Tales from the Trails

The creek-side trail behind my house is walled for a little distance by a row of townhomes on one side. A few months ago, a wicker chair and footstool was placed outside one of the gates to a townhome.  That is a first, I wondered if someone decided to discard the chair, or if it was there for use. When I saw a stuffed dog (a life sized Old English Sheepdog) lying in the chair, it looked like an art installation, of sorts. I had to go back to sketch it. The shadows ended up too dark. I think I need to dilute the Noodler's Lexington Gray ink that I keep in my fude pen.

Stuffed dog in chair on creek-side trail.
Various inks and waterbrush.
Canson XL 140lb. paper

Mistletoe on Sycamore, Poway creek.
Inks, pens and brushpen.

Down the trail next to the bridge into my neighborhood is a sycamore tree leaning over the creek bed. It has a very healthy mistletoe plant parasite hanging from it. I had about 15 minutes left before I had to head home, so I decided to try to focus on the mistletoe (considering the dissatisfaction I'm feeling with my sketches of trees).

Green heron, Poway creek. Watercolour
pencils and inks. 

As I walked over the bridge to walk home, a Green Heron burst out from under my feet and flew a few yards down the creek before settling back into the cattails. I often see Great Blue herons, Snowy egrets, and Great (white) Egrets in the creek, but the Green herons are much more secretive. Of course, I had to try to sketch it to record the memory. I used Faber-Castell watercolour pencils because they are fast.

South Poway Hills trailhead with fog. Canson XL 140lb. paper with inks and pencils.

I am trying to get in the habit of taking a half hour hike in the morning when I'm not meeting someone at 7 am. We are still having an unusual percentage of foggy mornings. On my way to the other end of community park, I stopped to try to catch the last of the fog as it drifted along the tops of the hills around the South Poway Trailhead. I used inks and watercolour pencils. The fields here, that I have hiked for almost 20 years, are being choked in the past 8 years by the invasive wild artichoke plants. Just last year and this year they seems to go brown prematurely, I think someone is spraying them with something. A couple days after I sketched this, those brown stalks with the round seeds heads were being chopped and bagged by a crew. I wanted to cheer!

Cleaning vegetation out of the drainage in Community Park. Watercolour pencils and inks. Canson XL 140lb. paper.

Then I walked on through a small neighborhood west of my house to where there is another bridge over the creek. A long drainage runs through the park, it is concrete lined as it flows by dog park and drains into Poway creek. Ducks, crows, herons, killdeer and other birds frequent the shallow drainage and plants take root in the sediment. Once a year, the city scrapes up the sediment and plants. I wish they didn't. I once watched in horror as a female killdeer and two tiny killdeer babies ran just ahead of the skip loader. The next time I saw the mother, there was only one baby. So when I saw the men just starting to scrape up the vegetation, I had to stop for a quickie sketch. I think they are starting later so there were no nesting killdeer in the ditch, only the ubiquitous crows.

Tree Troubles

I love trees. As much as water and mountains. The path along the creek behind my house has been a favorite place to walk for over ten years. So, of course, I am eager to sketch the lushness of the greenery, especially the trees. But I am not happy with the squishy green mess that results.

Bridge on west end of Dog Park.
The wild Fennel has taken over the banks in the past decade.
Canson XL 140 lb paper various inks, waterbrush and ink washes.

King's Craft Coffee patio. Artist's Loft journal paper.
Inks: Noodler's Lexington Gray, Herbin Vert Empire,
Diamine Chocolate Brown

Some friends and I had a morning chat at a local coffee shop, King's Craft. They roast their own beans, the decaf is single origin Peruvian! Wonderful flavor. I had the time to sketch the greenery as we chatted for a couple hours. At least it looks like a tree, but I can't wash color into the leaves because of the thin Artist's Loft journal paper. 

East bridge and path to community park.
Various inks and watercolor pencils on Canson XL 140lb paper.

When I tried to represent the mass of trees on the east end of the path, it was overwhelming. And it was taking so long my feet were hurting! So back to the green ooze. At home I inked in suggestions of leaves, but I'm not sure it improved the effect.

Ficus tree at Poway Library. The guy on the bench
seemed to notice me sketching and moved elsewhere.
Artist's Loft journal paper, inks, watercolor pencils.

Finally. with a focus on one tree at the local library I could get the leaves instead of a mass of green ooze. But trying to sketch a forest with this many leaves is not practical. I have been reading enough books that I  hope to find the secret to sketching a mass of trees without taking half the day. The leaves in this sketch were started with Herbin Vert Empire ink (I like the green gray tone), which has a moderate level of water resistance. The trunk was inked in with Diamine Chocolate brown, that shades so beautifully when activated along one side with a thin water brush. After I got home, I added more leaves with different colors of watercolor pencil. Then my new Kuretake #8 brush pen came in the mail, so I inked it with a 50% dilution of Monteverde Malachite Green. What a lovely, leafy effect that pen and ink combo can give! Maybe I could have done without the pencils after using the brush pen. The texture doesn't match.

Rat wars and epistemology

This is the time of year that brings on the rat wars. The stream bed is drying up in places, vegetation is getting dry-weather tough and the rats descend on my gardens (such as they are). I have been unsuccessful in growing carrots the last two years, and this year they have actually done well in the tiny raised bed and in the large pot where I planted them. I have felt great joy in eating a couple every time I water the plants. The variety is Nantes, the carrots my grandmother always grew in our garden. They are crisper and sweeter than the varieties that are used for market. Tonight, they were all gone. All of them. The tops were chewed off and scattered around and the carrots were all dug out and taken away. That is behind the rabbit-proof fence that I keep around the raised bed. I also thought that the golden cherry tomatoes growing in the front garden bin were suddenly disappearing and tonight when I watered, a rat leaped out of the bin and ran off. They spring all the traps I set and leave them jumbled in a pile. I have seen rats run right by the two electronic traps, baited with chocolate and peanut butter. What is left? Maybe I should get a terrier...

Line sketches at Costco. Jinhao "Shark" pen, extra-fine with Noodler's Black ink.
Exceed 100gsm journal paper.

After seeing a reference to some training exercises for urban sketching from sketcher Marc Taro Holmes I was excited to find he authored a class on Bluprint, to which I have a year subscription. I watched lesson one of "Travel Sketching in Mixed Media", concerning single line sketching. The technique is to practice producing quick sketches by doing a single line contour sketch without lifting the pen. I admit, I couldn't quite do that, but I think it is a good exercise. I did two quick sketches while waiting for my tire rotation at Costco. I added gray and green shading to those sketches, but the two sketches I made tonight while eating with my granddaughter are simpler. Most of the details are omitted, which certainly makes them faster.  I plan to do more.

The conversation with my six year old granddaughter was especially surreal tonight. She said, "I often wonder if I'm living real life." What does that mean?? She says, "How do I know that I'm real? Maybe I'm just imaginary." I said, "What else could you be? A character in a story that some alien is telling his kid?" She laughed, "I just wonder how I know what is real sometimes." I haven't had this type of conversation since I took epistomology in college. And she is only six.

Simple line drawings of Sam and our teapot.
Jinhao fude nib pen, Noodler's Lexington Gray ink. Shading with
Kuretake brush pen and black ink. Artist's Loft journal paper.

Quick sketches with Tri-Tones

I am a sucker for new tools and techniques. So when I saw a post about Koh-I-Noor Tri-Tone colored pencils, I had to order a set off eBay. Tri-tones have 3 colors mixed in each lead, the set I bought has 11 different combinations. They have been really fun! The colors are creamy and lay down a beautiful, variable color line. I used them yesterday to make some quick sketches of my granddaughter at the library.

Sam is obsessed with playing games on her iPad and informed me that she hoped I would find a book to read so she would have time to play with the library iPads. (Her mother once sent me a text of a conversation: "Sam, go look at the books". "Mommy, I don't know where the books are."..."We're in the library...") When we got to the library, the first thing she saw was a baby, about 8 months old, playing in the kids section. All thought of the iPad was out the window. Apparently playing with a baby is even more interesting than technology! And I took the opportunity to practice quick gestural sketches with the Tri-Tones.

8/02/19 Sam and a baby at the library. Koh-I-Noor Tri-tone pencils. Kuretake brush pen, black ink.
Diamine Chocolate Brown ink and Monteverde Joy Sepia, diluted as a wash. Significant shadow coming through
from images on the reverse side of the Artist's Loft journal paper.

We had fun a while ago sketching "Weather animals", an animal cartoon meant to illustrate the weather. She asked me to sketch a weather frog of a stormy day. The day yesterday was breezy, but not stormy. Still, it was fun to use the multi-colored pencils to make a quick storm frog.

Sam also made some sketches of birds and worms using the Tri-tones. She asked me to get some for her, but I let her know she could use them any time at my house.

8/2/2019 Sam's sketch of a bird feeding a baby, using
Koh-I-Noor Tri-tone pencils. Canson XL 140 lb. paper

A worm evading a bird by escaping down
his tunnel into nursery chambers. By
Sam with Tri-Tone Pencils 8/2/19
Canson XL 140 lb. paper

I read about "activating" a journal with artistic borders. I sprayed a border using diluted food coloring and it does add interest to my sketches. I started the day with a sketch of my favorite coffee mug and ended with a hand sketch. Diamine November Rain ink in an Ohuhu brush pen made interesting practice in sketching little evergreen trees. Not an on the scene sketch, since they are imaginary trees!

8/2/19 Red food coloring spray, water colour pencils,
Sailor Fude Pen, Diamine November Rain ink.
Exceed 100gsm journal paper