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Imagine the most beautiful valley you can. The mountains surrounding the valley are covered with rusty reds of Bracken changing color in the fall, and rich, deep greens from the excessive rains and some parts have exposed rock face a pink tint in certain light. Now imagine a perfect winding lazy river meandering across it’s deep valley and the view from where you stand is so perfect, you can see for miles down it’s center, the distant mountains turning blue with the atmospheric mists. Now you look up and realize there are Buzzards (Hawks) flying up the valley, floating on the drafts that carry them.
You turn and look just behind you and there is a great castle, standing like a strong old soldier. This is Muncaster Castle, built in 1258 partly on Roman foundations. A Roman coin from AD380 was found there!
So, onto my adventure! You can see below I’m standing on the road that winds around the castle, sketching the view of the valley. My art kit is strapped to my waist, at the ready to grab my waterbrushes or pencils, and my backpack with extra supplies in case I need them, including my 35mm camera, rain pants, extra art suppies and snacks.
 Below you can click on my sketchbook page to read the notes I wrote. I talked about my first English Breakfast, and my first impression upon seeing the castle. I was surprised when I turned the bend and saw it, wow! The color scribbles on the page are just that, I was testing out colors there for another sketch.  Below, here I am now sitting at the top of Cannon Bank, the castle is right behind me again. I did the small watercolor below the picture, working with my little travel palette. It’s from this bank that every afternoon they feed the wild herons…more on that later.  The “Eskdale Valley and Muncaster Bridge”  Below is a view of the back of the Castle, I’m now headed up the hill for a walk into the expansive woods. There are 1,800 acres with the property, I think that’d keep me busy exploring for awhile!  This is a great shot of a back door into the castle, what a great drawing this will make!  Everyday they hold an owl demonstration behind the castle, with the birds being flown to educate people about them. I think this might be an Eagle Owl.  I added this picture just so you could see (and enjoy) the fantastic wing span of this beautiful bird.
 Here is another page from my sketchbook, not too many sketches here, but lots of notes about what I was seeing. I then headed into the Owl Center they have on the grounds to take pictures. I listed the owls I photographed for further reference.  Next..well you gotta eat sometime! I sat and had a most enjoyable hot lunch after all that exploring. There is a phenomenal cafe on the property with so many choices. I tried the carrot and marrow soup because I never heard of marrow and it’s an English vegetable. It was great!
I have notes on the page about meeting the owner of the castle himself! Please read it and see!
 As the day wound down I took an adventurous walk down the hill along a path that I had no idea where it went. All I know is it went down and I was curious to see if it got anywhere near that gorgeous valley? I had my trusty L.L. Bean rain hat with light in the brim so I could see if it got dim, and with the surroundings always noted, I began. The photo below shows the ‘picture perfect’ top of the hill path, this is a painting waiting to happen!  The path meanders down from there…crossing a noisy little brook on a wooden bridge, and many large stone pavers.  I made it all the way to the bottom and walked off to the left following the path. It ended suddenly at a big metal gate and the view I had was wonderful, yes it was my valley floor I was looking for! There were sheep grazing in the distance and as the light faded I did a small sketch with my watercolor pencils. It was getting chilly and hard to draw as my hands were stiff, I saw a bat flying overhead and then….the clock tower bell tolled 8 times…eight o’clock, time to pack up and go before it gets dark suddenly and I can’t find my way back!  I don’t have a picture or drawing to tell about the last adventure of the day but it was exciting. After dark, I grabbed my 35 mm camera and tripod and headed outside. It was pitch black and not a soul was about, absolutely quiet! I wanted to play around with getting some photos of the sky, it was just full of stars! I heard a deep hooting from the owl pens just near me in the owl center, I imitated it and then…I heard the same call answer but not from the pens…but from up the hill in the woods!! How cool is that?! I tried to imitate it as best I could and we called back and forth.
After this I walked down to the side of the castle that looks over the valley. In total blackness I sat on the same bench that I had sat upon that day, listening to the sounds of the night. I heard a very large bird (of prey) give an alarm call from the woods below. If I hadn’t ventured out at night, I would have missed so much!
Please come back for the next post about Muncaster, I have so much more to tell!
 I did this little sketch (5″x5″) in October, but wanted to post it before too much time slips away! I did it while waiting for my car to have it’s oil changed, at a small dirty table in the car garage waiting room. I used water-soluble graphite pencils in three softness’s and a waterbrush to wet it. I really am having fun playing with these pencils, they’re new to me. I did most of this sketch in one hour…finishing it up at home. Hope you like it, I’ll have note cards and prints of it available.
I was at the Farm Center where I go to buy corn for my chickens, hardware type supplies and new mud boots when I need them. Well, they had new baby chicks! What can I say? I have a barn, I have chickens, I love chicks and being the little kid in a big kids body that I am…ahem…I bought them for myself!! It was to cheer myself up because I’m still hurting from my car accident.
Usually I would put them directly in the barn, but it is still quite chilly and I don’t have a heat lamp set up yet or a pen. So I put them in the ‘old’ bathroom in the bathtub! Ha, what a surprise when my boys saw them!
I looked at it like an opportunity to draw them and do some studies, the dedicated artist that I am!
So the first page was sketches with a graphite mechanical pencil…it’s hard to draw things that are constantly moving! The other page is watercolors that I played with. At the bottom you can see where I wet the paper first and touched it with my color on my brush tip. It makes fuzzy blobs that are fun to play with, but you have to be careful as to “how” blobby it gets. Watercolor has a mind of it’s own, but that’s what I like about it. You can play with this technique, just wet the paper first…let it dry a bit to lose some sheen, then touch paint to it and let it go. It will grow on it’s own. Experiment with this to see how it reacts when your paper is wetter or drier. Then let it dry totally before you try to add details or they will be fuzzy too.
 Go here to see my new Nature Sketching Class schedule! http://marymcandrew.blogspot.com/2008/05/nature-sketching-classes.html
or there’s a link in the right hand column for my classes.
 Well, I finally had time to work on some small sketches in watercolor of Saw-whet owls. I did them in my small 5.5″ x 8.5″ Raffine sketchbook. I was inspired by the Owl Prowl I went on with the Buffalo Ornithological Society on March 15th. I did get some good photos to work from, but haven’t printed them out yet. These were done from very small pictures in field guides and a book I picked up on birds of prey.
I experimented with lifting color that I didn’t like…on the first owl (top first page) I had painted his eyes too close together. Now I’m a perfectionist, I thought, “I can leave it and just start another and call it practice”…but NO…so I wet the eyes, rubbed with my round brush, and pressed a clean paper towel on it, I repeated this over and over until I lifted a lot more than I thought I’d be able to! Then I let it dry and repainted it.
The little one under it I first drew with permanent ink first then colored it with watercolors. The page looked a little boring so I loosely painted green around the edges.
Page two, the owl on top came out nicely. I say that because as I started it, I didn’t like it very much. If I wanted to take more time and make it more detailed, I would add white to the face feathers with a guache or used liquid frisket to block it (retain white).
The little owl at the bottom is actually very tiny, it’s straight watercolor with no preliminary pencil drawing just like the others. It was so small I had trouble doing his pupils, they should be a tiny bit smaller so his eyes look wide open.
I really liked doing these little owl sketches! I love it’s coloring and it’s wide bright orange eyes!
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 I thought I’d do a little color practice using my watercolors, to sketch the field in Winter. I just love the brown, soft tans and red of the bark on the bushes in the far field. My studio is on the second floor so I have a good view.
As I was sipping my coffee and playing around with the field sketch, a hawk swooped down right in front of me over Ginger’s head and across the yard. It was going for the birdfeeder I’m sure, looking for a light lunch of juncoe or sparrow! It landed up in a tree on the side yard and I had to look quickly with my binoculars, hard to see much as it was turned away and not close.
It is hard for me still to tell the difference between a “Sharp Shinned Hawk” and a “Cooper’s Hawk”, and being a stickler for correct identification, I can’t say which it was.
I feel it is a Cooper’s hawk, but need to see more to learn about their size and see the tail better.
If you look at my blog coming up…I did a nice little painting of a “Cooper’s Hawk”, inspired by today’s sighting.
 Today I wanted to get outside without spending too much time thinking about it. Sometimes you can waste time just planning and packing so I kept it super simple. I took a gallon ziplock bag, my 6×8″ sketchbook, a tortillion, a small stiff brush, one small set of charcoal pencils (already in a clear pouch so I could grab them), and something new to me a set of “Cretacolor” leads or sticks with a lead holder. I have a bigger picture of them laying on my sketchbook pictured. The set comes with a 4b graphite stick, a white chalk, two shades of brown chalk, and sanguin? stick that is like a color pencil and doesn’t smear or blend easily.
I should have brought a simple pen for writing, hard to write with charcoal! oops! Next time. I wore these work gloves because they offered a bit of protection but they let me use my hands better than my heave work gloves! I use these when I do oil landscapes in the fall or spring when it’s still chilly. 
Something I’ve mentioned before, it’s when you really stop and be still for a time that you start to notice little things you might have missed before. Today I was setting my ziplock bag in the snow as I worked on drawing standing up. When I crouched down to retrieve something from my bag, I noticed a tiny, tiny bug on my bag. Then I noticed there were more tiny bugs on the snow under the dead Zinnias I was drawing. Then as I looked around, no kidding, they were all across the snow everywhere! Yikes, glad they were tiny, but it’s a sign of spring. I’m not sure what they were.
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Below you can click on my sketchbook page to read the notes I wrote. I talked about my first English Breakfast, and my first impression upon seeing the castle. I was surprised when I turned the bend and saw it, wow! The color scribbles on the page are just that, I was testing out colors there for another sketch.
Below, here I am now sitting at the top of Cannon Bank, the castle is right behind me again. I did the small watercolor below the picture, working with my little travel palette. It’s from this bank that every afternoon they feed the wild herons…more on that later.
The “Eskdale Valley and Muncaster Bridge”
Below is a view of the back of the Castle, I’m now headed up the hill for a walk into the expansive woods. There are 1,800 acres with the property, I think that’d keep me busy exploring for awhile!
This is a great shot of a back door into the castle, what a great drawing this will make!
Everyday they hold an owl demonstration behind the castle, with the birds being flown to educate people about them. I think this might be an Eagle Owl.
I added this picture just so you could see (and enjoy) the fantastic wing span of this beautiful bird.
Here is another page from my sketchbook, not too many sketches here, but lots of notes about what I was seeing. I then headed into the Owl Center they have on the grounds to take pictures. I listed the owls I photographed for further reference.
Next..well you gotta eat sometime! I sat and had a most enjoyable hot lunch after all that exploring. There is a phenomenal cafe on the property with so many choices. I tried the carrot and marrow soup because I never heard of marrow and it’s an English vegetable. It was great!
As the day wound down I took an adventurous walk down the hill along a path that I had no idea where it went. All I know is it went down and I was curious to see if it got anywhere near that gorgeous valley? I had my trusty L.L. Bean rain hat with light in the brim so I could see if it got dim, and with the surroundings always noted, I began. The photo below shows the ‘picture perfect’ top of the hill path, this is a painting waiting to happen!
The path meanders down from there…crossing a noisy little brook on a wooden bridge, and many large stone pavers.
I made it all the way to the bottom and walked off to the left following the path. It ended suddenly at a big metal gate and the view I had was wonderful, yes it was my valley floor I was looking for! There were sheep grazing in the distance and as the light faded I did a small sketch with my watercolor pencils. It was getting chilly and hard to draw as my hands were stiff, I saw a bat flying overhead and then….the clock tower bell tolled 8 times…eight o’clock, time to pack up and go before it gets dark suddenly and I can’t find my way back!
I don’t have a picture or drawing to tell about the last adventure of the day but it was exciting. After dark, I grabbed my 35 mm camera and tripod and headed outside. It was pitch black and not a soul was about, absolutely quiet! I wanted to play around with getting some photos of the sky, it was just full of stars! I heard a deep hooting from the owl pens just near me in the owl center, I imitated it and then…I heard the same call answer but not from the pens…but from up the hill in the woods!! How cool is that?! I tried to imitate it as best I could and we called back and forth.
