Tag: night

Last Night

Last Night

Several weeks ago the fierce, hot east winds (aka Santanas, Santa Anas) came through and the neighborhood over the hill went up in flames with over 320 structures lost. Now we expect the same situation for the next few days – dry, windy, low humidity. I used to love the wind, but now I fear it.

For days we have had sunshine and no rain, few if any clouds in the sky. Day and night are clear with a gentle breeze. Last night, though, the fog came in. Not a pea-souper fog, but enough to leave water droplets on Inky’s fur after her evening walk, and chill enough this morning to feel the damp in my bones. I always like how fog and mist distort and blur the world around me, so last night I decided to take out the little Canon G7X camera to see what I could get.

We have a cinder block wall surrounding our house, and as we sit on a corner, we really have rather nice views up and down the streets in the neighborhood. The top of the wall is flat and stable, so I used it to hold the camera in place, focus in and out for composition, and then pushed down the exposure button and held it there to keep the camera steady. I got a few shots, but this one is my favorite.

Strange Nocturne

This was going to be a nice beachy scene with a white house and rocky coastline . . . but things got out of hand. First, a part of me blames the paper – it is student grade and did not seem up to the task of a lot of large swaths of wet washes. Next, I got frustrated. And I was hungry. And getting quite annoyed. So, I just grabbed stuff and sort of scribbled on it – take that, you nasty painting! Anyway, this is the result, and while it is certainly no beauty, it makes me remember I do want to do some nocturnes – night paintings, night colors. How can that be done?!

Rainy Night

I’ve always loved pen and watercolor drawings, long before urban sketching became connected with it. The ink here is some of my homemade iron gall ink, waterproof and dark once dried. On top of that, opaque pan watercolors I picked up at a little store in Decorah, Iowa, this summer. The paper is 100% cotton Bee paper – nothing great, not expensive, but fun to use and responsive to both ink and color. Illustrations like this are fun because they aren’t “serious” – I get to play, practice, explore. Not a bad way to spend some time before lunch.