Bike Ride with a Painting Break

In celebration of Labor Day, I hopped on a bike with a pack of art supplies on my back and zipped down the Pan Handle Trail towards Bulger, PA.  Though the town name didn't sound promising, the expansive, rolling landscape was inspiring, and I stopped at the crest of a broad hill to paint.

A Prairie Painting Day

My friend, Brad, and I visited Jennings Environmental Center yesterday on a gorgeous, blue-sky day.  Brad took his camera, and I toted my sketchbook, and we captured images of the wild sunflowers, coreopsis, thistles and other wildflowers decking the landscape. Hummingbirds buzzed in and out of view, joined by Goldfinches and a multitude of butterflies.  I was so inspired by our visit yesterday, I had to return today to plop down in the prairie with my watercolors.  Here's the result.

A Shingle Oak at Jennings Prairie.

Pencil Sketches

Last week included travel, moving our daughter to college and moments to sit and sketch at day's end. 

I sat on the stoop of an Airbnb cottage the evening after a long day.  The shadowy woods in the dimming light of day drew me in.  

Back at home on my front porch.

A Sketch-potition

 My sister-in-law Dianne, once gave me a little sketch book for "sketch-potitions," or expeditions whose sole purpose is art.  I had a summer afternoon to dedicate to hiking and sketching, so I filled a backpack with supplies and set out on a watercolor sketchpotition.  My feet carried me down the trail to this charming Adirondack shelter deep in the woods in our local state park where I painted the view from the shelter.

First Fall Leaf of 2019

There's no denying the shift of the season towards fall.  The grandmother Sugar Maple tree on my farm is beginning to change her cloak.  Not scarlet yet, but the green is tinged here and there with yellow and orange-tinted leaves (in addition to the dead brown clusters killed by the periodical cicadas).
Here's a leaf I found on a walk to my mailbox that called out to be drawn in colored pencil.

Summertime Sketching

I have stolen time to sit in the summer heat, listening to the cicadas drone and losing myself in drawing.  Drawing becomes a meditation as you tune into the many shades of green surrounding you, seeking the right colored pencils to capture the scene 

Queen Anne's Lace in a pint Mason jar shares the page with Naomi Shibab Nye's poem, "Famous." 

Foliage reflected in a pond in the state game lands.  

Daylily painting

Day lilies

The summer rains have produced prodigious blossoms on the day lilies on my hilltop home.  Down by our little pond, a lovely clump of bright orange flowers inspired me to grab my paints, some (free) mat board and an easel, and create this painting.

I notice that the mat board absorbs more paint, but holds up well to being worked over with watercolor paints & brushes. Now I have a moment of summer captured for the howling winds of winter. That's the beauty of playing with watercolors. An afternoon of splashing paints on paper can still the sunshine and save it for a day when you need to be reminded that July will come again, and with it foliage and blooms and lazy summer afternoons. Blessed are we to have the privilege of being alive on days like these.

Painting down by the pond.