Inks Lake State Park

Upon arriving at our campsite beside Inks Lake, a thunderstorm moved in — and our corgi, Butters, ducked under the dinette table. It didn’t last long but she didn’t trust going outside the next day or two; we had to do some heavy coaxing!

I just had to try sketching this gnarly honey mesquite! While big fat lizards, mockingbirds, a scrawny squirrel and Canada geese checked us out, some getting quite close. I wish now that I had not added watercolor to the tree bark. The ink lines were really textured using a fountain pen on rough paper! When I added watercolor, I painted it with the rainy gray skies that first greeted us.

That tiny sketch clipped to the opposite page was quickly drawn when the teeniest of campers pulled in to the campsite next to ours. It looked like an alien teardrop!

For those interested in geeking out on watercolor choices: for this trip I grabbed my granulating palette because the sketchbook pages are rough WC paper. But I can’t seem to mix paint in the right ratio to really let the textures play.

From the lower left, the paints are Potter’s Pink, Volcano Violet, Volcano Red, Monte Amiata Natural Sienna, Green Apatite, Jadeite genuine, Cobalt Turquoise, Shire Blue, Blue Apatite genuine, Lunar Violet, Buff Titanium, Lunar Earth, Volcano Brown, and Lunar Black. Most are from Daniel Smith; the Vocanos and Shire Blue are from Schminke.

a pause from traveling

Between Bastrop State Park and Inks Lake State Park, we booked a couple of nights at a small RV park — they have a laundry room in the office/cabin that we made full use of! And a dog run where Butters could run off-leash and play her favorite game, fetch. It’s extremely quiet here.

I did a quick sketch of this wee wagon that was outside the cabin. It didn’t move as much as the free-range chickens wandering around.

the CCC cabins

Today we left Bastrop State Park, heading toward Hill Country, but I’ve been finishing up one last sketch. I had planned on painting the stones and planks, but maybe I should leave it as an ink-only sketch?

Meanwhile, here are photos of some of the other CCC structures, including a blueprint I found online.

on a lighter note . . .

On a lighter note, you just gotta love the fat patchy bark of a loblolly pine!

a survivor

Normally, loblolly pines grow straight and very tall before the branches stretch outward. So when I saw this loblolly in our camping area, I thought there was something very strange about the growth pattern. Then I walked around the trunk and saw the burn scars. This tree has been through a war and survived.

Lost Pines forest

Although it was in the low 60s when we got up, there’s a heat advisory today with temperatures expected to get up to 109°. So this afternoon, we are goofing off inside the RV. I just finished this sketch from yesterday, a view of the northern section of forest looking across the ridge from our campsite.

In 2011, wildfire destroyed much of this unique loblolly pine forest, which is genetically related to the Piney Woods that we normally camp in more than 100 miles away. Thought to have been separated by a prehistoric glacier, these trees adopted to the dryer climate of the Austin area. Since the fire, which burned 34,068 acres, a campaign has been ongoing to restore the forest within 30 years, replacing 4 million burned trees.

As if the wildfire wasn’t enough, massive rainfalls in 2015 caused the Bastrop State Park’s dam to fail. The lake’s water surged down towards the Colorado River, pushing fallen trees into piles along the way. Today the lake is still empty, though the dam has been rebuilt.

A “pioneer village” of wonderful stone & log cabins built by the CCC was saved as well as a few other CCC structures throughout the park, though some roofs had to be rebuilt. We accidentally took a wrong turn yesterday and found ourselves among the old cabins, built into the hilly wooded area of locally sourced stone and logs to look as if they sprang from the ground.

first camp sketch

This week finds us at Bastrop State Park — I did this quick ink tiny sketch from under the RV’s awning. The park is still working to recover from 2011’s devastating wildfire. The lake is still empty following the dam failure in 2015, though the dam itself has been rebuilt. Nature is still so beautiful here!

recent sketches

Early one morning a couple of weeks ago, I took my corgi outside and found these gorgeous white blooms. Last year, the turban-shaped cactus only put out a few babies. I took a photo of the blooms . . . and the next day they were gone.

The tiny sketch of apple blossoms was also done from a photo; apples have since developed. This week I was trimming back the purple basil to dry some for next winter; two leaves fell off so I sketched them “live”. I didn’t get around to painting them right away . . . and our sneaky cat, Scottie Dubh, must have eaten them! So the color is from memory.

on the shore of Lake Raven

A quick sketch from a photo taken last November — this was our late afternoon view while camping at Huntsville State Park. These days we have been piecing together plans for a longer camping trip to Bastrop, which is slowly recovering from forest fires a few years back, then on to Hill Country and Fredericksburg.

Complicated by degenerative and bulging discs in Bill’s back. There may be back surgery in his future; we’re taking this adventure before whatever that brings.

Oh, and that tiny mini pan of paint added to my folio palette, sitting in the mixing pan? It’s a smidgen of Schmincke Volcano Violet. I was trying to match the colors of 3 Fiestaware dishes in the dish drainer: turquoise, a soft yellow, and heather. I had cobalt turquoise light and Naples yellow in the palette already, but the volcano violet was the closest I could come to the muted reddish-purple heather. An interesting triad that I may play around with sometime.

Dave’s birthday card

It’s time to get the annual hand-sketched birthday card for my brother, Dave, in the mail (I always think of him as David but, as we have a step-brother named David, my real brother prefers to go by Dave).

Dave loves to go fishing. I’m not so good at fish; I saw a hand-carved wooden sculpture of these two fish and thought they looked cool together. (I regret not noting the artist’s name.) That brown fish made me laugh with its eyes shifting over to the same side. Apparently this really happens.