December 13, 2011

    Again, an outline drawing. This time it is a still life, but composed of two palm plants; a tall and a short one. I lost track and started to go into the interior near the lower right, but otherwise there are no interior lines - where two fronds cross, the result is the outside edge of the combination with no opposite side to either. 
    I'm not entirely sure what I'll do next with this outline. Maybe fill it in, like I did with the guy reading to the dog, or maybe something else. Whatever I end up doing, it'll be light, quick and fun since I'm needing to catch up and needing to feel like squeezing in drawing time at all in these over-burdened days.

October 7, 2011

     One of my angel wing begonias had several large clusters of their strange pink spun-sugar flowers. I kept intending to sit outside and draw them, but I hadn't gotten around to doing it yet when I noticed they were starting to drop off... so today was the day. I caught the last three hanging blossoms!

June 16, 2011

    I was too tired to work on the camellias, and in fact I was so tired I watched some TV in the evening... which I very rarely do... so I just plucked a bit off the viburnum outside (which I had been admiring earlier for the wonderful red berries forming) and during commercials I drew a new start off of the bit of viburnum laying on my sketch pad.

May 7, 2011

    This is a sketch of the pond in my back yard from a repositioned bench. I drew this much, and decided to take a break for the day. I could just leave it like this or I could decide to revisit it tomorrow or the next day... at any rate, I have a nice place to sit to draw!

April 16, 2011

     This is a relatively fast (but not quick) sketch of a wisteria in our ash tree with the "Roo box". 
     Explanations:  This is a slightly larger sketch book, so even sketching in a faster vs. more meticulous manner, it takes some time to cover the area. The flip side of the size equation is that if I use my tiny carry around sketch book I end up wishing I had more room for certain details or even just all the important features! 
     Wisteria... yes, I know it's invasive and all that, but I'd admired it from childhood and thought that I could keep just one vine under control. Well, this vine is about 15 years old and it only began to take off somewhat in the last five years, only had one panicle of bloom last year, and this is the first year it has really bloomed. I've read up on it, we do all the right things, and yet... So much for rampant. 
     Roo box means that this was once the home box of a very special little boy squirrel - a one-in-a-million squirrel.

April 10, 2011

    A single dandelion, this time using an eraser as a drawing tool instead of simply an error remover, followed by tiny dots of white water color.

April 1, 2011

    Maple squirts, also called whirligigs by kids, are developing now. Some are almost full sized and rosy, and some are still tiny. The little beans you find inside when you peel them are a favorite food of our squirrels. The leaves are still tiny (about the size of squirrel ears!) and such a pale green they're almost silver.

March 7, 2011

   Here is a pencil sketch of four tiny cherry tomatoes (Max's Wild Cherry) and a wee little Indian bitter melon from plants in my son's window. It's going to be a long time before he can subsist on what he's growing... but it has been interesting to see whether tomatoes and bitter melons could be more than annual if not for the winter weather. The bitter melons are succumbing to scale bug, but the wild cherry is attempting to take over the window area - true to it's summer habits.

March 6, 2011

    This is a magnolia seed pod and a twig of magnolia leaves, sketched with pencil.
       I will be catching up over the next few days; I still have a sketch pad with two sketches missing, and I have been doing without a working computer for two days... Hopefully I'll have my computer back sometime tomorrow or the next day.

Feb 26, 2011

    A very quick sketch (posted after an Early bird walk with new friends) of crocuses, dead leaves, a tiny money plant just getting started (oddly they seem to start with tiny leaves that grow larger or the plant grows larger leaves as the season advances... either way, an odd growth habit) and perhaps that's a day lily coming up in the back...

Feb. 20th, 2011

    Here is one sweet gum seed pod (commonly called "monkey balls" because they hang by their "tails"), one cone of an unknown evergreen type and one "Miss Hickory" nut. Frankly, I added the nut just to place a third thing in the sketch... it was less interesting visually and I spent less effort on it so perhaps I should/could have left it out. 

Feb. 18th, 2011

    This is a root my son dug out of the back yard today. It probably had belonged to a sumac I'd cut down a year or two ago when it first began shading out my only sunny spot. The knob to the left would likely have become another trunk. He also dug up a mulberry root which was fabulous, but it's allure was mainly in the color; a wonderful bright orange with vivid violet stripes!

Feb. 5, 2011

    Dracunculus vulgaris in a pot in a bag waiting to be dug up and wrapped for the rest of the winter. 

Jan. 30, 2011

    This is a sketch of the centerpiece from a wedding my daughter and I attended. My daughter, one of the bridesmaids, brought this centerpiece home. I think this is a cyclamen; one of the few types of flowers I have never tried to grow... I drew the petals as I saw them, but I found their form to be excessively confusing; clasping and curled back downward upon themselves. Good practice, I suppose!

Jan. 28, 2011

    This sketch is of the front window, curtain and plants that live there.