"Lane with Arched Branches" watercolor and ink

I did this watercolor study while standing in the lane, looking ahead through the natural [...]]]> This walk was on April 13, 2012, all around on my land checking on how things were doing now that spring is well underway.  (please click pictures to see larger)

"Lane with Arched Branches" watercolor and ink

I did this watercolor study while standing in the lane, looking ahead through the natural arch formed by this one bush or small tree. Over the years as I would walk under it, I’d trim off branches hanging down right where you walk, so it formed a natural arch. The branches on top reach straight up like suckers do. I actually did most of it on one day then another time I was out I added the ink.

The first snail I met this year!

Now you can meet some of the critters I met on my walk. The first was a snail sliding along on this piece of dead grass floating in the water. I noticed this before on snails like this, his body color is blueish! Cool.

The second snail I met was this flat shaped coiled one.

Here’s a totally different kind, this one’s shell makes a coil but flat. Can you see the paler band of color at about 9 o’clock? Everything from there to the lip is new growth just from this year!

I took him home and he decided to come out to explore

Well, yes, I did tuck him into a little baggie I had with some of the water from where I found him! I stuck him in my pocket and brought him home to look at closer. I thought I’d have time to sketch him but when I realized I wouldn’t I released him right away.

Looking up to the spreading grandeur of this old oak!

Now here we are in “Oak Lane”, so named because of the very old, very huge oak trees growing there. They were probably planted some 200 years ago by the original owners of this farm as a land boundary. I love looking up at them as they tower over me, and marvel at how many years they’ve been looking down at people before me even. There are so many critters living in, on and under them!

Way up high this squirrel's tail was hanging out of it's hole.

When you’re out walking, if you keep your eyes open and maybe more importantly, stop sometimes and just stand still to listen and look, you may be surprised at what you see. As I was admiring my oaks and listening to birds I caught sight of something way, way up high, moving. It was just a stirring but it caught my eye; turns out it was a Grey Squirrels tail left hanging outside his/her hole!  How funny it was, just blowing around in the wind like a flag put out on a porch. I think it was sleeping!

This is the first butterfly of the year for me, the Mourning Cloak

Then all of a sudden in a flutter, a Mourning Cloak butterfly appeared and landed not far from me. It was sticking to the open lane where the sun was. Everytime I got too close it flew off but I was patient and followed it along, and the last shots I got were the best because I think, it was tired and didn’t want to fly as much. After that I left it alone, thank goodness for digital zoom!

I hope you enjoyed this little walk and my watercolor study. Stay tuned because I have some more posts in the works! And as always please share my blog with friends and visit my Shop at Zazzle where you’ll find TONS of my nature photos and artwork on all kinds of products.

"Pasture Lane in March" watercolor and ink

The land is starting to thaw at Long Lane Farm. The Robins have returned along with many other birds so I went out to look for signs of spring. It was very quiet except for occasional Chickadee’s following [...]]]>  (please click to see enlarged and clearer)

"Pasture Lane in March" watercolor and ink

The land is starting to thaw at Long Lane Farm. The Robins have returned along with many other birds so I went out to look for signs of spring. It was very quiet except for occasional Chickadee’s following me or a Blue Jay calling, some Canadian Geese flying over. I made it just up the lane a little and decided to sit and do this sketch.

I carried a small camp stool over my shoulder so I sat on that and put my sketchbook on my lap along with my watercolor pan.  I used two waterbrushes and a permanent ink pen to draw it first. I found it a bit difficult to paint the grasses right in front of me, that were all matted and crisscrossed on the ground, sooo much detail! You can see I didn’t get crazy into detail, mostly just looking for the darks and lights of the scene, showing the water around the rushes and the dry color of grasses in the lane.  I didn’t fuss over it too long because my back hurt like a ‘son of a gun’! Darn back of mine, I think I may have been better to just stand like I usually do.

PS. A note to those who follow my blog, I’m so glad you keep coming back to read and see what I’m up to. I’ve not posted as much lately only because I am finally concentrating seriously on illustrating all the poems and stories I’ve written over the past years. I’ll try to share a bit as I can, but don’t want to let the cat out of the bag too soon! We’ll see what I end up with and I’ll keep you posted!

I made some cards with my sketch, check them out by clicking pics below:

Glossy Note Cards

Glossy Post Cards

Snowy Lane in black wax crayon colored with watercolor

Even though I did this sketch back in December, while I was in Northumberland England, I guess it’s appropriate now seeing as there’s been a return of snow [...]]]>  (Some of the images go my shop where you can hover and see enlarged details)

Snowy Lane in black wax crayon colored with watercolor

Even though I did this sketch back in December, while I was in Northumberland England, I guess it’s appropriate now seeing as there’s been a return of snow there! This was their first snow of the winter and it fell quite heavy for a time, coating everything with that heavy kind of silent snow. I had a cold but peaceful walk up the lane and stopped at this view with the trees I always like looking at.  I did the sketch while standing to the side of the road using a black wax crayola crayon. The snow was falling on my paper as I drew and it made it hard to draw, not to mention drawing while wearing my fingerless mittens. It was later that I added some touches of watercolor.

A lovely gate along the way

I love the way this ivy covered gate looks and would love to do a painting of it. Problem is it’s someone’s front gate and with the house being just inside, they may think I’m being rude standing there staring at it.

The snowy lane so quiet under snow

This is one of my favorite views as the lane curves into the distance.  You can see this is the view I stood and sketched in my drawing.

Another view along the high lane

The trees stand sentinel as they’ve done for hundred’s of years. Many of the trees you see along a lane are just overgrown from old hedges that weren’t kept trimmed down.

The black faced sheep were quiet in the cold.

I love how the trees look in the back of the field and how peaceful the sheep were, just trying to conserve energy I guess. These ewes are probably getting fat with lambs in them now…can’t wait to see the little ones in spring!

The thick snowy hedge along the lane.

There are beautiful colors all around you even in winter!

I like seeing the leaves in winter; these were interesting with the red spots. Sorry the picture isn’t brighter but the day was so grey!

Just waiting to be put in a drawing!

 This is an old farm shed I always look at along the lane, it’s so old it’s actually fallen off it’s foundation and the sides are collapsed. I don’t usually want to paint old barns as some people do, but this with the trees, shrubs and grass with their colors in this shot, really attract me. I can see it as an ink sketch perhaps or chalk.

I hope you enjoyed coming on this little snowy walk with me. More sketches and photos from England coming soon.

Today I stepped outside quite early, before the sun was up in fact. I took my sketch journal, waterbrush, watercolor pencils and ink pen and left the camera behind (but not Ginger of course). I sat on the edge of a very damp and cold picnic table [...]]]>

Sketch at dawn in watercolor pencils

Today I stepped outside quite early, before the sun was up in fact. I took my sketch journal, waterbrush, watercolor pencils and ink pen and left the camera behind (but not Ginger of course). I sat on the edge of a very damp and cold picnic table that wobbles from age, and used watercolor pencils to quickly record what I could see.

This was easier than watercolors because I could just sketch across the paper quickly trying to guess at how it’ll look once I wet it. I laid down as much of the color as I could before adding water, once you wet it you can’t just scribble color on. Once it’s wet you can add color in two ways, using the tip of your brush to pick up color from the pencil tip, painting with it like watercolors or you can draw directly on the damp paper but the color will be intense and hard to blend or lift off. This is what I planned on to put the darker trees at the bottom, I wanted some of their branches to stay as drawing and fuzz out around it to look like foliage and mist.

The thing about plein air painting a sunrise is it changes so fast. Try to work as quickly as you can then either don’t look any more or peek for ideas to check colors and see cloud shapes etc. I try to avoid one problem that I run into, that’s adding yellow to the clouds then having blue sky wash over it or mix with it….and as you learned in elementary school…yellow and blue makes green! So…a bit of green tint sometimes appears in my sky! Try to blot up mistakes or intense color right away with paper towel and re-wet and blot as you need to.

I wrote the words before I did the drawing,  just words of what I could hear, not a poem but kind of a way to get into the moment. If you don’t think you can write poetry or something clever, just write what you can hear. In case it’s hard to read, here’s my words on my painting above typed out:

“Sept. 19, 2011 – There is dawn. There are bird songs.

There are cars and trucks from morning traffic.

There are birds.

I look out over the fields, wet with dew.

Feel the cold dampness on my hands + face.

Dawn gets pinker.

The cloak of mist starts to lift off the field.

Blue Jay, Crow, Song Sparrow song.

Robin call + Yellow Throat makes it click call.

My day starts in peace.”

Well my day started in peace and ended with some stress I guess, my laptop died again and this time I think it’s permanent. I’m having burial services soon, in the meantime I got a Netbook…tiny little thing! We’ll see how we do with it. I had to get something portable as I’ll be leaving very soon for ENGLAND!!! YAYYY!! Please tune in to my blog page (you can subscribe to posts in the right column) and see what I find on my adventures. I’ll be studying nature and taking pictures and we’ll see what else. Eventually I’ll be doing some classes and if you want to come to England to do some sketching, I’ll be doing a tour or two this coming summer there. More on that later, if your interested in that idea email me so I get a feel for what people might like.

That’s all folks! Hope you enjoyed my post today. I have lots of new caterpillar discoveries to share soon, I just have to organize all the photos I shot to go with the paintings I did.

(Please click on the pictures to see them clearer, use the back button to return)

I had a chance to visit with my friend Nancy the other day and we sat on her back deck to do some sketching. We had a nice view; just [...]]]>

Trees at Nancy's - Inktense 'Ink Black' watercolor pencil

(Please click on the pictures to see them clearer, use the back button to return)

I had a chance to visit with my friend Nancy the other day and we sat on her back deck to do some sketching. We had a nice view; just behind her place is a small pond with trees on the other side. I was showing her how to do something simple by just using one watercolor pencil, the Inktense “Ink Black” by Derwent Pencils. I keep one in my kit always because sometimes it’s nice to just do a sketch with a waterbrush using this one pencil. The nice thing is you can go back over your black and white study with color after, the Inktense pencils will not lift off like watercolor can.  It IS a VERY intense pencil, go very lightly at first and see what it does when you wet it. I started with the simple border as kind of a warm up, just draw a line around your page then use your waterbrush to wet it. To get it to look like mine, keep your brush ‘inside’ the line with the tip always touching and rubbing the line, letting the color run into the wetness left behind from the brush.

Sketch your scene lightly, trying to do most of it before you wet it. Once you wet the paper you’ll have a hard time adding more lines because they will be very dark and intense! If you need to just touch your waterbrush to the tip of the pencil to pick up more ink, then use your brush to add it to the sketch. Test how dark it is on a piece of scrap paper before you touch your sketch, this will help you avoid mistakes. I really like the look of this, sort of like an old antique picture.

Sketch of Cullernose Point from the south

Here’s a sketch I did in England last year, along the coast of Northumberland, of Cullernose Point as viewed from the south. I had my sketch journal with me (OF COURSE!!) and because we wanted to keep walking, just sitting a bit and doing a sketch with no color worked well.  I used my waterbrush and especially like how the clouds came out.

Alnmouth, Northumberland -water soluble graphite

Now I thought I’d add this one too just to show how nice it can be to do non color studies. This was done with water soluble graphite, not the colored type, just plain old graphite color! We were at Alnmouth, Northumberland England; a beautiful coastal spot! I did it in my tiny sketch journal which was so much fun to use! It was a wonderful experience to stand on the hill at the coast and capture the scene forever in my memory. Please read my post about it here to see the wonderful photos I took that day! I loved being there and can’t wait to go back for more! I love, love, love England!

I hope you enjoyed my little ‘non color’ sketches, as I said they’re a great way to capture a scene without the worry and time of adding color. And thanks to my friend Nancy for a nice visit! (ps. I photographed lots of dragonflies at her place and two of them were new for me!) I created a really nice print and greeting cards in my shop, see the links below! I love the dark grey background with it.

Make your own card at Zazzle

When you see this print in my shop (below) don’t be scared by the price! It shows you the huggest size but can be ordered as a 16×11 for only $11.20 too!

I took a walk out through the fields today to “Aspen Hall”,  just for a bit of exercise and to enjoy the sun. Along the way I discovered some beautiful butterflies, [...]]]> (I wrote this at the very end of May and wanted to share it with you before it gets too late!)

I took a walk out through the fields today to “Aspen Hall”,  just for a bit of exercise and to enjoy the sun. Along the way I discovered some beautiful butterflies, though it’s tiny, the “Pearl Crescent” was so pretty when you look at it on zoom!

A beautiful little butterfly called the Pearl Crescent

When we got to Aspen Hall, I did a very quick sketch using my watercolors and waterbrush. I say quick because the mosquitoes were finding us fast! The picture below shows how I held my palette as I worked.

This is how I held my palette while I stood and painted.

You can see the last post I did on Carpenter Bees there to the left. I also always make a little pen holder with clear tape on my sketch book.

This is the water brush I used to do the whole painting, a big flat.

Here’s a picture showing the big flat waterbrush I used to do the entire painting. The flat was great for making the marks on the trees and I used the corner when I wanted to make small marks. (If you click this pic you’ll see a really cool note card I created where you can put your own text on the palette!)

Painting and notes done while standing in "Aspen Hall", watercolor.

This is the page I created with my notes and watercolor sketch.  Click it to read my notes, the black flies were terrible, biting me and being pests! It was hard to paint, but I’m happy with the little watercolor sketch. Standing still is great for seeing and hearing birds, they were all around me.

Ginger gives me a toothy smile and says, "Hurry up already!"

And there’s Ginger, my faithful Aussie! She’s just looking at me saying, “Are you done yet?”

A footprint in the mud from ?

Here’s a cool footprint I spotted in the mud in “The Maze”, another area on my land. I have to look it up, but I’m thinking Opossum? Skunk?

Another Leopard Frog friend!

Could I take a walk on Long Lane Farm and NOT see a frog? I don’t think so! This is one of the most popular kinds here, the Leopard Frog. Isn’t he handsome? (oh it could be a female…can a frog be pretty?) I just love the spring greens, olive greens and bronze of their skin; in the sun it really is metallic!

A female Baltimore Oriole looking for food in the bushes.

A great capture, photos of a female Baltimore Oriole searching for seeds on this wild bush in my field.

Another shot of her as she searched for food.

It’s interesting to observe ‘garden’ birds further afield than your backyard. Seeing her feeding on native bushes, bugs, seeds….whatever she was eating she was very busy doing it.

A collection of leaves I picked while sitting in one spot.

After painting I sat for a few moments in Aspen Hall, I looked around me at all the green plants. It didn’t look like anything interesting to paint or draw, but, if I had students with me I’d challenge them to find as many different leaf shapes as they could to draw. I picked one of each just within my own reach and look how many I found! It would be nice to do as a lesson, ignoring color and talking about shape, and some botanical terminology.

I hope you enjoyed this (short) walk today! Wait till you see the next post, a new moth discovery for me!

BTW here’s a new page I created called “My Photography Equipment” to show what cameras I use when I go out walking and exploring, I love ‘em!

Visit my shop for note cards (and more) of:

Frogs

Butterflies + Moths

Landscapes (New York areas)

Birds

]]> http://marymcandrew.com/walk-to-aspen-hall/feed/ 15 http://marymcandrew.com/mothers-day-field-sketching-2011/ http://marymcandrew.com/mothers-day-field-sketching-2011/#comments Sat, 14 May 2011 02:24:18 +0000 Mary McAndrew http://marymcandrew.com/?p=6035 What did you think I’d be doing on Mother’s Day? It was gorgeous outside and I had the day to myself until later when my son comes over, so off I went for a walk with my sketch journal!

female bluebird I met along the way

Along the way I captured this [...]]]> What did you think I’d be doing on Mother’s Day? It was gorgeous outside and I had the day to myself until later when my son comes over, so off I went for a walk with my sketch journal!

female bluebird I met along the way

Along the way I captured this shot of a female Bluebird, I’m so happy it came out. I didn’t use my long lens today, so the camera was actually easier to hand hold. (click to see as Note Card where you can see up close)

My watercolor crayons in a vinyl case so I can scatter them as I worked.

I was thrilled to find that the land on one side of the field was actually sort of dry. I mean I’ve been wading through water for weeks now, so any dry grass was pretty great. Before walking at all I decided to sit right down and have a go with my kit. I knew something would strike me. Above you can see something new I tried that worked great; I brought this empty vinyl case along and when I was ready just opened it and put it on the ground. I took my watercolor crayons and set the box right inside it, as I used colors I could just plop them in front and find them easier as I worked.  This would be good to use for the watercolor pencils too, as they get lost easily in the grass.

Putting color down around a round plastic shape.

I wrote some notes at the top of my paper as I sat, not even caring about painting, just enjoying the great weather. Then I decided I’d try to put a landscape but leave a circle in the foreground to fill with something. I have a piece of plastic I cut from a plastic milk carton and just filled in green watercolor crayon around it.

Blocking on more green for grass, sky has been painted a bit.

As I decided where my horizon line would be I colored blue in the sky, leaving the clouds just blank paper. (lately I’ve been doing them with white wax to ‘block’ them out using a resist method, this time it’s just bare paper)  I then brought the green up as far as I thought it should go, then wet my paper with the big brush to blend all and used a brown crayon to put trees in on the wet paper. I like how sharp the trees can look if you put them on wet paper; if you draw them dry first and then wet them, they can get fuzzy looking.

My set up on the grass, balancing my sketch journal on my knee.

Here’s my set up, as I sat on my piece of vinyl and kept everything in easy reach. I actually leaned on one elbow to do most of this sketch, and quite smartly tucked an empty sandwich bag under my elbow. By the time I was done, my elbow would have been soaked!

The real scene behind my sketchbook, the clouds have already floated by.

So here’s the sketch with the ‘real’ scene behind it, I don’t really like the greens of the watercolor crayons, but more practice will help. Sometimes I admit I could do a better job but when working in the field either the weather is too cold or my back hurts then I just want to hurry up. So I try to work fast, I can always touch up later if I want, or leave it as a study.

This is the page as I finished it in the field, dandelions and all.

This is my study finished in the field, I decided to put dandelions in the small circle as they were everywhere. First I lightly sketched in pencil then went over it with a brown Windsor Newton Permanent ink with a dip nib pen. Then I colored them in by touching the brush tip (a finer one) to the crayons then painting. I colored the letters the same way using a blue crayon. I really want to go back and tone down that green on that grass! Yikes!

Field sketch after touching it up back at home.

Well here’s the sketch after I got home and touched up the greens and added the yellow dandelions.

Leopard Frog

On our way after that sketch, I kept seeing Leopard Frogs. If I stood still I would start to pick them out of their hiding places.

Leopard Frog

I was really getting good at it! As you walk by they get scared into the water…then if you stop a few steps away, they would seem to appear everywhere. I imagined a funny cartoon of a photographer stopping to look for frogs, the way in front of her clear, but behind her all these little heads popped up in the water! haha, well it’s me of course!

mystery water bug

This was really cool, I noticed as I stood watching for frogs without moving, a little something moving in the water below me. I swore they were just catkins from the tree floating along the bottom, but it’s a standing pool of water and instinct told me otherwise. I bent over and kept watching them and remembered reading about larvae that formed cases by ‘gluing’ stuff around them. I got this great shot of it actually poking out of the case a bit! I am not sure yet what it is, have to look it up.

Long Lane green and lush.

Here’s Long Lane on the way back home. It’s green and lush in this very wet spring we’re having. It’s a bounty for the frogs but that means soon will come the mosquitoes too!

I hope you enjoyed this springtime walk with me and my sketching. I hope you go out and capture some nature the way I did, just stop and stand or sit still and you’ll be amazed at what you notice.

Today I walked on my land and sat in “Aspen [...]]]> Before too much time goes by I wanted to get this post out, especially because I already have another waiting in the wings! Gee it sure has been a productive spring with getting out for walks and doing sketches in my journal!

Today I walked on my land and sat in “Aspen Hall”, a clump of trees that grows along “Long Lane” that the boys and I used to walk to when they were little. It became a special place to picnic, clear little paths and just feel adventurous. To anyone else it would just look like a clump of trees; some dead and broken, many new little ones coming up, a bit weedy but with the odd clump of daffodils and crocuses that we planted so many years ago. But to us it was a special place and as they grew and started to venture out for hikes on their own it was as far as they were allowed in the beginning. To get to Aspen Hall from the lane you have to cross a big ditch that is always filled with water. Over the years I would do a bit of house cleaning by tossing dead branches and trees across it. As they piled up we could gingerly walk across, while holding onto the wild grape vines that hung nearby.

View From Aspen Hall - watercolor crayon + ink pen

I’ll type out what my text says on the sketch above:

“May 4, 2011  Very, very wet walk, the land is saturated. Sloshing all the way! Sitting in Aspen Hall now on my pile of logs. I got pics of the Oriole near the barn! Sitting here I can hear: Song Sparrow, Towhee, Crow, Goldfinches, Yellow Shafted Flicker, dogs barking in the distance, cars droning, bubbles softly popping in the water of the wet ground, Red Winged Black bird, Blue Jay, House Wren, American Robin, Chickadee.”

“I can hear a lot but it’s not a great place to draw from, bushes all around, uncomfortable seat of logs.”

I wrote this first as I settled into the spot. It’s good to settle in and listen before you draw or write, absorb your surroundings no matter where you are. I use a permanent ink type pen to write then I can paint right over it. Then I did a light sketch of all the trees using a brown ink pen, Faber Castell Pitt. Then I took a clear wax (birthday candle) and rubbed on the paper where I wanted the clouds to be. Next I used watercolor crayons to put in the blues and greys of the sky and colors of the bushes and grass in front. I darkened the distant trees by adding crayon to them too, though it’s hard to keep it detailed using them if your in a hurry. To use the crayons you just color like a coloring book and then wet them, you can choose to color softly and leave no lines, or use the lines and marks as part of your sketch. I’m finding as I use my new watercolor crayons, the sets I have don’t have a good brown! They both have reddish browns which I find limiting. As I keep working with them I might just come up with a combination of using them with watercolor pencils.

Yellow Warbler

Now as you read on my sketch page, I did meet a few beautiful birds today! This picture isn’t super clear but I had my long lens on and was hand holding the camera. This Yellow Warbler was constantly on the move and very hard to capture but I just had to share him with you! He was flitting around in the reeds by my pond, wow was he pretty!

Baltimore Oriole

And there’s the Baltimore Oriole, oh wow, one of my favorite summer birds! He was way up in a tree along the lane, but I caught a few pictures of him as he sang his loud, clear song. Click on this pic to see it as a note card that you can customize.

Baltimore Oriole

I’m always amazed at the deep orange on his throat and the contrast of the velvety black with hot (cadmium) orange on his body.

Baltimore Oriole

I keep saying, “Someday… someday I have to paint an Oriole!” It’s on the list, believe me! Click this picture also to see it as a note card.

Swamp Sparrow

Now I was excited about this little guy, a Swamp Sparrow VERY quietly and demurely hopping around under the bushes. I was standing in the flooded area in front of my pond, in about 8″ of water (wearing my rubber boots of course) and taking pictures of the Yellow Warbler. I kept seeing something out of the corner of my eye moving like a leaf in a light breeze. Just here and there a tiny movement, I started to let my eyes roam over the area until I saw it again, and yes, it was a little sparrow. I had to put the camera on manual focus because of the branches in the way; the camera will focus on them, not on him.  I was able to catch enough pictures of him, though each picture caught a different part of him, to identify him later at home. I think, with all the water I have here, his name is befitting him! haha

Well another nice walk on Long Lane Farm, glad you came along with me on this cold day. If you like sketching or it’s something you want to try, I encourage you to get out and just start. Take time to sit and absorb, listen and then just write about what you hear, what you’re thinking. Then add some sketches or colors, the more you do the faster and better you’ll get at it! And if you’re like me, if it’s cold outside you’ll learn to sketch even quicker!