"Autumn asks that we prepare for the future - that we be wise in the ways of garnering and keeping. But it also asks that we learn to let go - to acknowledge the beauty of sparseness." --B.W. Overstreet

As I walked home from work one day, I noticed all the autumn leaves on the trees and on the ground. Of course, they needed to be drawn. I chose carefully, looking at shapes and colors and patterns. I'm not sure what was more fun - the selecting or the drawing. As much as I mourn the passing of summer and the death of my garden, I celebrate the changing of the seasons and the cycle of life. For how would we appreciate the warmth and bounty of summer without knowing the chill and nudity of winter. And though I grumble about the cold and the winds of winter, I really like living in a country with such discrete seasons. It's always changing and always interesting. Each season has it's own beauty and charm, and it's one of the things that makes me want to draw and paint. To try and capture the ever-changing face of nature.
This is watercolorpencil in the Moleskine journal. At first, I didn't like this journal much, but it's grown on me. Although it still scans oddly, I've found that having the black lines as an anchor point tends to balance out the scan some.

EDM 190 - Draw your pallette

This is my pallette of water color paints. In real life, it's a lot messier than that. This was a real exercise in perspective. I struggled quite a bit with all those corners and angles, and trying to convey "shiny white" surface. It was a real challenge, but as usual, I learned quite a bit. It always seems that the harder it is, the more I learn. There was a lot of erasing and re-placing of lines that forced me to look closely at the angles, and draw what I really see and not how I think it should look. Good challenge all around.

I had been without Internet access for about three weeks. I'm not one who is on the computer all day everyday, so I didn't realize how much a part of my life it had become. It was difficult to run my daily life - paying bills, renewing library books, looking up recipes and crossword puzzle clues (yeah, I cheat a bit!), communicating through emails, posting to this blog, and participating in the weekly challenges. So now I'm much more appreciative of the sense of community there is in being "connected". Rather than being isolating as so many think, it really opens up the world to you. And that can't be a bad thing - to be able to join a group of like minded people with the same interests as you, to discuss, to share, to teach, to learn, to participate. Isn't that what community is all about?

Loon

This was done from a photograph that hangs in my parents' den. It's been around for many years, and for just as many years I have wanted to paint it. There was some anxiety attached to that longing, it was such a beautiful photo takn by my dad on one of his fishing trips. I'd hate to mess it up. But I finally did draw it back in June when I was there. I studied the photo several times a day, and made mental notes. When I finally drew it, I also made paper notes. Then I went home and painted it. I used liquid mask (lots of it) on those tiny polka dots. The challenges were to get a dark enough color, to recreate the interesting green water, and to blur out the male and the chick. This last proved the most difficult, as the male loon always looked as if he was rearing out of the water like a breaching whale. At that point I thought it was ruined, so I decided to continue experimenting wih the color of the water. I added a second, deeper wash of color right over the background birds. And suddenly, it worked. That loon settled right down, and the colors blurred enough to look like the photo. So I decided I liked it. And even better, my co-workers chose it to hang in our library gallery.

Watercolor in Moleskine sketchbook, 5"x7"

Pansies

It was a bad year for the garden, cool, cloudy, wet. But the cheerful pansies thrived, and brough much needed color. Pansies mean "loving thoughts", but I've always thought they meant resiliance and determination.

I send thee pansies while the year is young,

Yellow as sunshine, purple as the night;

Flowers of remembrance, ever fondly sung

By all the chiefest of the Sons of Light;

And if in recollection lives regret

For wasted days and dreams that were not true,

I tell thee that the "pansy freak'd with jet"

Is still the heart's ease that the poets knew

Take all the sweetness of a gift unsought,

And for the pansies send me back a thought."

---Sarah Doudney

Watercolor and staedtler pen in Aquabee sketchbook .