We had about two inches of snow last night, everything is covered in a soft white blanket. All our flowers that were finally coming up are now covered but at least the daffodils haven’t bloomed yet.
Above is the Hawthorn I painted not long ago, and I’ll be putting a post up about that soon. I’m following fox tracks in the snow and they led here, then it jumped up on the wall and walked behind the tree! I love following tracks in snow to see what story it tells, guessing at what happened in the night.
The tracks led here also, where a fox jumped and hopefully got a vole! I did a Youtube video talking about it and will link it at the end. The grass clump above is what I decided to draw.
Here’s my little field watercolor palette, holding it in one hand with my fat mittens on!
It’s hard to take pictures while holding things!
I was trying to show how I hold the sketchbook against me and the palette, both in the same hand. I used to have a small hard panel that I would clip them to, I’ll have to revisit that idea! Kind of like a clipboard but skinnier.
Here’s my field kit I used today, it’s a small one. I stepped into the wood shed a minute so I could put things down to take a picture and video tape.
“Grasses in the Snow”, watercolor and ink
My finished little study, I like how it came out. I put together a short Youtube video about doing this sketch and I show my field kit. Find it RIGHT HERE, give me a like and leave a comment if you can!
I’ll be sharing another post soon, about the Hawthorn tree and Mossy Wall, with lots of stages of painting to see. I’m also saving my pennies (pence?) to buy a new printer so I can get back to offering prints and note cards, stay tuned!!
Today I went for another walk on Long Lane Farm with my 4 legged companion Ginger. Below I have a page from my sketchbook journal where I show a fun technique of using a frame as a design element. If you keep a few ‘frame’ templates in your field kit you can have some fun tracing them. Some template ideas could be a post it note, an index card, maybe the lens cap from your camera (I thought of this one while sitting and drawing today) and what I used here was a simple refrigerator magnet that has the center that pops out. I think if you take more time to play with this you can really do some nice designs!
field-study-flowers
Clockwise from the top left you can see a Daisey in the grass, then the male Oriole popping his head through the oak leaves at the top of a VERY high old oak. Above that a yellow wildflower that I think is ‘King Devil’ a type of Hawkweed, then ‘Fleabane’, the little pink flower underneath the Oriole. The bottom right is a very pretty wildflower that I found in the Maze..anyone help me with this one? (I have photos of these wildflowers coming up.) In the frame are ‘Common’ or ‘Tall Buttercups’ and around the frame I listed the names of birds I saw or heard today.
field-study-grasses
On the second page I just used the micron permanent pen and drew some grasses. On the right are ‘Soft Rushes’, their pliable stems are what would be used to weave mats or baskets and next to it some type of sedge. The rushes are more closely related to lilies than grasses, my field guide says and I know the stem is round. It’s neat to follow the stem to the top with your fingers and feel how absolutely perfect a point it comes to. The sketch next to it is of some type of sedge, honestly I can’t find it in my guide. They had a most interesting design in their growth, three leaves jutting out from the top in different directions and the clustered seed pods looking like spikey critters! It had a triangular stem which reminds me of the saying…”Sedges have edges”.
tree-swallow-youngster
I snapped this shot as I was leaving the yard, just after his mom or dad had visited the hole. What a face! haha!
fleabane
And here’s the pretty pink ‘Daisy Fleabane’, people used to hang it in their houses to keep away the fleas…not sure if it worked! I have a big clump of these sprouted up in my front flower bed and they are really pretty. Many people would have yanked it thinking ‘weed’, but well, it has lots of company with all the other weeds!
white-flower
This is the mystery flower, can anyone help me identify it? I love the fine fuzz on it, as I look at a close up picture, it catches the sun. They were growing together in a patch in the middle of the Maze.
King Devil-Hawkweed
I think this is called King Devil a type of Hawkweed; I found it growing at ‘Aspen Hall’ a shady area along the lane just before the Maze. It has fine bristly hairs all over it and the flowers were all confined to just the top of one long stem. I had to move grasses to find the leaves, which were tucked low at ground level.
white-moth
This white moth was interesting to study. I spotted him when Ginger and I were returning along ‘Oak Lane’, it was flitting eratically along the path, as butterflies do. I kept following it to try and get a picture and I’m sure it knew it was being followed. I thought about how strange it is for a WHITE butterfly to be amonst so much green! It stands out like a sore thumb, well I have a feeling this photo will teach you something. When it landed instead of staying on top of the leaf and closing it’s wings, it very quickly flipped under the leaf and laid it’s wings out. Now you’d think oh I’ll still see the white, but no, the green leaf reflected on it’s wings and it now looked green! How cool is that? If you ask questions as you stand and watch the bugs and critters around you, you’ll start to notice details you never thought of before.
oriole-male
Here is the gloriously beautiful male Baltimore Oriole! I love seeing them, such an intense orange and yellow breast set off by deep black like velvet! He’s way up in an oak tree looking down at me, can you tell? I love this picture of him. This was along Oak Lane and I ended up standing still here for quite a long time. I kept hearing several different birds give their warning chirp like they had babies near.
oriole-nest
I’m glad I stood as long as I did, I caught sight of what I guessed was a female Oriole and studied where she disappeared to. Aha! They have a nest way up in the oak tree, hanging out over the path! It’s amazing that birds can actually weave a basket nest like this in the tree and it supports the eggs and adult, later all growing into heavier fledglings. If you look close you can just see the female through the leaves, leaning down into the nest to feed the babies.
green-bug
I think this little green guy who came to visit me while I was eating and painting was really neat! I haven’t found him yet in my field guide, I think I need another bug guide to cross reference.
black-beetle
And last we have a very black, very shiney beetle…no I don’t think it’s this beetle but I’d love to hear some suggestions? Closest I’ve come is either a ‘Ground Beetle’, or ‘Red Legged Ham Beetle’ or a ‘Blue Milkweed Beetle’.
I hope you enjoyed the walk with me today, so much was seen and discovered in what looks just like an ordinary field and woodland edge. Take time to stand or sit still and just watch what the creatures around you do. And you’ll see so much more if you look a bit closer at the ground, grasses or flowers as there is always something living there.
Please post a comment if you like and if you may know what my bugs or flowers are, please lets have a stab at it!
Here’s the books I referenced after my hike today:
Reader's Digest Wildflowers Guide
Nat.Wildlife Fed. Field Guide to Insects and Spiders of N. America
Wildflowers-Peterson-First-Guides
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