tree forms

While here in the woods (our RV is literally surrounded by trees on 3 sides!), I have been slowly collecting sketches of the more unusual tree forms. Lots of post oak, cedar elm, and bald cypress in unusual growth patterns. The main tree on the left seems to be standing tiptoe with a patch of grass growing underneath it! I’ve included a photo of it from the other side.

The trees in the center share a large common root between them. The front one also seems to be parting its “skirt” to reveal an underlayer. The tree on the right has what appears to be a wee doorway at the end of one of the roots.

Drawn with Pitt Artist brush pens and colored pencils; fountain pen ink and gouache for the bluebonnet bloom.

Indian paintbrush and bluebonnets

This year the Texas bluebonnets have been a bit sparse, at least in our immediate area. But the Indian paintbrush have been abundant — even colors of coral and yellow have bloomed among the usual orange-red.

This photo was taken in the same area as the above were sketched from by my friend A. just one year ago:

Texas wildflowers

The brilliant blue bluebonnets, orange-red Indian paintbrush, and pink primrose are gone for another year, giving way to yellow coreopsis and white prickly poppy. I took these photos at a friend’s beautiful country property in early April. The day was very windy and pollen levels running very high, but I hoped to try painting a landscape or two from these photos. But painting a whole field of wildflowers still intimidates me!

bluebonnets . . . and a new sketch pal!

This past week, after a 2-year delay, I was finally able to meet a new sketch friend in person and we drew bluebonnets! A. heard of me through this blog and contacted me 2 years ago to see if we might meet somewhere local to sketch. She and her husband live in a barndominium, as we do, just a short drive up a country road from our place.

But then Bill was hospitalized a week due to a cat bite infection — the same week that Covid-19 shut down the world. We have stayed in touch through email but didn’t meet in person while Covid numbers were still up. 

Covid cases are now pretty low in this area so A. invited me out to her place — a beautiful property with acres full of Texas bluebonnets and other wildflowers! Strong winds and high pollen levels made sketching outside difficult but I took photos, then we sketched these bluebonnets in the barn.

Maybe I’ll be able to do some more sketches from those photos I took . . .

good intentions . . .

 

Honestly, I truly mean it when I say that I’m going to get back into the habit of sketching every day! Or at least every other day. But it just isn’t happening . . .

I began drawing this bluebonnet on Monday from a photo taken on Sunday. Then added the background bit on Tuesday. And didn’t get around to finishing until today (Thursday!).

Between my pollen / sinus issues and Bill’s chronic pain (no, the neck surgeries did not provide permanent relief and the one pain killer that worked for him has been phased out, no longer available), neither one of us get much sleep at night. So we “just function” each day, getting what needs to be accomplished done but not much else. So perhaps I need to lighten up on my personal expectations: I’ll try to sketch every week, even if it takes 4 days to finish a simple sketch.

why I’m foggy lately

 

Not much sketching going on around here. Yesterday I drew a mugshot of one of the culprits: the live oak trees that line our long drive have been very full of catkins, releasing pollen into the air — and covering our red pickup truck with a fine yellow dust. 

Heavy head and sinus headaches, but Springtime is still gorgeous! I found these photos from the Texas Wildflowers group on Facebook (taken by Paul Nolan Broussard) — bluebonnet time is just beginning (a bit late this year) and I hope to be out there in a week or so to sketch some.

updating Etsy

I spent today updating my Etsy shop. Or, rather, adding some original sketches to what was already listed. With selling the cabin, moving, barn-building, and taking care of livestock, I have not been able to create anything new for sale. But I do still have the original art that I’ve sold many prints of.

In the future I’d like to keep it simple and sell just original work, not prints. So why not sell the original sketches I began with?

Sketches of bluebonnets seem to sell the best and I love drawing them — but they don’t grow in our new location. This year, bluebonnet season coincided with Bill’s hospitalization followed by the COVID-19 shut-down, making it impossible for me to travel to other areas and sketch new pieces. Maybe next spring . . .

this week’s bits

Just a few images from this past week . . .

While our sons helped us move the last things and granddaughter Jayna helped me clean the cabin, daughter Kristen was at the farm cooking homemade Cajun for everyone. She also introduced Bill and me to King Cake — we had seen them for sale since moving to Texas but didn’t know the tradition behind them. And it was yummy — almost as good as her gumbo!

I found the hidden baby (representing the Christ Child) so according to Kristen, I host the next one.

While living at the cabin, I had tried to get bluebonnets to grow on our property but they never germinated — until we were moving out! This one is beginning to bloom right now, either to say goodbye to us or to greet the cabin’s new owners.

With so many extra keys, I decided to keep my own cabin key as a souvenir. (The new owners will probably re-key it anyway.) When our oldest son’s family moved into their new home and they were getting a key made for us, one of our grandsons reminded them to make mine plaid! He remembered that my own key was green plaid so he chose a blue plaid.

After closing on the sale of the cabin, our realtor Myrna Lopez, took us out for lunch. We had a lovely time sharing with each other how the Lord was working in each of our lives. I have a feeling that the cabin attracted so little interest the first 6 months (under a different realtor who had worked very hard to sell it) because the Lord wanted to bless Myrna specifically.

sketch with me - “nature”

This weekend’s “Sketch With Me” virtual sketch event’s theme is Nature. But it is hot, sticky, and I already have several itchy bug bites . . . . so I sketched from photos I took in the past few weeks.

And while I’m at it, I used the time to do some pieces that can be sold in my Etsy shop.

Then during discipleship class at church this morning I sketched another bit of nature: an early blossom from one of  our Mexican Plum trees. They completely fill with white flowers before any leaves appear, which attracts lots of birds, bees, and butterflies.

one final bluebonnet . . .

. . . or is it? I took lots of photos so I could be sketching bluebonnets and other wildflowers for many months.

This one seemed to fit today though — any bluebonnets left in the open meadows are now obscured by the prairie grasses that are growing taller than the early wildflowers. The grasses haven’t quite reached this particular flower yet but it’s distinctive leaves are hidden.

a bluebonnet’s end

Yesterday was a wonderfully sunny day without much wind; we took a leisurely drive towards Independence, enjoying the multi-colored wildflower show.

The bluebonnets located at Old Baylor’s Women’s College (or the ruined remains of it) normally flower much earlier than other areas of Washington county. Which means they begin to go to seed earlier as well. Many of the plants, while still in full bloom, now have these fuzzy pea-like seed pods forming.

This particular specimen was further gone than most, with the petals nearly gone — yet the seed pods were still green. They will dry up and turn brown before falling off to ensure next year’s flowers.

more wildflower prints

The day’s brightness is not allowing me to take very good photos today, but I have just had prints made of some of the wildflower sketches from a previous journal. I will be selling them on Etsy, just in time for the beginning of our local spring wildflower explosion of color.

The upper picture has Firewheel, aka Indian Blanket, Crow Poison, Bastard Cabbage, and Indian Paintbrush. Bastard Cabbage, also called turnip-weed, common giant mustard, and wild rape, is actually an invasive noxious weed that crowds out other wildflowers. Indian Paintbrush is the most prevalent flower blooming around us currently.

In the lower picture are the Texas Bluebonnet, “Milk and Wine” Crinum Lily, Winecup, and Plains Wild Indigo. While the lily is not native, it has naturalized throughout the area from abandoned farmsteads and cemeteries. It is said to be so hardy, it never dies. Wild Indigo, while a very interesting flower form, can be extremely toxic for ranch livestock.

a bluebonnet star

If you look directly down at a bluebonnet from above you can see a star. Not exactly like the lone star of Texas, but a very fanciful star. Not so easy to draw — but that’s why drawing botanicals can be so easy . . . If your sketch isn’t quite accurate, who will know?

This is the final page of my current accordion journal. As I worked through both sides, I kept the pages in a temporary leather cover. Now I’ve removed it from that cover and glued permanent covers to the front and back. The folded paper was the leftover bits after tearing down larger paper for a full-sized journal. Imagine my surprise when the size not only fit my leather cover — it also perfectly fits these cardboard covers I found at Hobby Lobby!

early bluebonnets

And so it begins . . . Bluebonnets have started showing up in the empty lots near our cabin, along with a few Indian paintbrush. Soon this undeveloped lot with only specks of blue will be a solid sea of bluebonnets . . . with a few Indian paintbrush thrown in.

a touch of springtime

Back in April, near the end of our springtime explosion of wildflowers, I began to draw this collection of the five “main stars” that were near the end of their main blooming season.

Then I began taking an on-line journaling class, during which I filled three other small journals. Before I knew it, it was June — time for the 30 watercolor sketches in 30 days challenge! And one more separate sketchbook was filled while this one was ignored except for a page here and there where I tested various colors of the watercolor palette I used for the challenge.

Just as I thought I’d get back to this Stillman & Birn Beta journal, I found myself finishing the small blue Field Notes sketchbook that stayed in my purse instead.

Now I’m finally back to this being my only sketchbook journal . . . and I came across this unfinished page. So on the last day of a very hot month of July, I am painting early wildflowers and remembering the cooler days of spring.

a bluebonnet meadow

This is a field of bluebonnets as seen driving down the highway near our home back in March. Sometimes there are other wildflowers scattered among the blue, sometimes it’s a simple wash of solid blue. Here, there were only a few Indian paintbrushes to the side and pink primroses on the outside of the fence.

log cabin at Old Baylor

For today’s direct watercolor painting, I used a photo taken at Old Baylor University’s Women’s Campus located in Independence, Texas . . . just across the road from the home of Sam Houston. This original log cabin has been moved onto the site, just east of the ruins of the women’s buildings. Every spring the meadow next to the cabin is filled with wild bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, and coreopsis.

I did use a very few pencil lines to ensure the cabin’s proportions were correct, and dots of masking fluid for where the wildflowers go. But I don’t feel that either of these tools were overdone; it was still painted directly in watercolor. That sky is nothing like I aimed for, but it worked!

blanketflower . . . and friends

The first explosion of native wildflowers has begun, the first I found up close being the blanket flowers growing on a street corner in Somerville, Texas. Yesterday I stopped to get a closer look at the bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, and tickseed blooming near highway 36 and FM 1948. Washington county will soon be covered in glorious color — this year, the peak bloom time is expected on Easter weekend, though they will continue through next month. And summer varieties will soon follow . . .

springtime arrives in Washington county

Actually, we’re been having spring-like temperatures for a couple of weeks — a very welcome change from the very cold and overcast winter this year. Much more “winter” than is normal around here! These bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes are just beginning to open up the road from our cabin.

the sale that wasn't

Last Saturday there was an Octoberfest event in Burton, Texas. Diane, owner of Heritage Sunday House bed & breakfast and the antique store next door, asked to include prints and notecards of my sketches in her special sale. The chamber of commerce hosted the event . . . and even they didn't show up! A few people came out for the walk-run and a few dachshunds and their owners for a weenie-dog race. But not one person came our way, even with food set out for them.

I just had to laugh about the whole thing, though I am sorry for all the hard work that Diane put into it -- incredibly frustrating for her! My sketches are now displayed for sale in her shop. Diane's encouragement has nudged me to learn about the process of having prints and notecards made, and now I may go forward in opening an Etsy shop. 

Prints I had made are not always true in color to the originals and some shadows disappeared. (Many of these are a bit out of focus, as they were very quick snapshots.)

  

 

 

 

These are the first series of notecards I did. I'm thinking several of the above prints would also make nice notecards. Once I figure out how to sell them online . . .