During one of our walks in the woods, we found this odd seed pod with brilliant red seeds growing through one of the American Beautyberry plants. Not sure what it is.
I found several wildflowers but not sure what they are. The pinkish lavender one looked like an orchid. I sketched these from photos rather than picking them.
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The berries are eaten by birds and deer, the roots used in herbal tea, and Native Americans used it in sweat baths to treat rheumatism, fevers, and malaria. Some people also use the berries in jelly.
Also growing in the understory we found palmetto, dogwood, and magnolia.
We spent this past week camping in our travel trailer again — this time in part of the Sam Houston National Forest on the northeast corner of Lake Conroe. I sketched a bit on-site and took photos to sketch from later. Mostly I just wanted to enjoy being there, taking several walks on the nature trails and enjoying the peaceful quiet.
As Bill leveled the trailer and hooked up the utilities, I wandered around our camp site and found this plastic dinosaur and Velcro uniform patch. Somewhere out there is a Marine with a very sad child who lost 2 dinosaurs — Bill later found another one. This one’s name is Henry.
Our truck is actually a brighter red but I had my muted watercolor set with me.
As long as I was at it, I filled a Pocket Palette with earthy autumn, granulating pigments. But the smooth paper of this Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook does not show granulation to its best advantage.
Might be a good paper for Derwent Graphitint paints though.
As long as I was placing an order anyway, I added a tube of paint I was out of, a postcard-sized sample of Kilimanjaro watercolor paper, and a bottle of Noodler’s ink — which came with a free dip pen. The paper sample says it’s bright white but the Very White label sticker makes the actual paper look more of a cream paper.
I love sketching with “not black” neutral colored fountain pen inks — this El Lawrence is a very dark khaki color named for Lawrence of Arabia. Very subtle in sketches and matches my savanna Lamy Safari pen!
It has been in my bag most of the time; I just had no motivation to draw in it.
Until today. Bill brought me our very first berry from a variety of bushes planted this year. Not sure if it’s one of the raspberries or an under-ripe blackberry but it definitely fit the page!
Even if I got the color wrong.
I was introduced to Webkinz in 2009 when our oldest granddaughter, 6 years old at the time, gave me a White Terrier — the closest match she could make to my Wheaten Scottish Terrier, Maxwell. She wanted both of her grandmothers to play the online games with her. At the time, all of her grandparents lived in Kansas and she’s a Texas girl.
The above sketch recorded this surprise reverse-birthday-gift. I would have named this first pet after Max except for that pink bow — my dog was not a froufrou type! So I named her Annie Laurie after one of my favorite Scottish folk songs. I remember hearing Alex Beaton singing it in person at a Scottish Festival years ago.
A year later I was acting as “granny nanny” to Mikala, and of course we went shopping for more Webkinz! That’s her Peppermint Puppy in the sketch below, a gift from her other grandma.
This month, that same granddaughter started college . . . and I have returned to playing on Webkinz, this time with our 2 youngest grandsons, Josiah and Judah.
Yesterday morning we drove to Needville where 2 of our grandsons were baptized. I scribbled down some sermon notes in pencil, cleaning it up a bit later in ink. Afterwards, we ate out at a Mexican restaurant — one of the final points made had been on the meaning of verses 34-35 of Luke 14, so I sketched the salt shaker and bits around it.
From the previous day, I cleaned up all my fountain pens, then refilled just these 3 Lamy Safari pens. I have fancier pens and a few that are more expensive — but I always return to Lamy pens for sheer dependability. The charcoal one is filled with De Atramentis Document Grey ink, the red one (with a “fude” nib I made from sticking a regular nib in Bill’s vise and gently bending it) has a “sepia” ink I mixed using Document Brown and Document Black, and the new terra color pen is filled with Document Brown.
I wish I had left this alone after painting in the pens. I grabbed blue and black crayons to color in the sketchbook but it looked better before. 😒
This cool old log shelter was built by the C.C.C. in 1936 and is a very popular rental area for family gatherings. Sadly, our camp host told us that it will be torn down. The forestry department simply doesn’t have the necessary funds for repair and maintenance on it.
Next month, we’re heading out with our travel trailer to a western finger of Sam Houston National Forest on the northeast edge of Lake Conroe.
