Chicago is sitting in the middle of a wet pattern. It has been raining for 2 straight days and no end in sight for at least another 24 hours. Remnants of Hurricane Ike that hit Texas a few days ago is pushing humid, rainy weather up our way. I’m not complaining because 3 days of rain is nothing compared to what the people of Texas had to face as a full force hurricane. My prayers are with them.
Will a little rain stop our painting? OF COURSE NOT!
Some of your best work can be accomplished during adverse weather. Let the limited sunlight and gloomy colors challenge you to reach a better level as an artist. Here is a sketch I did Friday of a tree outside my work. I was on my lunch, so I only had 30 minutes to complete.
For this sketch I had my travel Winsor and Newton watercolor kit, black micron pens, and my hard cover sketchbook. For my technique, I like to draw the subject first with the micron pen and then add watercolors later. You can do it any way you wish.
This sketch is of a tree outside my work. You may think the orange is the evidence of autumn, but it is not. I thought so too, but upon closer examination, the color you see is beetle damage:
Here is the work of a very bad beetle. The top is an actual leaf I taped in my sketchbook and the bottom is a slightly larger watercolor version.
Fascinatingly beautiful but devastatingly destructive.
I love this shot of the sun peaking through the trees on the trail. This is the yellow trail. We started on black, followed the brown trail and looped around the yellow trail back to Horsetrail Lake.
We didn’t find a ton of large rocks, but this one uncovered a few species. Here you can see 2 bugs, 1 spider, and a tiny snail thing. Look real hard. The interesting thing was, I was expecting to find more on the ground, but they were all clinging to the rock!
Here is a close up of Mr. Spider and Mr. Bug. I will put you guys back where you belong! I hope you weren’t too scared when you saw this big human disrupt your afternoon nap!
Here is a group of very happy campers, enjoying the end of summer with a treck though the woods on their lovely horses. I count 4 visible horse tails and 7 actual horses.
