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
Apple Season
I started this painting back in August when the season’s first apples appeared at the farmers market. There are 7,500 varieties of apples worldwide and I thought it would be fun to capture some of the ones grown here in New York State. I enthusiastically laid out the painting and started building up the forms of the fruit…and then a crisis of confidence swept in. What was I thinking? I’d only painted two apples successfully before. All of my other attempts ended up looking like round red balls with stems. How was… 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
Good enough to…paint
Certain vegetables are much better painted than cooked. Beets fall into that category, as does Swiss chard and turnips. These lovely Nantes carrots with their green stems and long roots still attached begged to be memorialized on paper rather than consumed. I started with a very quick, but careful sketch, determined not to get too fussy with detail. I kept the first few washes of watercolor loose, too. That enabled me to suggest the lacy leaves, rather than get caught in exactitude and overwork the piece. Now that the painting is done,… Read More
Resilient
I love the sheer mass of this old cottonwood, towering above younger trees in my neighbor’s abandoned field. Less than a year ago, its hollow trunk still supported most of its aging, weighty limbs. But summer storms recently brought a good portion of the giant to the ground. At first sight, I was struck by its brokenness in the late day sunlight. Only later, I realized my shortsightedness. Trees, like people, can weather many storms—their character often enhanced by years and trials. Sending greenery skyward, they go on living—aged and scarred, but… Read More
Tomatoes!
Farmers markets are an extravagant display of color and form at this time of year– the sheer abundance of summer’s harvest is astonishing! I went last weekend in search of both culinary and artistic treasures, and found a wealth of choices. Though tempted by the deep red-purple of beets and onions, I set those aside knowing that they would keep until winter. Instead, I selected some of August’s finest– ripe tomatoes, succulent apricots, and several varieties of the year’s first apples. Fortunately, my family is well trained– they know not to delve… Read More
Comb Jellies
(click image to view larger) What a find! My son and I recently hit the jackpot while exploring the tidal Slocum River on Massachusetts’s southern coast. There in the brackish water, among feeding barnacles and clam siphons protruding from the muddy bottom, we spied them: floating, iridescent, pulsating jellies! At first one, then two, and when our eyes adjusted to deciphering clear bodies in the water column, twenty or more. They ranged from dime-sized to golf-ball sized and we watched them, mesmerized, until hunger sent us in search of lunch. I later… Read More
Sketching on the Go
It’s tough to keep up a sketchbook when traveling by bicycle! But here’s the result of my recent 400 mile, 8-day cycling trip along the Erie Canal in New York State. (You can click on the image to enlarge it a bit.) Because I needed to cover 50 to 60 miles a day, I found it impossible to sketch until the riding was done. No matter how tired, I made a point of extending the schematic map eastward each evening, filling in some of the day’s adventures in words or pictures. Packing… Read More
In Camille’s Garden
Having creative friends is wonderful thing—especially when they invite you over for an evening of sketching! I’d been eying Camille’s garden for awhile and I was glad for the chance to look at it more closely. Unfortunately, the sun was fading fast, so I chose just a small part of the flower bed to paint. I especially liked the way the hedge bindweed threaded through the lilies and daisies. The wren is nesting in my own garden, but he fit that space quite nicely and so became the final element to the… Read More
Life Between the Tides
“The edge of the sea is a strange and beautiful place.” —Rachel Carson, 1955 No visit to the rocky coast of Maine would be complete without exploring and sketching in the watery realm where land meets sea. Here, a fascinating world of plants and animals awaits discovery. Creatures of the Intertidal Zone are uniquely adapted to live both underwater and high and dry for hours each day as the tide rises and falls. Only the most hardy and adaptable survive – and they do it with remarkable tenacity. Sketching conditions are a… Read More
Drawn In 