I’ve been trying to go back into my sketches I did on my trip to England and add some color or finish what I’ve started. On this little sketch I scribbled it out in 5min….and added some notes on color right on the page. So to keep practicing with my waterbrush and watercolors I added some color while looking at a photo I had taken that day. It’s different using the waterbrush alone and not an assortment of brushes. You have one tip to work with and a different kind of flow of water. I’m liking it more and more, but it still has it’s limitations, most especially when wanting to lay in a large wash of color. You have to mix a puddle of color first on your palette, squeezing the barrel to make drops of water come out.
In the morning looking out my window, I was greeted by an unusual sight, sheep in the courtyard! I guess it would be very frustrating to have a garden here as the sheep kind of wander where they like, especially if their gate is left open. The owners of Cote Howe B+B told me it was hard to protect the garden and they try to put fencing around it.
This morning I was leaving Rydal Water, I was sad to say good-bye. I went out behind the B+B to wait for my friend Gary to come, it was chilly and damp. I climbed up on top of a big wooden gate with huge stone posts and did a balancing act as I swung my legs to the other side. The stone wall is fascinating in itself to study, notice the huge cap stone at the end on the left…I don’t know how deep it goes into the ground, but I’m sure it goes down a few feet at least. This is how the stones were set for Stonehenge and the other stone circles around England and Ireland. The big stone here is used as the post, the wall being built up against it and also gates can be hung on it. The wall has a niche in it, I forget what the owner told me it was for? Does anyone know? Above you can see some beautiful forms of fungus’s and moss. It seems anything that wasn’t moving in England this fall, was covered with mosses! I’ll try to identify these later from my field guides, if anyone has some good identification, leave me a comment please! There were sheep in the field, an occasional hiker and just a beautiful view looking towards Rydal Water and the path I took yesterday for my hike. I sat on a gate and sketched the sheep and path view, the bunny is from when I was standing by the garden and saw him there. I sat so quietly sketching that the sheep came right up under me, when I spoke to her, she was very surprised to see me! That’s the neat thing about sketching in nature, you sit so quietly engrossed that wildlife will come around you.
Below you can see my original page, this is what I did as I sat on the fence, I painted it in while looking at the photos on my computer screen, using my tiny Altoids watercolor kit and just one waterbrush. You can see my tiny color tests in the spiral area of the paper.
Today as the sun shone and the temperatures climbed to a balmy 30 or so degrees, I felt a very strong urge to just grab my field kit and go for a hike with Ginger. I notice whenever I go out field sketching or work on a painting in the studio, it’s like having a visit to the therapist! I feel like I’ve just had some kind of adjustment, and all is right in my world! Troubles melt away as I stop to catch my breath and listen to the wind gusting through the trees. Today was no different. (click on any picture to see enlarged view)
First small sketch done with a micron 05 permanent marker, it’s along the path that’s called “Long Lane” on my farm. To warm up and to see if drawing with my fingerless mittens would feel comfortable, I did the top of a small oak tree, then turned and looked down the lane where Ginger was disappearing down, and did a quickly scrawled sketch. It’s ok that it’s not beautiful and meticulously drawn, I can remember the scene in my mind just be looking at it. Sometimes the field sketch can have more movement and show more excitement than a carefully executed studio drawing. I also find that being able to work loosely in the field keeps my studio painting fresh and lively looking.
Just me in my dad’s old wool hunting coat that I treasure, using the fingerless mitten ok. I picked up this pair in England at a regular clothes store at the mall, I made sure they had wool in them, and I like the dark brown color (to hide the dirt of course silly!). At this point I think my fingers were cold, sometimes I worked with the top pulled back and sometimes closed. I’m using a waterbrush here and watercolors, I put my kit in a new bag to try out, an over the shoulder binder type thing, but no room for apples or water bottles. Extra things had to go in the back secret pouch on the hunting jacket, made for carrying dead birds that the hunter (dad) would shoot. It’s actually a handy pouch…I slid my sketchbook in there when I would get moving on my hike.
This is a page with a simple color study of the red bark on bushes and the little fern heads coming up through the snow. Their forms, almost silhouette because they’re so dark, are wonderful to study.
The photo above shows a leaf I found in a tiny birds nest that was tucked into a tangled bush. It’s small things like this that if you take time to notice the subtle beauty your enjoyment of the natural world and simple walks would be much more memorable. This leaf is a simple shape, but I love the mixture of subtle colors, there’s a promise of green there that makes me think of spring, it’s almost as if the green was frozen from the fresh times of summer. The pattern of the veins and cells is really something too, the wet sheen on it’s surface reflecting a cool light.
Then turn the same leaf over and it’s a whole other leaf! This side has a network of raised veins showing, like fine meshwork netting and the contrast of the color of vein to leaf is at once noticed. The fall like colors are not showing on this side. When you pick something up, turn it over and explore everything about it; if you draw it, you will study it deeply, noting it’s every interesting detail. Sometimes this is good to do once you get back home and can sit in the warmth and take time to study it.
Here’s another nest I found that almost looks like it has an ice cream scoop for an egg waiting to be hatched by the warm spring sun. (It’ll have to wait awhile still!) Walking in winter is a good time to look for birds nests, just look at bushes or trees for clumps of dark areas, usually made by leaves and small branches. It’s fun to look closely at them, how the tiny branches are laid criss cross and woven, and imagine two birds picked up ever single twig and made that. Some nests are tiny things..some larger and could even be for grey squirrels. I don’t ever disturb the nests…I feel they are there to be used somehow by other creatures, mice, bugs, etc. and I just let it alone. I will carefully pull some leaves out of a nest to see what the cup might look like.
Now this page has notes you can read, but I’ll explain a bit more. I went to a part of my land that has huge old oak trees on it, and one in particular that is dead. This dead tree had all kinds of funguses growing on it and was great to study.
I learned something new that I didn’t expect, there was an interesting type of fungus growing on the underside of all the large branches. It was a beautiful natural yellow with some orangey colors in it, but very muted. The funny thing was I noticed the snow beneath it had yellow spots following the branches, NO Ginger didn’t do that! haha…but as the snow piled on top of the branches melted, the yellow color in the fungus was dripping down to the ground. I wonder if the Indians or settlers used that as a color for something?
Here’s a close up, if anyone can help me identify this I’d be grateful. I looked it up in my mushroom and fungus books but can’t find it specifically.
This fungus is as far as I can tell, a “Redbelt” shelf fungus. I did a painting in the field while looking at it and looked it up when I got home. (The painting is below). The odd thing was, as closely as I thought I looked at this, I still missed something interesting. When I got home and uploaded my photos, I noticed on some close ups there were little blackish bugs crawling all over the place!! Ewww….I have to admit, I like studying bugs, but the idea that there were bugs all over this fungus and tree and I didn’t know it kind of made me uneasy! But the fascinating thing was that there were bugs out doing their thing in the middle of the winter! You would be surprised at what you’ll see on a mild winter day!At this point, at the end of my hike after being out two hours, my toes were frozen and getting numb. This is when the idea of hot cocoa creeps into my mind and Ginger’s happy face asking, “Can we go home yet?” starts to distract me.
This last page I finished at home while drinking that hot cocoa; the tree and fungus I did in the field. I brought home a stick with neat fungus growing on it, the leaf I photographed and a dead leaf. This stick was very interesting to look at under a magnifying glass, the black fungus was shiny and the rose colored had a velvety sheen almost. I made a stab at identifying the rose colored as Hypoxylon Fragiforme, any experts out there can verify this? I added color notes too so you could see what paints I used.
I hope you enjoyed our hike today in the winter chill! Sign up your email in the right column to recieve updates when I post new things. Happy Hiking!
Last night as I walked out to the barn, I paused to admire the stars, it being a clear night with a small crescent moon. My dog Ginger was bouncing around me waiting for me to continue to the barn for feeding time, I had to watch awhile. I watched them twinkling and thought again about how people all over the world are connected when they look up at the stars and moon. I noticed too how the light cast from the barn made the trees glow against the dark sky, the lighting from below was haunting. It was just then I saw a bright shooting star fly over the trees…with bright sparkling colors behind it; it didn’t have a long tail, but a very brilliant short one.
This is the painting taped to the table (it’s 5″x7″), I used a liquid friskit with the pen tip to quickly sketch the trees on. They are a little clumsy but I meant to do it as a quick sketch, and have some liveliness to it. The stars came out a bit too big so later I had to paint them in a bit.
After the liquid friskit is dry and only then, is it ok to do liberal washes over it. The friskit keeps the paper white, I should have taken a photo to show you how bright and ‘garish’ it looked when I rubbed it off. My son Paul loved the look, kind of modern but a bit too stark for me. I brushed over the trees liberally with browns and then used a damp brush to lift color around the tree tops…a softening effect to suggest the finer branches and glow.
This is my tiny kit with the Altoids tin of watercolors, I mixed my paints on the metal pencil case. The last thing I did was put a little color in behind the shooting star, I took note of this right when I saw it and that’s what I found fascinating about it.
So that’s it, a little sketch of a shooting star…and oh yes…I DID WISH UPON IT!! (but I’m not telling! 😉
This is a tiny little watercolor painting I did on New Year’s Eve morning, while drinking my coffee and looking out the back studio window. It measures a mere 2.5 x 3.5″. You can see below a photo I took while working, but I put the tin down to take the photo. I painted it while standing and holding this little set-up in my left hand. It’s a pencil case that I stick my “Altoids” watercolor kit in using blue tack or sticky tack, and the same for the tiny watercup. I also use the tack to hold two brushes at the ready on the side; I use the metal area under the paint kit to mix colors. This set up works well for small paintings and studies.
The sunrise was just too beautiful to ignore. While I was making my morning coffee, I kept looking out the studio window at it. Knowing how fast a sunrise will change, I ran and grabbed my camera (literally!) to catch some photos. All the fantastic colors can bloom to unbelievable brilliance, then it can fade as the sun comes out so bright you can’t look, or it will slip behind clouds.
After taking some photos, I then grabbed my watercolor pencils and worked very quickly to sketch out some colors. I used watercolor pencils, watersoluble graphite and inktense watersoluble ink pencils with my waterbrush to blend and wet them. These are all Derwent brand pencils I used. I played around with drawing on the paper wet and dry when I did the trees. At first I drew them on dry…then ran the brush over bringing out the darkness of the color, but it also washes it out or softens it. Then I tried drawing the trees on wet paper and they were dark and intense from the start. This is good for trees in the forground. You can use both methods to your liking. (Below) I liked this one better, though it’s more simple, the colors are so pleasant. When I do a sunrise sketch, the colors shift very fast so I work on the large color impressions and cloud patterns, then try to work from memory. This leads to a lively painting but don’t be surprised if you look at the photos you took at the time and they look very different!
This is a little oil pastel I did while eating breakfast on my back deck, I started it the other day and finished it today. Done on canvas paper, I laid down the first layer by drawing sky color and grass and then scrubbing lightly with a bristle brush and mineral spirits. I then sketched in the tree trunks as thinly as I could in greys and light browns. I added clumps of light green for the leaves and then added darker green under to make them stand out. I put the grass colors on, and the dry grass color, which I then used the rubber pastel blender to drag the grass up into the green. I also used the rubber blender to smooth over the tree trunks, this helped to get rid of the canvas texture.
The sky was laid in darker colors at the top and lighter towards the bottom, I put white very heavy where the clouds would be, then I was able to blend into the cloud with sky color a bit. This was all a very ‘back and forth’ process, I thought it was finished then picked up another color and added leaves, then added back to the sky, and so on. I used a paper clip to scratch grass into the field, and then my initials into the painting.
I used my tiny Olympus camera to take pictures of this so I could upload it with my laptop. This is to test how I can update my blog while I’m traveling, so far so good!
Hope you enjoyed todays updates!
It was a very hot day when I decided to scoot outside to do a quick little painting. I used my a square sketchpad because it’s a fun change. The painting is only 5″x5″ big. I first sketched with a micron pen then I used my tiny watercolor kit. Because the day was so hot, it dried very quickly as I worked. I like the stroked look of the sky, it gives it movement. Of course Ginger had to be right next to me! She was smart and hide from the hot sun under the table! I stood at the picnic table and put one foot up on the seat, resting my sketchbook and arm on my knee. This little painting is of Birds Foot Trefoil, it grows wild here and there in my, ahem…kind of wild yard! It has lovely little yellow flowers and it’s called ‘bird’s foot’ because the pod cluster that grows looks like a bird foot. This flower grows in Europe and that’s where it came from, now quite common here. The painting is a bit pale because I painted it in full sun, it got hard to look at the white paper after awhile. I used a little trick to make it go faster, I held the flower so the shadow fell onto my paper and then drew the stem lightly with a pencil. Then I was able to just look at the flower and work on my drawing, fixing the details and proportions.
Well I’m finally getting some pictures up from my day of exploring at Evangola State Park, in Brandt NY. (it’s near Angola) My photographer friend Mark Baker and I are picking areas around Buffalo to go explore, he concentrates on photography while I grab some pictures and then try to sketch. It is nice to spend time with a friend this way but it is a little harder for me to settle down and draw things. I guess as we explore more together I’ll get more comfortable with just saying, “I’ll be sitting here for awhile while you go shooting”. He got some neat shots of me working and I took the ones of my hand holding the palette in the creek bed and the cool “hanging by a root” photo.
It was a very overcast day, windy but pleasant enough. Sometimes that’s a great kind of lighting for photography or drawing, no glaring sun to deal with. I sketched the covered bridge and wanted to work on it more at home, but never got time. That’s why I waited so long to post this!, ah, the best laid plans of mice and women….ahem.
The picture of me standing in the stream, I’m sketching the scene very quickly using a permanent ink pen, then the close up of my hand holding the palette and pad shows how I hold it to use the watercolors. I just kept bending down to rinse my brush in the water flowing past me, no watercup necessary!
Then I sat down on the bank to do a quick watercolor of the lake using my Chinese brush, the colors were really dull because of the type of day it was. But I wanted to experiment and practice painting outdoors. You can see in the picture that Mark took looking over my shoulder that I’ve spread my bag out in front of me, but all within quick reach in case I have to pack up suddenly and go. Um…rain, creepy men …you ladies know what I mean! haha…another good reason to have a male friend on the exploration trip with you. A side note here to my painting, drawing, exploring lady friends, ALWAYS pay attention to what’s going on around you!! Don’t be naive, believe me you don’t want to run into trouble out by yourself, better to be paying attention to who’s around you.
Ok, back to more pleasant thoughts! I’ve also included an OK clip of the lakes waves. It was my intention to get a clip of the sound, but my friend Mark was diddling around next to me with his camera…made some noises. I’ll shoot a better one next time!
Here’s a link to Mark’s phenomenal website www.mhbaker.com and Evangola State Park link: http://www.evangolastatepark.com/
Today I couldn’t resist the sunshine, it was a ‘balmy’ 40 degrees so I took my field pack and told Ginger we’re going for a hike! She, of course could barely contain her excitement! If you click on any picture you can see the enlarged version, and read my actual notes. There were Red Winged Black birds calling from the tree tops and some Turkey Vultures sailing overhead silently. I sketched a tree with a hole that lookes perfect for something to have a nest in, I’ll have to watch this spring. The second page is further out, in “The Maze”, a place on my land where I cut all these paths that intersect. It’s a great place to explore. The sketch at the top of the page was done first with permanent marker then I used Derwendt Inktense watercolor pencils and a few Prismacolor wc pencils; I noted the colors used on the page. I noticed the buds on the trees coming forth…like pussy willows…all soft and grey, but smaller. I did some sketches on both pages, very small. The next two pictures show me holding my sketchbook. Now it’s impossible to take a picture of oneself while both hands are occupied, I told Ginger I wish she could take the picture! So, first picture shows my hand holding the pencils and sketchbook at the same time.
The second picture shows me drawing with the wc-pencil and holding the waterbrush at the same time. The small buds I painted using the watercolor pencils and a small watercolor brush. The waterbrush gets frustrating, it’s a bit large and the water amount is hard to control.
The next ‘cute’ picture is Ginger fetching a stick, she was bored while I was setting up my supplies for a picture so I had her play fetch.
The next picture is of my field bag with the contents laid out. I numbered them so I could describe what they are. 1)watercup attached to strap 2)sandpaper block 3)watercolor pencils 4)sketchbook 5)watercolor field set 6)natural sponge 7)paper towels 8)square magnifier 9)eraser 10) slide holder for composition 11)retractable knife 12)watercolor brushes 13)tiny tripod 14)pepper spray 15) various pencils, pens, waterbrush 16)palette watercup 17)biscuit treats for Ginger 19)garbage bag to sit on.
Then there’s a picture of the ice and bubbles, I had to stand in water to take it and YES, my boots leaked! Even with the plastic bags my sock got very wet and squishy! Oh the adventures of a Naturalist Artist!
Then there’s a picture of a fern head …I love these things. Then a picture of the ‘tools of the day’, my sketchbook, watercolor pencils, waterbrush, watercolor brush, and permanent ink pen. The last picture is a Turkey Vulture that flew over, I know it was checking us out! It circled, riding the updrafts, and kept coming back over us. I’m really surprised I could catch a picture with my tiny camera.
I hope you enjoyed the walk with Ginger and I, “Come Walk With Me” again soon!
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I’ve been trying to go back into my sketches I did on my trip to England and add some color or finish what I’ve started. On this little sketch I scribbled it out in 5min….and added some notes on color right on the page. So to keep practicing with my waterbrush and watercolors I added some color while looking at a photo I had taken that day. It’s different using the waterbrush alone and not an assortment of brushes. You have one tip to work with and a different kind of flow of water. I’m liking it more and more, but it still has it’s limitations, most especially when wanting to lay in a large wash of color. You have to mix a puddle of color first on your palette, squeezing the barrel to make drops of water come out.
Here’s the sketch as it appeared in my original post about my hike. To read more about this hike go to my post: http://marymcandrew.blogspot.com/2009/01/rydal-water-and-cote-how-bb-9-11-08.html
