bye july

A view from the deck of the barn as the next downpour began.

If there was a single theme running through the month of July, it may have been sweat. So many thunderstorms and so much excessive heat. And even on the rainless days, and the occasional day of reasonable temps for July, the constant, enveloping, stultifying humidity. Like walking into a sauna. Like breathing through a steaming towel. Every single day, several times each day, sweat would literally run down my face as I walked slowly through the paddocks, drip into my eyes as I leaned to pick up an empty feed pan, and saturate my hair before I returned to the house, threw my wet jeans and shirt into the dryer for a few minutes, and blotted my hair with a towel.

If this sounds like a lot of whining, I'm sorry - I don't feel that way about it. It's just been my reality. And the goats' reality as well. With added mosquitoes. I try to provide a high quality of life for all the animals, and there's no way around it: July has been rough. 

I feel so much concern for the people in other places who are desperate for rain. For people from places that are literally on fire. Again. Situations that are totally beyond our control, and which affect our lives in very real ways.

I think people generally become accustomed to the rhythms and range of weather patterns in a place where they have lived for a long time, and do their best to prepare for expected events and even occasional extreme events - hurricanes in my neck of the woods, for example. Maybe there's an unusually dry summer which raises the threat of fire. Or maybe there's a huge storm that causes local flooding and washes out a road or bridge. But now it seems the extremes and "hundred-year" events just keep coming, on and on, one after another, year after year. Have the extremes become the norm?

Well. When I began writing, I had intended to simply post a few of my Daily Markmaking sketches from July, which was World Watercolor Month. But starting out with that first painting of rain through the trees kind of sent me off on a tangent. Yikes. 

I'll close with a few watercolors of trees without rain:

Here's hoping August will be kind to all of us.

~~~~~

recent markmaking

Roman glass

Owly eye

Pebble of the Day (twitter @GongFuPoet)

from one of vanGogh's pollarded trees

from (another) Harry Burton photograph
taken in Tutankhamun's tomb

Tiny ball of string.
Does everyone still have one of these in a drawer?

Rutabaga

Red maple in late stage of life.
I relate.

~~~~~

markmaking

 From -14F a few days ago to a forecast in the 40s later this week.

Maybe it will be nice weather for outdoor sketching.

I don't expect to see any leafy shrubs or poppies or sprouting crocus bulbs out there,

but there's always something to sketch.

~~~~~

pebbles of the day

 

A few Pebbles of the Day borrowed from twitter:

~~~~~

patience

 

One thing I am learning about watercolor, is that sometimes I must Let It Dry before doing more with it. This does not come naturally to me. But I am trying.

Here's a watercolor sketch based on one of Harry Burton's black and white images documenting Howard Carter's excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb, exactly one hundred years ago:

I did this a couple of nights ago and wanted to continue with it but if I had carried on right away, it would have turned into a muddy, scrubby mess. So, like a grown-up, like a grown-up who has made a great many muddy, scrubby messes, I put it aside to Let It Dry.

The following night, I moved on to Phase Two:

Maybe the trick is to have two sketches going on at the same time so there is always something immediate to work on? I don't know. But Magpie's recent comment about painting made me think about Daily Markmaking. For a photographer, I sure am having fun with markmaking.

~~~~~

wordless wednesday

~~~~~

thankful thursday

It was cold enough to keep the black flies at bay for a couple of hours this afternoon.

It was also sunny enough to be very pleasant indeed.

A perfect opportunity to do Daily Markmaking outdoors!

I had help.

I had an audience.

I had a critic.

I had a deep blue sky and bright clouds and buds on thousands of branches.

 Buds become leaves in the blink of an eye,

and soon I'll be looking up into a closed canopy of many greens.

What better time to sketch branches of the massive red oak I admire every day?

I focused on a small section of the tree,

and used one watercolor pencil and one waterbrush.

The result: Daily Markmaking 858

An hour like this is such a gift.

~~~~~

wordless friday

~~~~~

nearly wordless watercolor wednesday

Little bronze Apis Bull.
Egypt 26th Dynasty. ~664-525 BCE 

iris

archaeologist Ann Axtell Morris
(fanciful interpretation of field photograph)

dusk, at home

~~~~~

reaching for the light

A watercolor impression of Heliconia estherae

from a photograph by Axel Dalberg Poulsen, a tropical forest botanist studying

the taxonomy and evolution of gingers.

Heliconia estherae is now known in the wild in only two municipalities in Columbia; Dr. Poulsen's photograph was taken in the Singapore Botanic Gardens.

We may not be a tropical zone here in Massachusetts,

but the daylight is lengthening:

Do you ever use SunriseSunset.com to make a free calendar for your specific location? I often do, and since it is up to the user how many types of information are included, I ask for lots of things. The last one here - "Len" - is length of daylight.

~~~~~

tutankhamun tuesday

In one of those internet experiences where you start out looking for instructions on releasing the blade lock on a second-hand compound miter saw and an hour later find yourself engrossed in reading about medieval pastry-making, I came upon the digital archive of Howard Carter's excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb. This includes the documentary photographs taken by Howard Burton - hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of photographs.

I'm using some of them as models.

Here is last night's Daily Markmaking effort:

"Two-handled alabaster vase (of amphora type)"

Carter No.: 128.  Burton photograph: p0474

I'll provide this link to the Griffith Institute at the University of Oxford because it is a fabulous treasure trove of primary sources. Worth bookmarking for a day when one needs a little distraction while waiting for the supper to cook, the train to arrive, or democracy to rise, strengthened, from its own ashes. 

I cannot post today without expressing my heartfelt sympathy to readers in the UK.

We are all in it together, my friends.

~~~~~

watercolor pencils

before

during...........and after

So much fun!

~~~~~

beyond the zone

In choosing subjects for daily markmaking,

I sometimes deliberately stretch beyond my comfort zone.

By the way...

who knew there would ever be a markmaking comfort zone?

Life is full of surprises!

Anyway.

Last night was my first attempt at a bear.

With thanks to KB for sharing the video this youngster appeared in.

Readers, if you click the link, you'll see the bear climbing the tree
and "posing" for me within the first 10 seconds of the video.
But you'll want to watch the whole two minutes!

~~~~~

thankful thursday

Well, here it is August.
My, my, my.

What does that remind me of?

I know! It's another #drawingAugust!

A jar of corks without the jar, 2014

I couldn't remember when I first joined this informal twitterfest of shared artwork...

was it three years ago? four?...so I searched my own blog. (Very handy.)


It was 2014. Yikes! This will be my 6th year.


This post describes what Drawing August is about: fun and sharing and encouraging others and possibly even making artsy friends from around the world. Back in 2014 there was an actual sign-up list of participants. Each year the number has grown, and now a few people post reminders that August is coming up, and then it's just "try to do a drawing each day, and post a picture with the hashtag so everyone can see them all." In other words, an informal international event has become even more informal as it has grown larger - how often does that happen?

by the millstream with Piper, 2015

Each year I have had Very Good Company on my outdoor sketching adventures.

at the pond with Piper, 2016 (in progress)

I hope the heat, humidity, and biting bugs will lighten up

so Piper and I can head out to the woods this month.

At the pond with Piper, 2016 

For four years, my number of August drawings varied quite a bit.

I never made a full 31, and it didn't matter a bit.

It was still fun, and still interesting to see everyone else's work.

Missing the Sea, 2017

And then, January 2018 rolled around.

In a moment of optimism with no apparent foundation in reality,

I decided to attempt not one month of daily sketching, 

but one year of daily markmaking.

Iris, 2018

And to my astonishment, I did it. And am still doing it. Today was day #578.

Here's a thing I'm going to say to anyone who feels even a tiny urge to do #drawingAugust 2019:

if you do 10 or 12 sketches in a month,

you are bound to to be pleased with at least a few of them.

Which is a lovely feeling!

Why not give it a go?

I never imagined that the time spent sketching something - anything - every day

would become a peaceful harbor for my mind and spirit.

But there it is.

Moxie, 2018

I sometimes wonder if I post too many daily markmakings here on the blog,

and if you are getting tired of them.

I hope you haven't.

I hope you won't.

Because just as I am thankful for Jean Stevens,

the wonderful printmaker who encouraged me to give it a go in 2014,

and for the camaraderie of twitter's #drawingAugust folk,

I am thankful for you, my blog readers, who have responded so kindly

through comments or emails or even mail with a stamp.

Thank you. So much.

~~~~~

spiderwort wednesday

~~~~~

saturday scarlet

The first bee balm is just beginning to bloom!

~~~~~