Four Tips for Sketching Outside
Just as the lovely irises bloom each year, the deer flies and black flies hatch. It makes misery of sketching among the graceful petals. I’m pretty sure this page was not worth the bug bites, but it’s all I have to share until I brave heading out again. Tips & Techniques– As much as I love sketching outside, I have my limits. Sometimes it’s just too hot, cold, windy, buggy, — (fill in the blank). But I have developed a few simple workarounds for sketching in challenging conditions. Hopefully, they’ll work for… Read More
Appreciating Old Apples
I just happened to be sketching this old apple tree at the edge of a large grassland field along the roadside, when a big Ford pickup slowed to a stop. A man got out and strode toward me. I knew at once he was the owner. Curious about what I was doing, and seeing my interest in his trees, he was eager to talk. He shared a 30-year knowledge of this particular piece of land, the struggles of farmers today, his commitment to raising grass-fed cattle, and quite a bit of personal… Read More
A Moment in Spring
The changes come slowly at first: light in the morning, bird song, blossoming trees, ephemeral wildflowers in the woods. The Eastern phoebe wags its tail and sings its name outside my window, waking the world to the new season. Spring is the perfect time of year to note the incremental changes unfolding in the world. Like the phoebe, my sketchbook celebrates this moment in time, calling out the beauty and greening of the day. Tips and Techniques– You can make this type of page all in one go or over the course… Read More
Digging Around
I was digging around my desk the other day for a pen or pencil that might give me a looser line than I can get with the fine-nib pens I typically use. I unearthed a brush pen, stuck it in my sketch bag, and pulled it out today when sketching again at the Pember Museum of Natural History. I’ve spent a lot of time with the museum’s bird nests and eggs, but in all my years there, I’ve never drawn from its mammal collection. I also have never looked closely at moles,… Read More
Nest Obsessed
I’m not sure what it is that draws me so strongly to bird nests. But over and over, I am fascinated by their beauty, structure, and variety. And the fact that birds make them with their beaks is nothing short of remarkable. I can’t imagine making something so fine – other than on paper. Tips and Techniques– I was able to borrow an educator’s loan kit of nests from the Pember Museum of Natural History to make this page. It contained such a treasure trove that I called two artist friends to… Read More
December at Home
With snow yet to come and trees now bare bones, slate colored skies, tawny fields, and dun-colored woods dominate the landscape. Here and there, white pines tower above it all, making me think that that’s where I’d be if I were a bird in December. I’ve drawn the land around my home in different seasons, and I like the way using a grid with a variety of small vignettes helps me to convey a sense of place. Looking back, August and September were certainly more colorful and January brighter, but I do… Read More
Not the Last Afterall
Whatever happened to posts about birds or flowers or trees? There will be more of those to come, I promise. But first, just a few more mushrooms which, as you will see, were worthy of paint. First, the pear-shaped puffball, whose smoky spores release when gently squeezed. And then the inconspicuous tannish-brown clitocybe. Who would have thought lavender gills would be hiding underneath that unassuming cap? Tips and Techniques– Use your sketchbook to try a variety of artistic approaches. Part of what’s keeping me going on mushrooms week after week is not… Read More
Until Next Year (maybe)
Okay. This is it! The last of the mushrooms for 2022. I don’t think I can paint any more, try to identify any more, read any more. I must clean my desk and turn a new page! But then, who knows, I haven’t gone outside yet today to see if anything new has come up. Tips and Techniques– For this page, I thought it might be fun to try something different and just take a top down view of mushroom caps. This gave me a chance to look at patterns, texture, and… Read More
Mushroom Time
After 48 hours of rain earlier this week: BOOM, it’s mushroom time. I’ve been cataloging mushrooms in our yard for several years (2018, 2020, 2021, 2021) and I am constantly amazed by the number and variety that appear. Most come up under a small grove of oaks along our driveway, but a few show up in the lawn, or in piles of mulch. Mushrooms are the fruiting body of a much larger network of underground thread-like filaments called mycelium. This network is either breaking down and recycling dead stuff, feeding on weakened… Read More
The Things We Take for Granted
The gallbladder— like so many things— is something you can take for granted and forget about, as long as it is functioning properly. Frankly, I hadn’t given it a moment’s notice since high school biology…until this week, when my husband urgently needed to have his removed. Suddenly, I needed to know where it was, what it does, and what happens when you don’t have one. So, naturally, I drew it. Fortunately, it seems that this little organ is something that many people live without and don’t miss at all. Alas, I am… Read More
Jean Mackay
Inspire curiosity!
Podcast: The Art of Discovery with Jean Mackay
Drawn In 