Mary McAndrew

Well, as you gather from my title, it is cold outside today! The past two days it’s been in the ‘teens’…today only 10 degrees F. But it’s been awhile since I did some outdoor observations so I threw my little 5 1/2″x 81/2″ sketchbook into a gallon ziplock bag and three micron pens. NO playing with color today, I knew it’d be too cold to get into that, especially with wearing big gloves and my water freezing!
I mostly drew with a .02 micron pen, wearing huge mittens! I forgot my flipback pair that my English friend encouraged me to wear, so I was stuck with the big, cumbersome old leather pair of mittens that I wear when I do barn chores in the winter. I should post a picture of them so you could have a laugh…they have duct tape around parts because of wear! haha…
So, about my drawings, the first was a small clump of weeds by the barn with snow on top of them. It was really beautiful, even the colors were nice. Then I walked over to the garden where my flowers are all standing dead but looking interesting with their bareness of form. I especially liked the Black-Eyed Susan’s because they were almost like abstract black dots against all the white.
Then I used my micron brush pen, which I think is a bit dried out, but that can be a good thing. I sketched the Blue Spruce and some trees next to it very quickly. I was running out of space here. So then I flipped the page and did a very quick rendition of a group of trees that I like to draw in the summer. I used the brush pen again for that.
Oh a side note here, I’m always trying out new things..today it was an old thing. I had a pair of battery operated heated socks that I pulled out of the closet. The kind that you put a huge D cell battery in the top side of the sock, I wore them today but I think they don’t work! Well they’re old, I have a new pair still in the wrapper, I plugged them in when I got back inside and they seemed to work, so next time I’ll have to try them out. They’re not the most comfortable as the battery jams against your leg if you’re wearing tall boots like I do. I’ll have to test them again to see how they work.