Flower Sketching Experiments

I have all sorts of excuses for not losing myself in artwork recently.  Ignoring painting and drawing is not good for me.  I am happier even if I spend only a half hour a day creating.

I've been doing flower studies to get art back into my life.

I've already posted the bouquet I painted when I painted with Marsha in August.  These are three sketches I've done since then.

I like to work from a still-life set-up.  I found a few weigelia flowers still blooming.

The vase is one I bought years ago when my sister and I were shopping at a Mikasa store at an outlet mall.  I used a Micron pen which was a little low on ink.  There was enough ink for me to draw some guidelines but not enough to create firm edges.  Afterward, I laid in some watercolor washes.  The paper is bit thin so I had to be careful, not have much water in my brush.

After Labor Day Marsha and I painted at her house.  This time it was simpler to work from photographs than from a still-life.

I still used basically the same technique.  I chose to sketch only a few of the Purple Coneflowers in the photo.

I had time to do a second painting.  Marsha said she had seen an interesting painting on-line in which the artist had started with a wash of colors and then gone back and drawn shapes.  I decided to see what I could come up with.

The photo is of Ironweed.

Here is the result.  I decided I liked the sketchy lines so I didn't redraw them more precisely with a fresh Micron pen.  I think this technique could make an interesting background for a collage of some sort.  I also plan to try it on a paper that is more suitable for watercolor washes.

All of these pieces are small, about seven  inches square.

Saturday of Labor Day Weekend, Sept. 2017

Henry came again to visit because Sonja was in the process of moving from one house to another.  I know Henry had more attention from us than Sonja had time to give him.

Steve came to visit, too.  

One Saturday, Steve and I went to the Fort Rowdy Gathering in Covington.  This was the twenty-fifth year for the event.  Years ago I took Steve's brother to the gathering.  The gathering is a little larger now but still uncrowded and easy-going.

The gathering is on two open grassy areas surrounded by trees, one area on either end of a bridge across the Stillwater River.  The bridge is rebuilt every year for the weekend and then taken down.

Close to the shore, Steve spotted a school of several hundred tiny fish swimming fast and away from us.

Life in the encampment is old style camping.  There is a native American encampment as well.

Arts and crafts are demonstrated and sold on both sides of the bridge but they are somewhat different.  On the near side there are painted gourds and fine needlework and other crafts that a person finds at a typical craft show.  On the far side are the craftmen and women who make the kind of crafts Daniel Boone would have found useful.  One craftsman we talked to was making a water jug from leather.  The crafts are laid out on blankets or tables or hung on racks.

There was music on the tents on both ends of the bridge as well.  The old, old songs the settlers brought from Europe were sung on the far end encampment.  The listeners sat on straw bales.

As Steve and I headed back to the bridge because we were hungry and the food booths were on the other side, we saw a boy fishing.  He caught a little blue gill and threw it back in to grow larger.

View from halfway across the bridge.

 On the near end, the music was more modern country music.  There were amps set up as well as bleachers for the listeners to sit on.

This festival is a money making event for local non-profit organizations.  Steve and I bought lunch from the boy scouts...brats and kraut and mashed potatoes.  For dessert we had homemade apple dumplings and ice cream from the booth next door.