Quick Sketching

Decided to sit out on the deck and enjoy the wildlife and do some quick sketching.  There were two chipmunks in the tree by the feeder that I decided to sketch.  One of them came down and started to eat by the feeder.  The grass made it difficult to see him.  One chipmunk came up on the deck and was suddenly surprised when he noticed that he wasn't alone.  He stood still for so long that I was able to draw him quite well.  I only wish that I had noticed that I grabbed my blue water color pencil instead of a graphite one, I may have been able to show more detail.

Journal on the Go

Trying to work on my journal while we were going on our last wood cutting trip.  I am trying to do my drawings as quickly as I can sketch and then adding later wording and maybe color.
 Bought the eggs from a lady who I think raises the tastiest eggs I have ever had.  (The whites are thick and the yokes are perky and orange!)
We went looking for morels after we finished cutting wood for our home.  The trilliums are now blooming and I came across a tree with pieces of peeled bark all over it.  Turns out that it is a hickory.
This year the weather has been so quirky that some things are way ahead of schedule.  Normally this would be too soon for morels.  Also if we would find them at this time they would be the small black ones, but this is a large white one.

Pine Cones

This spring has been early and unseasonably warm.  Which is OK by me.  While cleaning up yard debris I came across some pine cones and decided to draw them in my journal.  I didn't think it would be so challenging as it was.  The white pine cones different angles and openness I found difficult to capture and it took me several attempts and days for me to draw.  The red pine compactness made it much easier to draw.  I found myself trying to draw a pine cone and focusing too much on thinking instead of drawing what I was seeing. Spring coming this early is going to make drawing outdoors nicer.

Drawing in Public Places

I want my Journal to include drawings of people.  Since I haven't draw people before this last year, I thought going to CJ"s Brewery for dinner would be a good place to sit in a back booth alone and draw customers.  I found myself being very self conscious and worry that others would get angry if they found out I was drawing them.  I want to be able to quickly get the form of the person and the surrounding area without taking too much time or looking obvious.  I hope to get better at this so I can record our vacation/adventures by drawing them instead of taking pictures. I added green watercolor to my pencil drawing in honor of St. Patty's Day.

Feeling the Blues

Boy!  This was a hard picture to post.  I tried two times to take a picture using my phones camera only to have my photo editor display error messages because it couldn't see the blue image.  I finely took a picture with our digital camera and finally got it to post a picture.  I decided to experiment with Derwent's Graphitint pencil in steel blue and mixed it with their watercolor pencil in blue gray. I lightly bushed the images with water to pull the color out and make nice shadows. I think I will like to use the watercolor pencils for sketching on trips because it would be easy to fix mistakes and I could add more later if needed.

Graphite in HB!

I was given this flower doll/statue by my sister-in-law about 20 years ago.  I wanted to work on my shading skills using one pencil.  It was fun drawing her face.  One day I may draw the rest of her.  It took me 3 days to finish her as I only had limited time to work on her each day.  I have called her Flower Guardian as she watches over my plants and flowers.