Sketch with Me: travel

This month’s virtual sketch crawl with the Sketch With Me group is focusing on travel. A good subject for me, as I have been traveling a lot lately, and will be for the next few days as well as we drive to Kansas for a friend’s funeral.

We celebrated our 47th wedding anniversary a few days early, choosing a local bed & breakfast out in the country, away from just about everything. We planned on grilling our own steak dinner out on the balcony of the tree top room . . . but Bill moved up his dental appointment and had just had 8 teeth pulled. So nix on the steaks; we grilled cheese quesadillas instead!

 The next day, we headed for Magnolia, TX to look at another property with our daughter and son-in-law. This property had a lot going for it, but the traffic nearby was a nightmare! We were warned that FM 1774 through Magnolia was horrid during Ren-Fest weekends in the autumn . . . But it is crazy-slow every day with the lunch hour and school getting out!

I used another sketchbook page to jot down notes on each of three properties we looked at — the next two were a definite “no” so we are continuing the search.

Texas dandelions and evening primrose

As much as I love wildflowers, I seldom see any in my own large yard (3 lots, around 3/4 acre) except for the occasional crow poison or rain lily which literally pops up overnight. Bill can’t stand to let the yard look “shaggy” and keeps it mowed.

So I was surprised to find bits of yellow sunshine all over the yard one morning. Texas dandelions look much more like tall, pale yellow daisies — and they are not nearly as invasive.

I brought these inside before Bill mowed, along with a tiny evening primrose I found as well.

in my bag

Does a 16 year old really need a granny-nanny?

Mikala’s parents are on a trip so I’m hanging out with her this weekend. Along with Bradley, Mocha, Pumpkin and Reece’s (her dog and 3 cats).

Plenty of time to sketch but not really inspired at the moment. So I drew the art supplies in my bag. I bought this lightweight bag because it was large enough to hold this 7 x 10” ring bound journal. It’s a Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook. The small journal I keep in my bag is from the same company but is from their Delta line.

a gift from Bill

This morning, as Bill was doing some house repair work for our friend Kim, he found this odd looking mushroom growing flat on the grass. So of course he brought it home for me to sketch. At first it didn’t seem to have a stem but after he picked it he found that the underside gills and short, stubby stem were a soft earthy yellow.

I should have used more raw umber watercolor on the upper part . . .

(When he first walked in with it cradled in his hand, I thought he was bringing me a field mouse!)

2 butterflies

This year has been a better-than-average year for Central Texas wildflowers; it has also been a phenomenal year for butterflies!

One day as I was washing dishes, I glanced up to find these 2 types of swallowtail butterflies in one of our Mexican Plum trees when it was in flower. Both were Huge in size!

Since then, I continue to see more of them often. But they never hold still so I drew them using a field guide — just to remember them in my journal.

a mother’s day treat

At the end of yesterday’s church service, each mother was given a rose and a yummy little cheesecake treat topped with a fresh strawberry and dark chocolate.

I ate my treat before sketching it . . .








(The “Jadeite” color of my fiesta ware bud vase is a very hard color to replicate!)

Bill’s Dr. Pepper

Before Bill and I started seriously dating, when our friendship was just starting, another of our friends and I stopped by his apartment one day while he was still at work, probably just to use the restroom before going on to somewhere else. Although still in high school, Bill lived on his own. His parents had moved to Mesa, Arizona and he wanted to stay at the same high school until graduation. He already had a job at a cabinet-making shop.

I’d never seen a single guy’s apartment before. Just a mattress on the floor for sleeping and not much else . . . . Except that every floor and counter space was covered with empty Dr. Pepper cans! I think he must have waited to pick them up until there were enough to recycle.

Dr. Pepper is still one of his favorite drinks; I drew this 2 liter bottle this morning when he got some to drink before heading to church. (Our daughter Kristen takes after him in sometimes drinking carbonated beverages for breakfast, though her choice is Diet Coke.)

And this crazy-abundant year for wildflowers? Just this morning I found Indian Blanket and Texas Dandelion growing through the pavement where we parked for church! (Actually they were growing in decayed leaf matter — the city of Somerville never takes care of their roads.)

everyday things

Sometimes I sketch simple everyday things that are just laying about . . .

We have tried several hummingbird mixes, whatever happened to be available at the moment. Most popular ones on the shelf have an added red color. But the hummers that visit our patio definitely prefer this 100% natural colorless food from “Best-1”. Now we only use this brand and keep it well stocked up in case the store shelves run out.

current roadside wildflowers

Yesterday as I drove to Bryan for a periodontist appointment, the roadsides of Highway 60 were an amazing mix of yellows with a bit of pink, white, and purple thrown in. The bluebonnets are long gone but they have been replaced with late spring wildflowers — just what I needed to gain a sense of peace and calmness before having a deep teeth and gums cleaning.

The needles still hurt though.

Bradley as etegami

My brother’s birthday is fast approaching and I usually paint a special card for him each year. This year he is missing his dog who passed away so I decided to draw a dog for him. I borrowed a quote from one of Debbie Davidson’s etegami cards, substituting an image of our grandaughter’s dog, Bradley. Debbie wrote a wonderful book, “A Beginner’s Guide to Etegami”, found here.

My first try was using a card of 3-layer Hongasen paper — I had forgotten how much this paper bleeds and got the watercolor too close to the lines. Which is usually fine for etegami as they are meant to be “messy”. But I wanted to try again so I did a second one on Gasen paper. The second one actually looks a bit more like Bradley, who is a Great Pyrenees - golden retriever mix.

Traditionally these cards are signed with a hanko (name stamp or chop) but I don’t have one. So I draw one in with a red Pigma Micron pen. I use a traditional bamboo brush for adding color, but use my Pentel Pocketbrush pen for the ink lines. The color is from a Gansai Tambi watercolor set. I keep these etegami tools together in a kit, just for making cards . . . but I haven’t used them for several years now. Maybe I should get them out and play more often.

it comes equipped!

Sketched this morning at church . . ,

Later today we are once again looking at some properties in the country with our daughter and son-in-law. On a previous search with just Michael  (Kristen was at work), one of the properties had this outhouse. I took a photo, thinking I’d send it to Kristen saying “It comes equipped!”

The rest of this particular property went downhill from here . . .

I remember having to use one of these on our farm in Illinois. At 5 years old, the owl in the nearby tree and the daddy-long-leg spiders that swarmed the outhouse terrified me!

(I always manage to smear something . . .)

on my window sill

There is a small planting bed running along the side porch of Bill’s woodshop, added to cover where the foundation was leveled off on our slightly sloping ground. Bill put in a couple of Purple Heart plants to see if they would grow in this area.

They thrived! So when he trimmed their straggly overgrowth recently, we brought some bits in to root. Eventually we’ll fill the bed with this purple-leafed plant — much prettier than my sketch captured.

a dyer’s fungus

We found this interesting tree fungus as we walked near our home, and I decided to play with a Really Fat pencil lead to sketch it — a 5.6 mm lead in a wood lead holder Bill’s cousin Mike made for me. Then I added a watercolor wash, hopefully to set the graphite so it won’t smear.

Looking online, I was able to identify the fungus as “Dyer’s Polypore” also called Velvet Top Fungus. It grows low on tree trunks and can cause conifers to rot. Color ranges from yellow to a deep reddish brown, and has yellow-green spores underneath, used in dying yarn.