Nature Journal Update

I've been working in this nature journal lately, loving its brown pages.  

Brown pages have a magic trick that lets you use dark and light media to show highlights and shadows, quickly creating depth.

Here's a flip through of my journal over the last few weeks. On this page, I used colored pencil, ink and watercolor to sketch a colorful grove of sassafras trees.

Autumn is a great season for collecting treasures from the land and bringing them indoors to sketch.  I picked this apple from one of our trees.

Maple keys and squirrel-chewed hickory nuts make interesting bits to study.

I taught a nature journaling class for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in October.  We went out on campus and found loads of things to sketch.

And in my favorite park, Raccoon Creek State Park, I found a quiet log in the woods where I sketched this lake scene.

Even indoors on cold days, you can make observations in your nature journal. This is an entry about moving my potted plants indoors for the winter.

The trick to filling pages in your nature journal is simply taking the time to sit and observe what's going on in nature and your life.  

Use any art material you like, and record what's interesting to you.

 Happy Creating!

Sketching Fall Leaves in Watercolor!

Fall has arrived and the colors are reaching their peak in my neighborhood.  I gather up brilliant leaves on every walk.  

Here are yesterday's leaves.

I picked out three sassafras leaves that drew my eye, and made pencil sketches of each, then laid in a wash of azo yellow and let it dry. This technique, called glazing, creates glowing, rich colors when you paint other layers of color over top.  

After the yellow wash dried, I drew in the leaf veins with a white wax crayon to create a resist and keep the veins yellow.  I brushed in layers of oranges made from azo yellow mixed with either alizarin crimson or pyrrol red.  I added table salt to some of the wet washes and let it all dry.

After the salt completely dried, I brushed it off and added some final marks.  The salt didn't have a big effect on the washes.  I think the paint had begun to dry and wasn't at its best point for this trick.

I love adding the little spots where a bug chewed the leaf, etc.  These create a more realistic appearance.

Autumn leaves are a wonderful subject to draw and paint -- they're small, beautiful and endlessly fascinating. And it's such a human habit to gather natural treasures, especially in the fall harvest season. A walk in nature with some creative time is a lovely way to slow down and practice self care.

I hope you take some time to create with fall leaves!

Happy Creating!

Sketch Autumn Leaves with Me!

A recent hike in the state park turned up a wealth of colorful sassafras leaves.  I had my nature journal and a pack of Caran D'Ache Neocolor II watercolor crayons.  I began with a pen and ink drawing, then added colors with the watercolor crayons

A bit of blending with a wet brush mixed the colors.  

Here are some photos from the hike. I hope you will to make your own colorful autumn leaf sketches.

Happy Creating!

Signs of Autumn in my Nature Journal

My daily walks find me collecting a late summer harvest.  The weather feels more like autumn than summer, and colorful leaves brighten the pathway.  

I collected some ripe apples on a recent walk, and sketched them in my nature journal, using pen and ink with watercolor crayons layered on top.

The change in the weather to cooler days and crisp nights invigorates me and makes me excited to make entries in my new nature journal.

What type of weather inspires you?  What do you like to sketch and record in your journal? I hope you find inspiration out in nature.

Happy Creating!

Painting in the Woods with a Daddy Longlegs

Caution:

If photos of spiders frighten you, don't scroll down past the 4th photo.

On a recent Friday afternoon, David and I took a walk through the state park woods, he with a camera and I with a nature journal and travel kit of supplies.

The brightest flush of colors had washed out of the woods, flamed and gone, but a mellow richness remained.

As usual, a splash of colorful leaves against bending boughs caught my eye, and I began sketching, first with a mechanical pencil, then with watercolors.

I was engrossed in painting this section of the woods when I noticed a tiny visitor wobbling up to my watercolor palette -- a Harvestman, or daddy longlegs.

Even though some spiders give me the heebee jeebees, this spider relative has always seemed friendly to me. They are harmless, have no venom, and eat garden pests like aphids, so this little friend didn't disturb my painting, but added a tiny welcomed feeling of being trusted by a forest denizen.

The woods are dry after the summer's drought stretches into the fall, and I think this fragile creature needed the moisture in my paints.  Maybe it was seeking some mineral, too. It selected a mixture of Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Umber, both nontoxic pigments, and you can see the swath it lapped up from my palette.  That little mixing well is about 1.5" by 1.75".

As someone who relies on a well, the drought has been concerning, anxiety inducing, and completely out of my control.  In situations like that, I look for small ways I can help.

This gentle creature gave me a tiny way to feel helpful.

A blessing.

Wishing you the blessing of happy hours creating in nature.

Fall Color Hike

A sunny autumn day found me hiking in the state park with a pack of art supplies.  Combining nature time, exercise and creativity is a favorite self care activity of mine.  I sketched this scene using a small travel watercolor kit and a water brush pen, allowing the scene to be messy and playful.

This photo of the scene shows that I left out lots of details, and wasn't accurate.

I always remind my students, 

You are not a camera; you're an artist! 

A log alongside the trail made a comfy seat.

I made a pencil sketch to get the proportions and details in the right places on this beech leaf.

Here are some photos I took along my hike.  I invite you to sketch, paint, draw or create with them in your own way.

Happy Creating!

Painting an Autumn Leaf Step-by-Step in Watercolor

The cooler weather of autumn brings brilliant foliage to inspire us artists.  These are the days I can't help but pick up a fist full of colorful leaves on my walks.

A great way to start sketching or painting a leaf is by finding the vein structure. It maps out the shape of the leaf from the inside out.

Beginning with a wash of cool yellow brightens the colors to come.  When the yellow layer is dry, you can add reds, like this Alizarin Crimson mixed with a little Burnt Sienna.

Taking each section of the leaf and working wet-in-wet allows the many hues within each leaf to merge gracefully, and prevents hard edges.

Working wet-in-wet with complimentary colors Alizarin Crimson and Sap Green can become a playful dance. Keeping the two colors from touching prevents muddy browns, and the bold contrast of red against green catches the viewer's eye.

Mixing Burnt Umber and Ultramarine Blue created rich dark brown and black to add the crumpled, bruised bits in.  The little details of bug-chewed, spotted and damaged bits is one of my favorite parts.  And those details brings the leaf to life.

Ultramarine Blue mixed with a touch of Burnt Umber created a wonderful shadow color to land the leaf on a flat surface.

If you like, you can add more details on top of your watercolor leaf with colored pencils once the watercolor is dry.

If you love details, a single fall leaf provides a limited subject to dive into, letting yourself explore every splotch of color, every bug bite and every nuance.

Happy Creating!

Paddle, Picnic and Paint

David & I capitalized on a beautiful late summer day to take our inflatable paddle boards out to the state park lake.  We packed in lunch and my travel art supplies.  

As we drifted on the lake, I found the gorgeous Sugar Maple leaf on the left. After we ate lunch, I sketched the contours of the leaf with my Lamy fountain pen.

I began to lay in watercolors with a layer of warm and cool yellows (Winsor Yellow and Cadmium Yellow Hue).  

After that dried, I began adding in cool reds (bottom left of the leaf) mixed with Alizarin Crimson and Burnt Sienna.  On the right and upper parts of the leaf, I mixed warmer reds with Cadmium Red Hue and Cadmium Yellow Hue.  

The few touches of green were created by mixing Winsor Yellow and Ultramarine Blue. A mix of Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna made the shadows.

Spending time outdoors in a peaceful natural place just to take in the scene instills calm and serenity for me.  I notice that adding the layer of drawing and painting to my nature time slows me down as I focus on one facet of the scene.  The meditative stillness magnifies the benefits of nature for me.

I hope you get some time out in nature to make art and connect with nature.  

Happy Creating!

October Color!

Autumn color never lasts as long as I wish.  I'm always trying to gather up the colors in artworks while they last.

The campground at my state park closed last week.  I took advantage of the quiet space to spend an afternoon there, painting from the comfort of a picnic table.  The brilliant foliage against the dark trunks and limbs drew my eye, and I raced to capture as much of the scene as I could before the light left and the washes dried.

Happy Autumn!