A Little Garden

Over the past several years a small group of us have met at a picnic table in a local park on Mondays to draw – “Art in the Park.”

I haven’t been in several months because, you know, life gets in the way. Yesterday I went. It was a warm, cloudless day, soft breeze, and a beautiful fall morning. With me came a new sketchbook, a bound Strathmore art journal of tan paper for mixed media. Along with an ink pen, my iPad, and a small easel, I sketched this from a photo from Pixabay.

Ink on tan toned paper, 8.5 x 11 inches.

A Road Through

The desert seems to be sitting on my doorstep these last several days. Temperatures have been close to 100F, the humidity uncomfortable, and I am spending too much time indoors avoiding the heat. As I have had little time of late for me and what I want to do, I decided to pull out my neglected watercolors. And paint heat! The Ironwood Forest National Monument seemed to be the perfect choice. It’s hot but also full of saguaros and rugged mountains and a delicate light . . . .

Watercolor, Arches Rough 140#, 10×14.

South Toward Cannon Beach

South Toward Cannon Beach

Earlier this month a friend and I flew up to Eugene, OR, and spent about 5 days exploring Eugene itself as well as the Oregon coastline. I took a lot of photos but only now am taking a bit of time to edit them and post them.

The Oregon coast is known for its sea stacks, as is the coastline further north into Washington and Canada. Some are quite small, others are rather dramatic, such as the one known as the “Haystack” because of its domelike appearance. It’s visible on the far left of the ocean’s horizon line, faint and lost in the atmospheric haze.

I took this picture, merged from two photos, looking southward from Ecola using my G7X, a great point-and-shoot camera I use a lot for traveling. Being a Canon, it doesn’t have the rich colors of Nikon (my opinion, but many agree), but it caught the overcast qualities of the coast beautifully.