This post, and the next few from me, are being put up late…but I wanted to keep the hikes I took in sequence….more exciting things coming soon! I couldn’t resist starting off with Ginger coming up the lane…it’s so green and lush in Springtime! You can see the buds are just coming out on the trees. Well, it was a very wet, rainy day as you can see by my raingear and barn boots! I always keep a plastic garbage bag in my pocket when hiking, this makes a great surface to kneel or sit on when the ground is damp or if you want to put your camera or bag down, it protects it. The page below shows a very, very quick sketch of moneywort…it grows all over my land in damp or wet areas and in spring + summer it’ll have the prettiest yellow flowers. You can click on any picture to read my notes closer…yikes the mosquitoes were rampant!!
This is a video clip about the Mayapples and one of my old oak trees. This is another one of my old oak trees on “Oak Lane”. I love walking up to each one and checking on them, touching their bark, feeling their power and strength.Growing under the oaks were these plants that I think are Adderstongue…I didn’t get to make a final identification yet. What I did was sketch the upper leaf at actual or life size in pencil. I shaded then smudged with my finger then used a kneaded rubber eraser to ‘wipe out’ where I wanted the light spots. Because the leaf had a mottled look I thought I’d try a little watercolor technique to recreate it. I painted the leaf green then as it was drying I dropped water onto it, this makes a nice mottled effect. It also had a fruit that was green colored. Sorry to say I didn’t get back out there to see what the plant did as far as flowering. You can see where I tested my colors in the corner of the page.At the end of my walk I came to the only Crabapple on my property, what a pretty sight when you find it in Springtime! It’s hidden in an out of the way place in the “Maze”, a field I have with paths that go all over like a maze. I didn’t get to finish the painting properly, I tried to work on it as rain was starting. But it was good practice anyways! I do have some ‘sweet’ pictures of the blossoms for future use. By the way, this was done with watercolor pencils that I then wet with a waterbrush.
The final video clip below is a nice bit of music by one of my favorite singers…the Wood Thrush!!
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/
On Wednesday, Feb. 13, I asked my friend Sue if she wanted to come exploring Como Lake Park with me. Yes, it was cold but we both have a love of the outdoors and Sue isn’t afraid of a little snow! I even brought my snowshoes hoping to give her a lesson and get in a little snowshoe time myself, but the trail was too uneven with huge slabs of ice from Cayuga Creek. We drove through the whole park to see what was there, it’s pretty much a ‘picnicey’ type of place, not too many trails, but then we are visiting in winter and need to find out more. We explored one trail labeled “Boy Scout Trail” and I have a picture of the sign here. From the time we started out and returned it was only one hour, we didn’t get to do the whole loop, our toes were getting too cold and we started having thoughts of hot cocoa!
There are many views at this park, where I could see I’d like to teach a landscape painting class and my nature sketching classes. The creek is great and reminds me of my walks to the Susquehanna River where I grew up, except that was MUCH larger than this creek!
You can see I’m drawing with my small sketchbook, my bag is slung across my shoulder mailman style so I can get at everything easily. (Sorry the picture is dark). My small camera is attached to the strap, as is my sandpaper block, a compass, and a tiny bottle of pepper spray! Ahhmmm yes ladies, you should be carrying this or something like it when hiking, and try to never hike alone, there are too many weirdos out there, yes I’ve met some! You can see on my sketchbook page, I started by drawing a square in the center of the page. I stuck a post it note in the back of my sketchbook to use for tracing a perfect square. It’s fun to add some design elements to your pages sometimes. You can then draw whatever you want to highlight in the box, and fill around it with little sketches, notes, tracks etc. I decided to sketch behind it a view of Cayuga creek looking south, you can see this view in the picture of me looking straight across the creek. Remember it’s cold, and even wearing flip back mittens (as my friend in England recommended!) I still had to draw very fast. Especially when hiking with a friend, I feel more pressured to ‘hurry up’.
I found a Hawthorne tree and noted several birds that I heard. At the end of our walk, I heard a loud woodpecker call, we stopped and watched for awhile and then saw a big Pileated Woodpecker fly out through the high branches! It was exciting! Perhaps the large, fresh woodpecker holes I took pictures of, were from this one? Here’s a link for Como Lake Park with how to get there and picnic info etc. http://www.erie.gov/parks/como.asp (if link doesn’t work, I’ve listed it in my links column to the left, under Buffalo nature links.)
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I couldn’t resist starting off with Ginger coming up the lane…it’s so green and lush in Springtime! You can see the buds are just coming out on the trees.
Well, it was a very wet, rainy day as you can see by my raingear and barn boots! I always keep a plastic garbage bag in my pocket when hiking, this makes a great surface to kneel or sit on when the ground is damp or if you want to put your camera or bag down, it protects it. The page below shows a very, very quick sketch of moneywort…it grows all over my land in damp or wet areas and in spring + summer it’ll have the prettiest yellow flowers. You can click on any picture to read my notes closer…yikes the mosquitoes were rampant!!
This is another one of my old oak trees on “Oak Lane”. I love walking up to each one and checking on them, touching their bark, feeling their power and strength.
Growing under the oaks were these plants that I think are Adderstongue…I didn’t get to make a final identification yet. What I did was sketch the upper leaf at actual or life size in pencil. I shaded then smudged with my finger then used a kneaded rubber eraser to ‘wipe out’ where I wanted the light spots. Because the leaf had a mottled look I thought I’d try a little watercolor technique to recreate it. I painted the leaf green then as it was drying I dropped water onto it, this makes a nice mottled effect. It also had a fruit that was green colored. Sorry to say I didn’t get back out there to see what the plant did as far as flowering. You can see where I tested my colors in the corner of the page.
At the end of my walk I came to the only Crabapple on my property, what a pretty sight when you find it in Springtime! It’s hidden in an out of the way place in the “Maze”, a field I have with paths that go all over like a maze. I didn’t get to finish the painting properly, I tried to work on it as rain was starting. But it was good practice anyways! I do have some ‘sweet’ pictures of the blossoms for future use. By the way, this was done with watercolor pencils that I then wet with a waterbrush.
