Pulling Light from Dark
I recently went to a demonstration by an artist who specializes in charcoal drawings of figures and drapery. Totally not my interest, truth be told, but the elegance of light on dark paper inspired me to try using toned paper. The results surprised me. I liked the simple, back-to-basic quality of working with just dark (in this case, dark umber) and white to render the Eastern phoebe. Pulling light out of the toned paper felt like such a magical thing. I wanted to see how it would be to bring a mostly… Read More
Grown Wild
I came upon this sugar maple while hiking at a nature preserve and was quickly drawn in by its spreading lower limbs. Consider what a rare thing it is to see a tree like this. In nurseries and residential yards and farm fields alike, lower branches are commonly lobbed off— for aesthetics or safety or ease of mowing underneath. Grown wild, this beauty’s lower limbs stretch improbably far outward and upward. With most of its leaves already lying in a carpet of orange and brown on the ground, it was easier to see… Read More
Keeping it simple
This was one of those weeks where art took a back seat to everything else I needed to cram into my life. So when a few hours presented themselves yesterday, I knew I had to seize the moment. Choosing a fairly simple subject would give me chance to focus…and to finish. I really wanted to complete at least one page and be able to move on. Unfortunately, while I found the common milkweed a joy to draw, it was much more challenging to paint than I had anticipated. What color are those… Read More
Coming Full Circle
1969. Forty-five years ago, an enthusiastic young birder named Scott Stoner found and kept watch over a red-winged blackbird nest in a field near his home. When eggs and parent birds disappeared one mid-June day, he took it. Scott mounted the nest to a piece of cardboard, signed his name, dated it, and put it on display in a nature museum in his basement. He was 12 years old. Three weeks ago, I found Scott’s nest. It was still mounted to that piece of now-yellowed cardboard, tucked away in a long-forgotten cabinet… Read More
Nest Demonstration
“What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure…” I love finding bird nests – in spring and summer when birds are actively nesting, in fall and winter when once-hidden nests appear, and in nature centers and museums, where nests are as likely to be on display as they are hidden in cabinets or backroom storage. I recently borrowed several nests from a local nature center to use for a demonstration I was invited to give at the Bethlehem Art Association (Delmar, NY). This is the painting that resulted, but I thought… Read More
Just the basics
It might have been easier simply to list my paint color palette when recently asked about it by an artist friend, but where’s the fun in that? I hadn’t sketched art supplies in years, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity. What I especially love about my basic art kit is that it I can get so much from it. Almost every painting and journal sketch I’ve ever made has sprung from these simple materials (add an F pencil and kneaded eraser for my detailed paintings). These supplies are as simple as… Read More
Picking Hops
This page exists thanks to a broken mechanical hop separator— a most unfortunate thing for my friend Dieter of Helderberg Hop Farm, which resulted in a rather fun hop picking party for friends and neighbors. We gathered in a circle, hop vines heaped in the center. People came and went from early morning through late afternoon, filling crate after crate with cones. Picking hops is mundane, manual work—but the social aspect harkened back to earlier times. Hop picking has been part of making beer since 1079, though the invention of the mechanical… Read More
Searching for Dragonflies
OK, I admit it…I’m a dragonfly geek. While most people enjoy a boat ride or swim at my mother’s summer cottage, I’m often out rowing around in the hot, mucky backwater shallows in search of dragonflies. Sketching them is a highlight of my summer. Dragonflies are exceptional flyers, which makes it particularly challenging to identify and sketch them in the field. But, like birds, dragonflies perch for short periods, often returning to the same spot between patrols. Some species perch longer than others and the position in which they perch– horizontal, at… Read More
Drawn In 