A Magnificent Structure
“What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure, that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility.”
Albert Einstein
Tips and Techniques— I sketched and painted this nest and quote as a demonstration for an online class that explores ways to capture the essence of a subject. While I find research and scientific information invaluable for field sketching, I also appreciate how a few spare lines of poetry or a quote can cut to the chase, helping to express what drew me to a subject in the first place. Try it. Next time you sketch a subject in nature, see if you can find a quote or poem – or write a few words of your own – to express what it means to you.
Mushroom Rains
It has rained nearly every day for a week straight. This is not good if you like summer or swimming or outdoor dining or if you want to cut the lawn every now and then. It’s not good if you like painting outside or if you want your watercolor paints to dry inside without using a hairdryer. What all the rain and humidity is good for is mushrooms. They are fruiting like gangbusters in a myriad of colors, forms, and variety. I went out to sketch them during a blessed break in the rain and managed to get a first layer of paint on before another round of storms rolled in. Alas, there are more to discover, but since it is raining again I will have to be content with these.
Tips and Techniques– When you are sketching mushrooms, making field notes right on the page is a useful way to capture some of the information you will need for identification. Mushrooms are bafflingly difficult to identify to the species level, even with a decent field guide. Note the size and shape of the cap and stem, type of gills or pores, and the texture. Making a spore print and cutting the flesh to see what color is inside is also important. Or you can skip all that and simply enjoy the shapes and colors of these fascinating fungi.
Notes from the Coast
What could be better than a week spent outdoors on the beautiful rocky coast of Maine with a group of people enthusiastic about exploring, sketching, and painting nature? Hmmm…. not much. Directing the Arts and Birding program at the Hog Island Audubon Camp near Damariscotta is a highlight of my year. Although I don’t have time to do much artwork myself, the time I spend teaching others and seeing what they produce is inspiring. I do manage a few sketches, or at least I manage to start them even if I need to finish them later. Here’s a peek inside my journal from the week with a few notes and observations.
I was excited to head to Maine in June instead of later in the summer so that I could see lupine in bloom. Alas, I was nearly too late (or the blooms came and went early), as most of the plants had already gone to seed. I searched these out in a large roadside meadow on my way to the island, before my hectic schedule kicked in.
Arts and Birding is not all about birds; the island provides a chance to explore deep spruce forests, rocky shores, mosquito-laden bogs, and salt marsh meadows. This page began as a very loose and sloppy mess of ink sketches made while standing over basins of collected creatures. Thankfully, I managed to pull it into a coherent whole while painting.
Northern Parula warblers are common on the island, but they are more often heard than seen. Their nests are equally well hidden. Veiled in beard lichen and hanging from a high branch, this pendulum nest was so well camouflaged that even when you knew where it was you could barely find it.
This was an exercise in observation and color mixing that I suggested as a sketching prompt: paint a page of watercolor swatches of the changing colors of the ocean throughout the day. You could easily do it with greens in a forest, colors in a garden, or almost any subject.
Bits and pieces. I sketched an immature bald eagle early one morning but then didn’t have a chance to return to the page. The daily schedule explains why.
COMING UP: I’m excited to share these two upcoming workshops…
IN WORDS AND ART: Sketching In Harriet’s Garden
Saturday, July 10, 3-5:30pm (in person)
The Stowe Center, Hartford, CT
TAPPING AUDUBON’S PASSION: Sketching Birds in Watercolor
Thursday, August 12, 2-5pm (via Zoom)
Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH; REGISTER
Burning Twice as Bright
I have been waiting for my Oriental poppies to bloom for two years. I am not disappointed. Their papery thin, flaming orange-red petals are outrageous in the garden. Still, some of the blossoms lasted only days. A few were knocked out by heat. Others by heavy rain. Only two of eight remain. Alas, I’ll content myself with these, plant more perhaps, and paint them again next June.
Tips and Techniques– For the strong warm reds and depth of color poppies demand, I tapped the intense colors of Dr. Ph. Martin’s Hydrus Fine Art Watercolors. I have a small set that I rarely use but were perfect for this. I chose permanent red, Hansa deep yellow, and alizarin crimson along with two yellows that are in my regular watercolor set, Hansa yellow and aureolin. I love aureolin because it is highly transparent and you can layer it easily to add warmth to reds or greens. I suspect cadmium red would also work well for poppies, though I don’t own it because it is more opaque than I like.
New Hampshire Getaway
Twenty-five years ago, my husband and I carried our one-and-a-half-year-old son up a mountain to a clear, quiet lake in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. It was a blue-sky November day; fall colors lay on the ground; my son wore a blue sweater that his grandmother knit for him. I loved that hike and I remember the details because we took a photo at the water’s edge, mountains tinged by an early frost in the background. And then—life happened. We had a second child, my husband’s family sold their property in the mountains, we chose the Maine coast for vacations and, suddenly, 25 years passed.
Last weekend, we finally returned to those ancient granite peaks. Our first hike closed the gap of all those years. And while I loved being surrounded by mountains and returning to Lonesome Lake, what I loved, perhaps, best of all, was hiking behind a young couple carrying their young son in a backpack up that same mountain. I couldn’t help but think: they have no idea.
Tips and Techniques– Go with what you’ve got. I was eager to sketch the many beautiful wildflowers in bloom during our hikes. But it was so cold that I couldn’t do so comfortably until the temperatures warmed into the 50sF. By then, black flies emerged and mercilessly attacked. I tried to “embrace the place,” but after speed sketching orchids, I decided to skip the trillium. Ultimately, what was the sketch about? The damn black flies.
Oh, how beautiful
Rudyard Kipling was so right when he wrote, “Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.” Except in this particular garden, that’s exactly what I did. With the sun casting a warm golden light at the close of the day, I sat in the shadow of a large maple tree and surveyed a lovely field of grasses and allium. I had no hand in their planting or care. The only finger I lifted was the one that carried lines and watercolor across this page. An unknown cadre of volunteers made this garden at a local park into a thing of beauty, and they deserve all the credit.
Tips and Techniques– I’ve been thinking a lot about the different ways sketching can help us deepen our understanding and appreciation of nature. Doing a traditional field sketch and recording facts and data is one approach. Another is exploring the poetry of nature. This type of sketch tends to be more evocative, getting at the essence of our subject. I often go looking for what poets have to say and, as with my sketch of alliums, I add part or all of a poem, quote, or phrase to the page. If you keep a nature journal, try a variety of ways to express what you are trying to convey. Our subjects are so much more than a collection of facts.
A moment in the shade
After a hectic week in which I did no artwork, it was a pleasure to pick up my pen and paints and sit under two old maple trees to sketch wild columbine growing in the shade. The nodding delicate flowers, like tiny silent bells, are a welcome sight in spring woodlands and gardens. The flowers attract hummingbirds, bees, butterflies and hawkmoths to feed on their nectar, while the leaves serve as a host plant and food source for the eggs and caterpillars of the duskywing butterfly. A child could well imagine fairies dancing among this spring beauty in the May woods.
Tips and Techniques– I’m often asked whether I use a water brush (a plastic brush that holds water in its handle) for field sketching. These brushes can be especially handy when space is tight or when you don’t want to carry extra supplies, but I find it hard to control the water to paint ratio and get the precise results I’m looking for. I used a water brush to paint this columbine but yearned for my regular brushes to capture some of the details. Once I had 90-percent of the painting done, I returned home to finish, using my regular brushes for a few additional details on the flowers and for the duskywing and hummingbird.
Keep in mind that you have many tools in your toolbox—use what you have on hand and what’s right for your working conditions, paper, time, and subject. Don’t be afraid to refine at home if needed to complete a field sketch.
After seven years and nearly 400 posts, I decided it was time to give my website a refresh. I hope you like the new look and I welcome your comments or suggestions. Check your calendar– I also have a few new workshops coming up.
Fortunate Find
How many mushrooms can claim to have multiple websites, several online forums, numerous books, and various t-shirts dedicated solely to singing their praises? If that isn’t enough, how about an annual festival? The answer: only one, the morel. I didn’t know this until I stumbled upon a sizable patch of morels in our back woods this week. I knew they were morels, but until I went looking for more information on their natural history, I had no idea that they were such a highly prized and elusive delicacy. Because they cannot be cultivated, morel aficionados scour the woods each spring, hoping conditions and their luck are just right to find a motherlode. If you are a morel lover, I wish I could send you the genuine article from my woods; instead, my sketch will have to do.
Text reads: “If there has been enough rain and if the temperature is neither too hot nor too cold, and if the winter has been neither too mild nor too severe, and if you are in the right place at the right time, you may find morels.” — Tom Volk, Tom Volk’s Fungi
Spring Gems
When you think of spring, what colors come to mind? Though red is not typically on my list, there are several species that wear shades of ruby and garnet that sing out amidst spring’s palette of greens. I went looking for Jack-in-the-Pulpit in a nearby nature preserve and, though I found a few, it was the display of red trilliums on the forest floor that was in its full glory. The following day, the rose-breasted grosbeak, one of my favorite migratory birds, returned to our yard. The male’s beautiful deep red breast is a showstopper. That sent me looking for a few other red standouts to add to this page. How glad I am to capture this priceless display of spring gems!
Tips and Techniques– Once you start looking at color – or looking for a certain color – it’s amazing what you’ll find. Try this: pick your favorite spring color and devote a page of your sketchbook to as many things as you can find that are that color. The subtle variations will help you get to know your paints and give you valuable practice in color mixing.
Song for a May Morning
Why does March seem to go on forever while May is so fleeting? Like ferns unfurling, each moment, each day, transforms woods, field, and wetland, ultimately bringing them to fullness. Today, warblers descend on their journey north, oaks and hornbeams and apples are in bloom; morrells push up through the forest floor; but not for long. A week from now, a fleeting moment from now, they too will be transformed. So, Hail bounteous May as John Milton urges in his Song on a May Morning. Celebrate its fleeting sweetness.
Tips and Techniques– Consider different ways to paint your subject. What’s in focus? What do you want to convey? Although I started this page with the Solomon’s seal and ferns, when the black-throated green warbler appeared, I decided to simplify the ferns and make the birds stand out. Painting the negative space around the plants, rather than each plant individually, helped to unify the page, highlight the greenery, and draw attention to the warblers.
Chickadee Update– Two weeks ago I shared my enthusiasm for chickadees excavating a nest cavity in an old fence post. Sadly, they seem to have selected another nest site. It’s not unusual for birds to consider several locations for nesting before selecting one. I’m disappointed that I won’t be sharing eggs, nest, or young with you. But, it’s still early in the nesting season—I’m sure I’ll find others to sketch.
WORKSHOP THIS WEEK! Ink and Watercolor Basics for Sketchers
Friday, May 14, 2-3:30 PST / 5-6:30 EST
Hosted by Winslow Art Center- Technique Takeaway Series
Virtual via Zoom $40 REGISTER
If you struggle with getting satisfying results with watercolor sketching this workshop is for you. We’ll talk about the most common problems and ways to fix them, and practice various approaches to combining ink and watercolor to build your skills and confidence and produce more satisfying results in your sketchbook.
Drawn In 