July 5, 2011

        Today I planned on doing something in color... but then I discovered that the Pamlico river water was the lowest it has been since I got here, and I could actually take a chair down onto the river beach and sit to draw... an opportunity not to be missed! I may finish this tomorrow (the river willing), but today I drew until the water was sloshing up on my shins and a few more vigorous drops were reaching the paper. 
      The upper right of the drawing should be filled in with vegetation - mainly Virginia creeper and trumpet vine slinging between branches of cypress, yaupon and china berry tree, with Spanish moss draped like tinsel on vine and branch. 
      I'm told the river is wind-driven to rise and fall, although sometimes the water does taste (but not on purpose) a tiny bit brackish. The beach is swept clean by the movement and there is seldom much garbage or glass - and I usually pick up what does show up, as a sort of use-of-beauty fee.
      In this view, I'm facing up river along one of the many scallops that form where the beach has been left natural as opposed to having dropped rock or built a break-wall. The cypress and their knees hold the sand and form points and the river scoops it away in sweeps between the big trees. 
      The floats mark crab pots. The tires were dropped back when people thought it was a good idea (it's not) to hold the sand against erosion. Behind the front cypress there are two huge iron (I suppose) wheels, one fairly intact and with two broken spokes. They may have been for a wagon, but they are very old since the cypress seems to have grown into them a bit. The spot could not have been purposefully composed to be any more picturesque...