It’s hot. It’s humid. Too hot for an old man to be out walking, that’s for sure. So, I put my stool in a shady spot in the yard and drew a small “scene” designed by Chantal. I thought these little guys were going to be hosta-guarding soldiers (wrote about that), but Chantal had other ideas. As usual, hers was a better one.
I’m trying to get back to a daily walk routine. It’s been hard this spring/summer because of all the rain and a bunch of house stuff we’ve been doing, but I was out the other day and stopped to sit in a park near my house. There was a birch tree there to keep me company and I decided to draw it, or at least its feet and legs.
Stillman & Birn Alpha (9×6 softcover), Kaweco Lilliput pen, DeAtramentis Document Black, Daniel Smith watercolors
Once upon a time, someone got the bright idea to plant a bunch of bamboo as a hedgerow between our house and the one next door. When done it probably looked like a good idea. The problem is that over time, the bamboo takes over EVERYTHING because its roots propogate the plant(s) into a persistent monster plant.
So, ever since we bought the place we’ve been fighting it by cutting it back continually. We seem to be winning the battle as this year we don’t have much of it along our driveway (its last stand), leaving a sort of grassless, bamboo-less area.
What’s happened, though is a big surprise. We’ve got a “field” of tiny strawberry plants. There are hundreds of them, most less than two inches high and sporting 3 distinct leaves. Normally we’d be mowing and/or planting something but I’m going to let things go to see what happens. I don’t think that these plants are going to get much taller and I could find only a couple flowers. But I did find one plant that had two microscopic strawberries. They even tasted like strawberries, though you’d need a couple hundred of them to make a handful. I had to draw the little guy. Full size this plant measure just over 1″ high.
Stillman & Birn Alpha (9×6 softcover), Micron 01.
This spring and summer is rivaling COVID lockdowns for disrupting the flow of outdoor life. Spring and summer for those of us living in a certain northern latitude continues to be a steady stream of rainy days. We’re trying to get our garden planted, some house repairs done and, for the most part, we sit watching the rain. The worst part is that weather has become completely unpredictable so it rains when sun is predicted and it’s sunny when it’s supposed to rain. So, while we’re making some progress, it comes from saying “It looks like it’s not going to rain for the next few hours, I’m going to…” Weird that.
Anyways, I sat on the deck, watching the rain (very pleasant) and decided to sketch one of an army of Impatiens that are destined to form a defense against grass invaders to a flock of hostas.
It’s been raining all day so I thought I’d write a blog post. Hope you like the plant sketch.
I continue to try to use watercolors without an underpinning of a line drawing, mostly without success. I can’t seem to figure out how to draw crisp edges with watercolors and, for complex drawings, I lose control over the drawing itself. This is a good example of both of these problems. This is a drawing (??) of a new pedestrian bridge over my river. Great bridge, not so great sketch of it. I added some pencil line buildings after the fact just to provide context.
