeding with my goal, drawing realistically is a habit that is hard to break, but I think I now have a better understanding of what Picasso was trying to do with some of his art. I am not going to go that way with mine, but I can understand why he did.

A couple of snow photographs from this past weekend. We did get some of the snow that blanketed the east coast the end of last week, but no where near the amount of snow they got to the south of us, particularly in the mid Atlantic states. We got maybe six inches of snow not several feet. But we did get wind. The photo above shows how the snow was blown about settling in patterns and layers.

The snow was just damp enough to stick to trees, so above is a small tree with its icing of snow, you can see some of the trees behind it have a coating on one side of their trunks. I always love photographing snow when it has stuck to the trees this way.

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

More Inktober and a sketch

So far so good with my drawings for #inktober. Without quite intending it I seem to have a series going. It seems to be a series in 2 different ways, first; all of the main drawings are of plant materials of some sort, nuts, fruit, and leaves. Second I have continued drawing my little helper as the actual executor of these drawings.

All those hours of life drawing from models is coming in handy. I won't say that my figure looks really lifelike, but I think I am getting most of the proportions correct, and the poses mostly realistic. I am not quite sure I can come up with 31 different poses though, so that will be just another of my challenges for this month.

I don't know why I keep using vertical text where the letters are kept vertical, doing it that way throws the spacing between letters off and really isn't very attractive. But once I start inking there really isn't any going back so Apple above is vertical/vertical. Still if frames the apple so in a way it works.

Above are the leaves and some of the seeds of the Lindon tree. They have pretty yellow/green flowers in spring and this odd shaped leaf that both the flowers and the seeds grow from. I am sure there is a more technically correct term for this, but I am not in the mood to go chasing it.

The other change I made for this drawing was to make the plant material a different ink color. In the WetCanvas pen and ink forum another participant in Inktober was doing his drawings with brown ink, and I rather liked the look of it. Since I have 3 different bottles of brown ink I thought it might be fun to add a different color to the mix. Since I am continuing to draw my helper in black ink, it makes for a interesting contrast, which I rather like. So starting with this drawing the central drawing is done with different shades of brown ink. The one above was Daler Rowney FW Acrylic ink, Sepia.

I was in Boston on the 6th, visiting the MFA and then walking along the Fenway and picking up more nuts, mostly acorns but also some sort of a Hickory nut. The Hickory isn't the shag bark that I am familiar with but there are several other species of Hickory that can grow in the northeast and the nut I am finding is from one of those. One day I will actually pin it down. In the meantime I picked up this oak leaf and thought to use it as my subject for the the 6th.

The ink for the oak leaf was another Daler Rowney FW acrylic, Antelope brown.

The above is a graphite sketch I made of a fellow bus passenger while on route to Boston. I have played with it in Photoshop to darken the graphite which was otherwise a bit light, no other changes though. 

We had beautiful blue sky's on Tuesday, the day I went into Boston. This is a photo of the Fens, a bit more water in them since last weeks rain storms. Trees are just starting to hint and the fall change. We had the warmest Sept. on record last month and I think it has delayed the fall colors.

Above is the fountain in Copley Square. The last time I was in the Square in Sept. they were working on the fountain and it was dry. I wasn't happy because I was trying to get a good photograph in Copley for the 2016 Boston calendar I was working on. Course I was there at the wrong time of day also, This week I was there in the afternoon, which is the best time to photograph the square and the church, esp. on a sunny day. I expect they will be draining it again soon so I made this photo while I had the chance.

That is it for today, I do have a drawing for the 7th but am saving it for my next update. Per usual comments are welcome.

It is Fall, new Sketches mostly ink

It is fall, the autumn equinox has come and gone. We have had a full eclipse of the moon, which I mostly miss because I fell asleep, and only woke up when it was over and the moon was shining brightly again, oops. Ah well I have seen lunar eclipses before and hope to again in the future, just didn't see this one.

Still not a lot of drawing or other art work, except for continuing work on the curtain fabric for the living room, which I don't really count. But I have been doing a bit more sketching so today's update is all about those.

Above a pencil drawing of a candle in one of my glass candle holders which is sitting on a bookshelf. just practice since I am so rusty. Needless to say I can see lots wrong with it. Have to do more of this type of drawing to get back into the groove.

When I was last in Boston walking along the Fenway I picked up this half nut shell, the meat of the nut had been eaten, probably by squirrels, but I though the remaining shell looked interesting so I brought it home with me to sketch. I have no clue what the nut is, maybe Blackwalnut, though I don't think so. For some reason I tend to think this is some kind of European/English tree/nut that was planted along the Fenway. The whole nut reminds me of Hickory nuts, but much larger so that isn't what it is.

Drawn in one of my sketchbooks with either one of my technical pens or a Copic Fineliner.

On another walk in my local city park I collected a mushroom, some acorns and a white pine pine cone, more fodder for my pen. Above is the quick drawing I made of these articles. Again done in my sketchbook with my technical pens. I didn't bother to made much of an arrangement, maybe another time as I am collecting more objects. Can you tell I love found objects.

A page from one of my sketchbooks. Obviously I didn't pre-plan this page and there is no over all design to it. But I wanted to show it because of the seed pod that is featured. I picked this pod up in Boston on the same visit that I picked up the nut. I have no clue what species the tree it came from is, not one of our normal natives that is for sure and I don't recall ever seeing this type of pod before. It was planted in the yard of one of Northeastern University buildings so could be from just about anywhere in the world.

The pods are a bit fragile, I picked up two but only one remained whole, So the drawing of the open pod with seed is from the one that broke apart. I should have collected a leaf, but was on my way home and thinking more about that then identifying the tree at some point. I did make a photograph of pods hanging from the tree and will post that, if anyone knows what it it please leave me a comment, thanks.

Mystery tree with seed pods,

And finally my final image, made last week during a walk in my local park. The trees are just hinting at the fall color change, with a few, here and there, showing more color, but this bush obviously knows the season. Just liked the colors here, red, blue and green.

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