wash – Page 3 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

Waiting to be Planted

For the past several days I have had a lot of little gardening projects going on. I transplanted a number of seedlings into pots. I also started seeds. I have some seedlings I have sent on to a new home. This season I have vegetables already setting fruit, even it won’t mature for weeks, and seeds which are sprouting, and seeds I am waiting to sprout. Vegetables this year include winter (hard, yellow) squash, bush beans, radishes, lettuce, pepper of the hot variety, tomatoes, parsley and cilantro.

I also have a lot of flowers. These include hummingbird and butterfly mixes all thrown together in the front flower bed as well as foxglove, larkspur, polka dots (which I think are scabiosa or pincushion plants), carnations, nigella, Mexican sunflowers, Titan sunflowers (they can grow 12 feet tall with seed heads 24″ across!), and moonflowers. Herbs include the usual rosemary, sage, parsley, thyme, basil, but I have also added summer savory and a few Asian ones for variety. Mint and lemon balm and lemon verbena.

With all this work, there has been little time for sketching or painting. Thus I decided, much like my “Not Taken Vacation” that a sketchbook dedicated to this year’s gardening efforts would be fun to do. I have a fanfold Chinese calligraphy book I am using. It is a fanfold, so I can spread it out if I want to create a panorama, or use individual pages.

Above, just an individual page to get a sense of the paper. It is very soft and very absorbent, as well as a creamy color that is far from white, but not yellow. I figured my first foray into this documentation would be best served with a simple ink and watercolor drawing to see how the paper handled. Overall, I like it. The soft paper requires a bit more caution with the water, yet it does seem to handle it very well.

So, a few pony packs with seedling waiting for a home on my gardening table. My hand trowel is not well represented, but such is life! Meanwhile, I can enjoy the sweet smell of a freshly turned bit of earth and dream of flowers and garden produce.

In the Midst of Chaos . . .

Sketch!

These past few weeks have been crazy and the craziness continues until the end of May. Two more weeks. Visits hither and thither to do the things needing doing, none of which are especially exciting. Too many things to do means little time to really focus on anything except the easier stuff. So, ink and watercolor and quick sketches from past visits to Summerland and Malibu Creek State Park.

Summerland is a little community in Santa Barbara County, between Carpinteria and Montecito, both south of Santa Barbara. A number of old houses, clapboard, and new, climb up the hill east of the 101 and west, above the Pacific, is a park with a path to the beach below. I have always loved this area, and this section of the California coast is always a pleasure any time of year. The cliffs sequester beach-goers from civilization which can be gotten to readily. In the fog it is rather eerie, but in the sunshine or June Gloom, it is quite lovely.

Malibu Creek State Park holds a number of fond memories, one being with a very good friend on photo safaris. It is about 15 miles south of me, in a canyon which winds through the Santa Monica Mountains and into the coastal town of Malibu. The park is a bit of a treasure as Malibu Creek winds through it and the canyon widens and narrows and branches off in various areas.

The ruggedness of the California mountains always amazes me – as do mountains in general. I grew up in the Midwest farm country where gentle hills are the norm, as are trees and endless green in the summer.

The same for beaches – I never saw the ocean until we moved to New Jersey and my family went to the beach just weeks after a major hurricane. Beach houses were upside down and wrecked. I was terrified of the waves, but my father, having grown up in Fort Lauderdale, swam in and out of the crashing waves like a dolphin. The rest of the family built sand castles and waded in the shallows.

And now, on to a visit to the vet as the gardener arrives and I get the house decluttered so the cleaners can have an easy time. Yeah, gardener? Cleaners? I have no McMansion here, but these tasks would never get done by us if we ever want to have a life. Luxury for us so we can do other forms of drudgery!

And the weekend cannot arrive soon enough.

Memories of Spring, Thoughts of Summer

For me, lilies of the valley are spring flowers – late spring, for sure, but spring nonetheless. They are not native to California and certainly cannot survive the heat we get, but you can grow them in cool areas. Short-lived, they add a bit of beauty and mark the transition into summer.

Today is cool and grey – May Grey for California! – but it will warm up later on. The sun will come out inland – we live one valley in from the Pacific – but may not show itself along the coastline. Our spring has been wet and gloomy with bits of sunshine in between, but as we move toward summer, heat and watermelon and cold drinks come to mind. (Meanwhile, I am enjoying my hot morning coffee!)

Seasonal transitions – things to say goodbye to, things to welcome. I myself have been in a phase of transition, too. I am learning to play the ukulele, working on oil painting sewing, gardening. All of these take time away from blogging, which is rather nice, really. Still, the fact is that ink and watercolor, individually or together, always beckon, so before I even started the day, my sketchbook came out, colors and ink. It all makes for a good way to start the day, beating dishes and laundry and other housework by a good ten miles!

Between Appointments

When you get old, your job, once retired, is to support the medical industrial complex. Our tax dollars are to give us money so we can give them (MIC) money. It’s a really sound, capitalistic plan.

First visit: Dentist.

Second visit: Physical therapy for balance and ambulation to help prevent another broken arm.

Morning and afternoon appointments, with shopping in between. Not a lot of time in between, but enough to watch a video as I drank my coffee and did some ink and watercolor.

Not a really good one, but our trees have some fruit, and how can I not but enjoy the bright orange and greens, all clean and fresh after the rains?

And asparagus from the market. I really do like asparagus, to eat and to draw, and think it also makes a tasty cream soup.

Well, off to PT!

New Pen, New Ink

These past several days just seem to have been filled with stuff that needed doing, not necessarily things needed and wanted. Getting taxes done, going to the dentist, etc., are not my ideas of a Fun Life, but things Needing to be Done.

Despite duty, I have been putzing around. I realized that I don’t have a fountain pen and permanent ink for drawing any more as I lost a pen somewhere – which, no doubt, will soon be found as lost objects always are once replaced – and used up all my waterproof fountain pen ink. I now have a new drawing pen, a $17.00 job from Amazon with an extra fine point, and some of Platinum’s Carbon Ink, which is a long time favorite of mine for drawing. My Not Taken Vacation sketchbook was easily accessible, so off I went to the sunny patio to do some drawing. I used a few reference photos for ideas, and then began with ink and pen.

I chose to draw some snow drops in a vase, Pigeon Point Lighthouse here in California, a little cleft in the landscape, and a wintry farm somewhere. From there, my box of Schmincke pan watercolors, some water, and a brush. All this was sort of awkward as I have not done ink and wash for a bit, but it always feels so good to just sketch and paint, more so when it is out on a sunny patio on a beautiful spring day between last week’s rains and this weekend’s expected downpour.

I am quite pleased with my inexpensive fountain pen which came with the fillable screw adapter I prefer to cartridges, and coupled with the Carbon Ink, I think I have landed a rather happy combination for my drawing pleasure. Hopefully you like them, too!