Mirror Lake with Water Lilies charcoal

This is my 2nd try. It was so nice to get out and sketch this morning after months of not sketching because I moved. My art supplies are some of the last things I’m unpacking.

I went over to Norfolk Botanical Garden thinking I wanted to draw the beautiful bronze figure, but I had a look at the lake first and it was so bright and beautiful in the sun. I said to myself, that statue will be the same all year, let me sketch this before  frost  wipes out the water lilies.

Now I have to unpack a box of canvases because tomorrow I’m going back to start a painting.

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Daylilies / charcoal

This is my 2nd try sketching daylilies. I think it came out better than the drawing from last week, so next time I’m going to take my pastels and do them in color. They say the heat and humidity will ease up in a couple days. That will make it easier for me to concentrate longer.

These flowers are a bright peachy pink! So bright! So pretty!

They change every day and even in a couple hours are moving to follow the sun, so I won’t be able to use this sketch. Some of the flowers I drew today will be wilted and some new buds will be opening.

I got a mosquito bite. I’m their favorite flavor, O+

canna and coleus / charcoal

The canna is yellow (the tall stalk like plants) and the coleus is dark blackish red (the shorter plants in the fore ground).

I had a look at the lotuses standing in the sun and decided to find some flowers where I could sit in the shade to draw. It’s not as hot as yesterday, but sweat was still dripping off my hair after walking slowly around the garden. After cooling off on a shaded bench for a while I was ok to draw. And there was a little breeze that was nice. I haven’t been out to draw for a while and I enjoyed it very much.

A lady I know liked this sketch and asked me if I was going to do something with it. I told her I’ll just put it on my blog. Sometimes I do a lot of charcoal sketches before I get something that I want to paint.

The thing I enjoy about drawing and painting in plein air is not in knocking out a painting in a few hours, it’s hanging around in a beautiful place for as many days as I feel like being there. In fact, the painting is secondary in my mind. I’m so thankful I’m not on some kind of art treadmill where I’m under pressure to do fast unfinished paintings for some arbitrary time limit rule some person made up. That would destroy the zen like experience of it. And one of my main reasons for not fitting into the art scene. I don’t care if fast unfinished paintings are in style. I don’t care if all the other plein air painters out there take hundreds of photos then trace their best one onto a canvas and go back and hurry fill it in like it was a coloring book. I don’t have to do that.

I’m not interested in taking a class to see if I can paint fast. I’m not interested in taking a drug to make me keep painting all day either, because a drug is the only way I could ever get that kind of energy. So, there you have it friends, apathy to the art world in a nutshell. hahahahahahhaha

Pitcher Plants / charcoal study and drawing story

The Pitcher Plants are my favorites in the garden! I’ll never get tired of drawing them.

I’m planning to do a painting with 3 plants and call it “The Trio”. I got inspired by a Rembrandt by that name.

This particular Rembrandt was on loan to the VMFA last year with 2 others. They are small paintings. He did his Trio painting of singers. It was so great to see it!  So I got a sketch started of Rembrandt’s Trio in graphite standing in front of it in the museum.. In fact, I had it to myself. I STOLE Rembrandts composition! hahahahahah I don’t see what’s wrong with stealing something great from the masters if you can do it. But then, the 2nd time I went back to steal a little better from Rembrandt, a guard did actually tell me to stop drawing. Drawing wasn’t allowed.  I probably can’t show you my sketch of Rembrandt’s Trio. I know photography isn’t allowed in all the exhibits, but drawing?  oh well, I got the inspiration. I studied the Rembrandt for hours too.

I’m pretty sure Rembrandt did charcoal studies before he did a painting. This is my 2nd try on a sketch for my Trio painting. The 1st sketch didn’t work.

In a Union Trench / charcoal and chalk

Cold Harbor Battlefield in Feb.

People stop and talk to me when I go out to draw and paint in plein air.  One guy reminded me that the Richmond Battlefield National Park at Cold Harbor is only a small part of the  line of battle. They have a great map with lights in the visitor center showing troupe movements. It was complicated.

When I walked the trail through the Union trench one day , I thought the shadows looked good to show the walls of the trench at 2:00.  At noon there’s a shadow going the long way down the trench.

It’s a narrow path through there so I didn’t take my easel in because I didn’t want to block someone else walking through.  Sometimes an artist has to hold the sketchbook in one hand  to draw and not use an easel. You get used to it.