Sunday, October 15, 2017

Fiona, JKPP

Fiona, Ebony Pencil and White Colored Pencil
for Julia Kay's Portrait Party

This is my most recent sketch for the online group, Julia Kay's Portrait Party.  The group started on Flickr, but more recently has an offshoot on Facebook.  I've tried all sorts of styles using the photos pf Portrait Party members worldwide - blind contour drawings, watercolors, realistic and very stylized paintings, monoprints, all sorts of things.  Over the past year or so I have labored over detailed colored pencil drawings, many with added background textures, drawings that took days.  

This time time I decided that what I got done in two hours was it.  No long drawn out laboring for me this time.  So here is Fiona, with just some simple cross-hatching and white highlights.  

And I like her fine.

Sunday, October 1, 2017

Sauntering at Carver Roehl


John Muir didn't like the word "hike," and instead preferred the word "saunter."  I suppose sauntering sounds more pleasant than hiking, less like exercise and more like an easy appreciation of nature.  My husband and I sauntered through a local county park this afternoon, and while the colors so far are not brilliant, there is a real feeling of autumn in the air, as there should be on the first day of October.  I took several photos, but I think this one captures the feeling of the place best.  The landscape at Carver Roehl park is varied, some flat, some hilly, and there is a little creek that has carved out limestone outcroppings that are scattered with ferns. 

We didn't realize it, but a local friends group was sponsoring a fall gala, with speakers, picnicking, a petting zoo, and horse-drawn hayrides.  It was charming sauntering the trails, and hearing the sound of the horses' hooves on the road.

Sometimes the only cure for brain fog is a walk in the woods.  I'm glad we went.

October
by Robert Frost

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being begiled.
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all.
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost ---
For the grapes' sake along the wall.