I finished this piece yesterday (actually I have a few places to tweak, like the interfaces between the car and the background). I’m really pleased with it. It’s like a little window into a moment in time, capturing the feeling of living in the town of Wellesley (and hopefully many other places as well!). There were many challenges to the drawing – the color changes in the sky, the trees in silhouette, the wet pavement reflections, the taillights on the SUV – all things I have never drawn before!
I’m back from a week of warm weather in Tobago. We stayed in an inn on a very quaint bay called Speyside, very quiet and undeveloped. But don’t try telling that to the birds! Ruddy Turnstones are shorebirds, and I’ve never seen them behave quite like they did at this inn. First they would terrorize breakfast eaters, as caught below on camera. Then after a full meal, they would bath in the guests footbath, and then drop off for a short nap in the sand. Of course, they had to be back at work for the lunch crowd!
I’ve had another full week of work on this drawing, and I really like the way the hard lines of the SUV give contrast to the wispiness of the clouds. And does anyone notice anything unusual about the license plate? This drawing is about 12 x 8 inches in size. I’m off for vacation in a couple of days, so there won’t be an update for a while, but you can think of me down in Tobago, walking the beaches, looking for tropical birds and scuba diving. I can’t recall ever being so eager for a winter break as I am this year!
As I mentioned in a previous post, I am in the process of doing a landscape about Wellesley for the Wellesley Society of Artists 75th Anniversary Exhibition this spring. The first piece I started was a fall view of Rockridge Pond, colored pencil on Colourfix paper. I abandoned the drawing after two days of work, finding the paper too rough to achieve the delicate layering and shadowing of autumn foliage. You can see that drawing below.
The drawing I’m currently doing for this show is a view of the sunset over Route 16/Washington Street. Everyone who lives around here knows how frustrating it is to be stuck in traffic on Rte. 16, trying to get somewhere on time, only to watch the clock tick away as your tires aren’t moving. (In fact, I’ll bet almost every town has a main thoroughfare like it!) I actually set out that day to photograph the town hall or Wellesley Library, but this shot really caught my eye and imagination. It’s colored pencil on Rtistx 320 board, and I find that I can get much finer detail with this than the aforementioned paper.
How sweet is this? Artist friend Lynda Schumacher from Michigan rescued a brown creeper that had injured itself on the side of her house last week. She went outside and found this barely conscious bird on the ground. Taking it indoors and holding it in her hands for ten minutes, the bird slowly came to life and suddenly switched into an “I’m ready to fly in the world mode”. (Lynda, feel free to add anything I may have missed!)
