Pre-Apple

Interrupting the stream of apple sketches (there are several more pencil reviews in queue), here is a sketch of a wild apple blossom. As I passed over the foot bridge on my way to the library last week, I was startled to see unexpected blooms below me. Proof that spring is here, a young seedling apple is blooming creek-side below the bridge.

02/26/2020 Blooming apple seedling under the Poway Creek footbridge.

This is the first volunteer fruit tree I have seen in the creek bed. It is growing amidst a riot of other plants, most notably some kind of honeysuckle. I don't know which variety of honeysuckle this is, but (along with fennel) it seems to be taking over the creek area.

Apple blossom with CdA SupracolorI pencils.
Pigments were waterbrush activated.
Background was added with a waterbrush
 and Monteverde Malachite Green ink.

I did this sketch from a photo, using the Caran D'Ache SupracolorI set that I reviewed in the last post.
I wanted to see if these hard pencils would put down enough pigment to make a good sketch on their own. I wasn't impressed.

Apple blossom sketch with F-C Albrecht Durer
and Kimberly watercolor pencils on top.
Water activated with a waterbrush.

Then I went over the sketch with other pencils, mostly F-C Albrecht Durer, but the brightest pink I found was from my General's Kimberly watercolor pencil set. In comparison, does it look better with the more pigmented pencils added on top?


I added a close-up of a couple of leaf bundles, just emerging. The shape and serrated edges is what makes me identify this as an apple, although the flowers are impressively large for an apple seedling. I am curious, if it produces fruit this summer, as to what the fruit will look like.

Photo close-up of blossoms. Used for the apple blossom sketches.

No Decaf for YOU

Last week, starting saturday, Poway suffered under a boil-water advisory. The restaurants, coffee shops, and store deli were closed. Water was being distributed by the city at Lake Poway and city hall. I only drink decaf, so the coffee has to have a good flavor. Starbucks long ago drove out the small coffee shops, and I find their coffee to be bitter and burnt tasting. It's funny how I was craving just what I couldn't have.

Top: Bean coffee roastery truck serving
 coffee in front of the Starbucks.
Bottom: Water distribution at city hall
viewed through the legs of the statue titled-
"Seeing" by Johnny Bear Contreras

Monday, I drove around town trying to find a new coffee truck that appeared the previous week in the Von's parking lot, since the usual sources of decaf were closed. I did not find him. On Tuesday I enjoyed a walk around town sketching some of the scenes from the no water experience and came across him in front of, duh!, the closed Starbucks. Brian roasted me half a pound of decaf beans and made me an Americano. Yay!

As I was sketching the water distribution at city hall, a man walked out of the building carrying a clipboard. It was a cool day, but he had a large sweat stain down the back of his shirt. I couldn't help wondering if the stress of the "boil water" was getting to him. I really need practice on human figures, but the sweat stain was easy.

12/03/19 Brontosaurus, the cattail gobbling machine.

A couple times a year, some large and very loud machinery travels down the stream behind my house cutting and grinding up everything that grows in the stream bed (mostly cattails), presumably to ensure flood waters have room to travel through without backing up. It took me a few years to actually see the elusive machine. On my walk I found it parked next to the chewed up stream bed. There are chains revolving around in the arm that shred the plants. It was amusing to find out that the machine is named Brontosaurus.

Travel time

Last month I spent a week with my sister in the Sacramento area. She has a lovely yard and chickens. Although it was hot, in the 90s, I enjoyed sitting on her patio to sketch the yard and watch the Black Throated hummingbirds. The hummers were too quick for me to sketch, but the chickens were fun!

Sister's backyard. Watercolor pencils on Canson XL 140lb paper

Detail study of ornamental grass and yard art.
watercolor pencils and brush pen with green ink.

We are both enabling influences on each other. Her favorite store is Tuesday Morning, a discount store that has a craft supply area. We have found bargains on high end yarn and knitting needles in the past. This time it was colored pencils! I brought home two sets of Spectrum Noir pencils, a set of 12 metallics and a set of 24 Aquablend water color pencils for $7 and $12 respectively. What a deal! Spectrum Noir watercolor pencils are sold in sets of 24 with a color theme to each set. The set I got is the floral theme. So no greens, but a range of reds, oranges, blues and a couple yellows. The pencils are rich and creamy, easily activated with water, but a little crumbly. We also picked up some Canson black paper, which makes the metallics pop!

Yixing teapot
Spectrum Noir Metallic pencils
Canson Black Drawing paper.

Journals sketched with Spectrum Noir Aquablend pencils.
Badfish Coffee, fude pen and brush pen with green inks.

I drink only decaf coffee, so taste is critical. Starbucks and other large coffee vendors have increasingly limited decaf options. I am always looking for small batch roasted decaf at local coffee shops. We hit two in my sister's area and bought single varietal decaf beans. Cold-brew is all the rage but I've never seen decaf cold-brew. We tried cold-brewing the two different beans I had purchased at home. Wow!! It was so good, even my sister said she could switch to decaf. I took the opportunity to do some sketches at the coffee shop.

San Diego airport, Hero fude pen.

Sacramento Airport, Fude nib pen.

Last time I flew, I used the time in the airport to knit a pair of socks. This time, I did some quick gesture sketches of people sitting around me. One in San Diego, one in Sacramento. Quick people sketches that give the essence of their activity or attitude is one of the skills I would love to build. Practice, practice!

On pine trees and pinecones

The smell of pine trees takes me back to childhood and walking in the pine plantings that dot the landscape in rural Michigan. There are several large pine trees in the community park from which I get my pine fix. They also furnish pine cones for use in my little rocket stove. I have never identified the species (that is very important to my inner science geek), so I decided to sketch the bark, needles, and  pine cones as a reminder to me when I get around to looking up a pine tree key. I haven't done that yet, so can't say the species, but the practice has been interesting.

The pine cones have been sitting in the middle of my table, so I keep coming back and trying different media in an attempt to make them look better. The pattern is a Fibonacci sequence that looks deceptively simple.

First, I did a couple of quick sketches.

Fude nib pen and ink on
Blick mixed media paper, 80lb. 

Koh-I-Noor Tri-tone pencils and Noodler's Lexinton Grey ink.
Blick mixed media, 80lb. paper

I wasn't really satisfied with these sketches, so did a more detailed sketch. That took more than an hour. Too long! I came to notice the mountain like details of the individual scales and began sketching from that angle.

Faber-Castell water colour pencils (student grade)
Blick mixed media 80lb. paper

Finally, tried using black paper to provide the shading and did two 15 minute sketches. I have been having fun with the effects on this black paper. The right sketch was done first with my new Spectrum Noir metallic pencils. They lay down smooth and show up well on black paper, but must be sharpened frequently to keep a point. So I tried the sketch on right with a Prismacolor Col-erase blue pencil, which seems very hard when I am trying to use it to put in light lines on mixed media paper. After I finished the sketch, I remembered the pencil is "copy not", meaning it is not supposed to photocopy! So I colored two scales with metallic pencil in case the blue didn't show up. It did.

15 minute pine cone sketches with Prismacolor Col-erase pencil on left
Spectrum Noir Metallic pencils on right. Canson 92lb. black drawing paper.

Here is what the pine cone is supposed to look like.

iPhone picture of the unidentified pine tree pine cone, including a pine nut.

The trees have little clumps of needles coming out of the side of the large trunks.

Pine needles. Graphite and colored pencil.
Strathmore 300 sketch paper.

iPhone picture of pine. I started sketching on site,
then finished from the picture after my feet went numb.

Once a geek, always a geek

I am a science and technology geek. I think I was born that way but then, I also was nurtured in that direction. When I was in second grade, having read all the fun books in our little school library, I was forced to pick a book from the science section. I picked "Earthworms" and learned that they have five hearts and can regenerate up to half their body. What!?! It was like finding out that there were aliens in my backyard. I reread that book over and over during the week I had it. When I had to take it back, I begged my dad to buy it for me and was broken-hearted when he said he couldn't buy a library book. But, that day he put the book in his lunch box and made me a hand lettered and illustrated tiny book about earthworms during his lunch hour. That little book of stapled, lined paper written in pencil was kept in my desktop cedar chest with my most precious keepsakes until I was 16, when most of my treasures were destroyed. Now why did this story come to mind?

Goulet Pens recently recorded a video of a presentation by "the napkin note dad", who discussed the impact that written notes can have on those who receive them. I highly recommend this video. For Starwars geeks, there is a funny story about trying to go through TSA with a light saber.

Writing is often thought to be outdated in the digital age, but a hand written note can be more evocative and more permanent than a text, or even an email. Part of the power of a hand-written note is in the memory evoked by the sender's distinctive handwriting, as well as any little doodles or sketches that can be added. Those notes are often saved and reviewed for years. Since seeing that video, I am considering how to encourage my granddaughter with written notes. Maybe even make her a tiny, illustrated book about something that she is geeked over. Like earwigs.

Notes about earwig observations.
Exceed 100gsm paper and inks

Sam and her dinner guest. Ink and ink wash.
Still working on shading. Exceed 76gsm journal paper.
8/19/19

One of the things that I appreciate about my dad (who raised three of us as a single dad in the 60s when single parents were not common and single dad's were almost unheard of) is that he never said,"You're a girl, you shouldn't be interested in science and math." The societal attitudes at the time certainly did not encourage girls to pursue STEM interests. My dad sometimes brought home little things in his lunch box (he worked at a research facility) to demonstrate simple scientific principles, like electrical charges and chemical reactions. Because of dad, I didn't give in to peer pressure in school to hide my enthusiasm about learning, especially about science. I'm glad I got to be a geek when being a geek wasn't cool. I love seeing the same enthusiasm in Sam.