prickly poppy

Bluebonnets get the most attention of the vast variety of Texas wildflowers, but my personal favorite is the Prickly Poppy. It begins blooming in mid spring and lasts through late summer’s heat, a bright pop of white in the green pastures and along roadsides. I drew these from a photo taken at our campsite in Bastrop State Park. I especially liked how the flowers looked next to the Bastrop ironstone.

State Farm acted quickly after our car wreck two weeks ago. We received our claim payoff and yesterday we were able to buy another Trax, this time in a new color called “cypress gray” — in some light it looks dark earthy green and some light it looks gray. Once we add a tow package, we can get back to camping adventures.

camping at Cagle

This week we have been once again camping in the Sam Houston National Forest. Not too hot, not too cold — just right for leisurely walks on nearby trails. There are several items we forgot to pack or didn’t think we’d need and wish we had, but it’s been a relaxing, enjoyable time. Today, lots of new campers are coming in for the weekend just as we are getting ready to head home. Being retired means not needing to plan around working hours!

At the campsite next to ours, we found an arrow made of pine cones, leading up to a hidden painted rock that someone left as a surprise. I took a photo and left it for the next person to find.

tiny sketches from Inks Lake

These tiny sketches are from Inks Lake State Park. We are home now, but with no cell phone service at the lake, I’m posting these from home. And following, one more photo from the lake, some white-tail deer on an outcropping of gneiss. Maybe I’ll sketch it someday.

a bit of gneiss

On the long drive into Inks Lake State Park we saw these beautiful “island” outcroppings of gneiss (pronounced “nice”) containing a variety of cacti, ferns, moss, and lichen. More bits of gneiss were throughout the park itself.

exploring Longhorn Cavern

While camping at Inks Lake, we drove to Longhorn Cavern State Park where we walked a bit over a mile over uneven paths, ducking in low spots as needed — a bit challenging for us in our 70s! But I do love caves and it was worth a few aches.

This cave was formed by an underwater river cutting through the limestone thousands of years ago. Ancient people used one of the then-open sky holes as a trap cave, hunting animals by driving them over the openings. Confederate soldiers put the large deposits of bat guano to use making gunpowder. Comanches hid a captive girl here until she was rescued by the Texas Rangers. In the 1920s, the cave was used as a nightclub with wooden dance floor.

Eventually the cave was filled with run-off rains, mud, and debris. From 1934 to 1942, the C.C.C. dug out the muck by hand, one wheelbarrow at a time, and fashioned stairs and walkways for visitors, the park road, buildings, and an observation tower in the National Park rustic style.

Our tour group was very small so early in the morning, allowing us more personal time and extra stories from the tour guide. The following photos were taken with an iPhone with no flash, so as not to disturb the tiny tri-colored bats we found.

During the tour, all of us adults took one look at the rock “dog” in my above sketch and decided the C.C.C. workers had carved it as a prank. Only the child in the group got it right, thinking it was a real rock. The workers found it in a different part of the cave, saw the dog shape, and decided to set it up where visitors could enjoy it.

recent sketching

I sketched this lovely teacup and saucer last Friday at a friend’s place. She also gave me a rock she had picked up last year at Loch Lomond — the song by that name has always been a favorite of mine! I often sang it to babies while rocking them to sleep. A time or two the baby would cover my mouth, knowing it would make them go to sleep!

So, over the next few days, I drew the new rock alongside two other rocks from Scotland, from the Black Isle and Loch Ness, to fill out this 2-page spread.

red, white, and blue . . . rock

This morning as I was coming in from taking care of the beasts, this rock caught my eye. It appeared to be red covered in white with blue lines. So I brought it in to sketch in my tiny sketchbook.

Our interior ceiling lights cast 3 distinct shadows so that’s how I drew it — the art lamp needed to take a photo hid that. And the red (red jasper?) looked much redder in the bright sunlight. But in my mind it is red, white, and blue.

old hitching post?

This curiosity is next to a small metal building on “the farm” that the former owners called a “shop” — it’s more like a small shed with a big porch. We assume this was used as a hitching post for their horse? But in front of the posts is a shallow wooden box full of gravel. Maybe it’s extra gravel for the long driveway? If so, there’s not nearly enough.

UPDATE:

The previous owners kept sheep. Someone on line thinks this might be for cleaning the sheared fleeces (over the gravel), then hanging the fleeces over the post to dry. 

pool rocks

This is what one of the larger landscaping rocks near the swimming pool looked like a couple of weeks ago. Now we have had a long, dry period of excessive heat and the moss has all disappeared.

some autumn color . . . in rocks

Today I was just in the mood for color in my daily ink sketch. So I picked up some rocks as Bill and I walked the circle drive where we live. (OK, only half the circle but it’s progress — Bill is not light-headed any more since the doctor dropped his blood pressure medicine.) The small rock in front looks very dark in the photo — it is actually a bright red jasper.

The ink sketch is with a sepia ink that I mixed from Noodler’s polar black and polar brown. But the rich watercolors in my earthy granulating set seem to take over, obliterating the ink lines!

odd rocks

Over the past few days I've been sketching a rock or two each evening. These are some of the more unusual ones picked up during our walks. The one in the lower right corner reminds me of a fossil but it's simply rock carved out by erosion. The red bits are red jasper; not sure of the other minerals. I had our youngest grandsons believing that the one in the lower left corner was a petrified dinosaur egg!

I painted these with a mixture of Daniel Smith and QOR watercolors, which are made with a different type of binder. I was curious as to whether they would "play nice" together --- they seem to work fine together.

our Texas-style water meter

Our log cabin is part of a small country community that shares a water well, and this is Bill's and my water meter. A big rock and plank of wood cover the access hole.

today's inktober sketch

I jumped right in, drawing this odd-looking rock with black ink in a calligraphy pen and brush pens with Lexington gray and brown inks . . . then wished I had first plotted the shapes out with a pencil. Not very accurate, and the gray and brown inks went down a bit too dark. Afterwards, I added a bit of buff titanium watercolor and some white gel pen.

I found the rock among the river rocks at the edge of our patio --- it immediately brought to mind The Scream painting by Edvard Munch.

And this is the final sketch in this small Field Notes Memo Book. It came in a set of three; the others are a muted red and a turquoise blue.

Inktober bowl of rocks

Today's Inktober sketch: a bowl our son Matt made in high school filled with rocks I picked up on our walks. I especially like the red jasper. The dark brown rock looks like a chocolate no-bake cookie!

rock play

I felt like painting some rocks . . . and just happened to have a photo taken by our son-in-law Michael during their last trip to California. I miss the Pacific Ocean! We lived in San Diego when we first got married and had some lovely times there.

My home internet "died" last week, so I am down to only my iPhone for posting this. Over the phone, the company determined that the connection is misaligned and a tech guy will be out tomorrow to fix it. The independent seller who hooked up both our satellite TV and the internet possible did it wrong two years ago --- it has never worked as promised from the start. We can't stream shows (twice as much buffering as program, every couple of minutes) and it went out every time it rained. Very slow also. The company was apologetic and worked it out --- they are even upgrading my service (and speed) to a much higher level at no added cost.

Good thing, as my options out here in the country among all these lovely trees is very limited.  I'm thankful that my phone has unlimited internet. Today, so much of normal daily life is done online.

fairy stones

Recently I read a little e-book called "The Cabin", by Smoky Zeidel. The story has a mysterious log cabin in the woods of Virginia, a bit of time-travel, and some wee fairy stones -- a twin-crystal mineral known as Staurolite.

I had never heard of these cross-shaped stones before. In the book, a legend is told of the elvish folk having told the fairies of the One they call the Christ having been crucified. The fairies wept and where their tears fell, tiny cross stones appeared. Eventually the fairies and elves diminished from the area until they had disappeared.

After writing a couple of my favorite quotes from the book into my journal, I wanted to draw a few of the stones on the page, so I looked them up on the internet.

this and that

I know it's silly but after several weeks using the same palette (in this case, the Whiskey Painter's palette), I tend to switch to a different one. Especially silly because my core colors of choice are all the same. But it keeps my "toys" fresh and new to me . . .

This time I wished to go back to using full-sized pans, at least for the basic triad colors. So I emptied the crayons out of a small Neocolor II watercolor crayon tin and popped in a warm and a cool of red, yellow, and blue, plus burnt sienna. Then added three more neutrals just for convenience. Then added two greens, likewise. a bit of sponge, a pencil, and a couple of travel brushes and I think I'm done. For now.

Last Friday (that date should read 19!), after buying groceries at HEB, we went on an impromptu picnic at Fireman's Park in Brenham. Every Friday during Lent, the grocery chain offers fresh fried fish dinners at the exit --- the fish is very good! So we purchased a two-piece meal to share, as the portions are very generous.

One of the oldest buildings in the park has this interesting stone lintel over the door so I chose to sketch it. One of the few stone buildings of the many around town that does not include petrified wood in the stone work.

home to Texas

Finally on the long drive home to Texas, we were surprised at how many wind farms have popped up, often on both sides of Interstate 35 allowing us to see the structures up close. In the big open spaces I have no problem with these behemoths; they even have a fluid grace about them. But they have also taken over the scenic views of the Arbuckle Wilderness in southern Oklahoma! The one place of beauty on the long drive through the state. That sign in the right sketch actually reads "scenic turnout, 1 mile" and the whole view is busy with turning wind generators.

Crossing over the Red River into Texas, I actually felt lifted up inside. How I have come to love this new home state of ours! North of Dallas, the highway splits into east and west; driving either way can get us home and we had decided to take the east route this time. But just north of the fork, we were warned that an 18-wheeler accident had closed that freeway so we took the left through Fort Worth instead. Being tired from the long day of driving, we stopped for the night at Alvarado . . . and we were spoiled rotten! The Super 8 motel was hidden behind a huge RV dealership and was almost missed -- I had once worked at a Super 8 and had no high expectations but we just wanted a bed for the night. What a surprise! During our week we had stayed at three other motels and this last one was one of the least expensive and the very best! They gave us what we would call a suite -- very comfortable with lots of extras.

Then for dinner, we ate at Benny's, an Italian / Mexican restaurant (I know, what an odd combination!) that was sublime! Worth going back to just for a meal. A wonderful time of refreshing; the next morning at breakfast, I enjoyed trading stories with the night auditor, who had the same job I had once had back in Kansas.

I did bring a little bit of Arkansas back with me, in the form of petrified wood and rocks. Bill teased that their weight would tip the truck over the limit --- he had brought back a metal lathe that is easily over 1000 lbs. Forty miles-per-hour winds literally blew us straight south through Kansas, Oklahoma, and as far as Alvarado, making the flag in the second post above stand out very straight. When driving on a southwest portion of I-35, we had some scary side-winds fighting the truck's load. But winds lessened by the next day and we made it home safely.

driving Arkansas roads

Driving the Arkansas Ozarks is always lovely. I had never been here in the winter before --- there is less color but it is still beautiful.

Sketching in a moving truck proved a bit too bumpy so I snapped several photos through the windshield to sketch from later. Afterwards, it seemed all I got were shots of roads curving right; I'm sure we must have curved the other way at some point!

I brought back several large rocks / petrified wood from our friends' rock garden. We have a planting bed next to our cabin that gets flooded when it rains, and had decided to put in a rock garden with a few containers there. So now I have large specimen rocks for that area. Bill teased that my rocks were putting the weight limit over the top --- nothing to do with that industrial metal lathe he brought back, right? It only tips the scale somewhere over 1000 lbs. after all.

One of these days, I will sketch a few of the rocks.

an Arkansas rock, the end of another sketchbook

I brought this large rock home from a recent trip to Arkansas, loving the variety of colors and textures. While drawing it last night, I kept seeing visions in my mind of the Grand Canyon which I saw in person 29 years ago.

And now I'm finished with this tiny accordion-fold sketchbook. Not sure where to put it on the shelf though --- The first side was filled in Dec. 2014 and the second side in July 2015. I store my sketchbooks chronologically on the shelf,