Art and Oatmeal with Peaches and.....Caterpillars???

A small piece of paper with the number 3 written on it was  bestowed upon me for safe-keeping by the Lancaster Entomological and Butterfly Society. Within days I had 4 tiny dark-colored Imperial Moth caterpillars. Everyday I fed them and cleaned their container.

A breakfast only a naturalist can appreciate!

And, no, I did not eat the caterpillars. Just sketched them during breakfast. 

They eat White Pine needles. The container had a nice piney scent.

Part of my "Possum Patty's Sketch and Release Program." These guys are almost ready to dig down into the ground to pupate and overwinter, so I put them out into our stand of White Pines. Blessings and good luck!

More Butterflies: 

Nolde Forest Turtle Pond Event

Nolde Forest Environmental Education Center "Explore the Turtle Pond" event. Carol and I set up our nature journaling station to paint with the participants. They caught a bullfrog tadpole, several salamanders, and a green frog. All were successfully released back to the pond after they posed for their paintings. My frog looks very lumpy, doesn't he? 

Have you ever noticed how their eyes sparkle? I used twinkling H2Os, a gold sparkle pen, and a white Posca pen to put a bit of a shine on this frog.

More frogs and toads:

Kay's pet frozen fish...

Kay bought 3 goldfish for pets and to sketch in her lovely Chinese brush style, but sadly, they all met their demise within a day. So she froze them. This is the darkest one. Directions: Sketch before thawing occurs.

More fish:

Oh, Lookie here, see what I won!

Tom gave me the special "Blue Sticker Award for Best Tomatoes Sketched while Eating Oatmeal with Peaches".

Instead of not sketching on days that I have to leave the house early, I'm attempting to work faster while I eat. 

I'm using the Lamy again. Yes, I remembered that the ink will wash.

More tomatoes:

The Great Green Lull in August: Tree #137/10,000 Somewhere in the world it must be spring...

Currently, it's the Great Green August Lull. A time between the Summer Beauties and the Autumn Color Burst. Hottest August on record, ever, for this area. But somewhere in the world, right now, it must be spring. An art friend wanted to paint some Van Gogh inspired trees and she liked these with fruit blossoms (peach?). So we sat in the air conditioning and painted awhile. This is in my sketchbook. Note to self: If you close the book before the acrylic paint is THOROUGHLY dry, the pages WILL stick together. Ugh. Good thing I took this picture first!

More trees:

Urban Sketching in Boyertown... and Tree # 136

Samara and Andrew performing at Walnut Woods Retirement Living in Boyertown. Spent too much time sketching Samara - didn't have time to finish Andrew. Note: I did adjust Samara's skin tone when I got home. 

Egads! Buildings and people, people and buildings. I'll get the hang of it (Urban Sketching). At least there's lots of trees in the city.

Birch tree study done on N. Walnut Ave., Boyertown. Tree #136/10,000.

 Urban Sketch:

National Dog Day Friday August 26, 2016

I have a horse and a dozen (barn) cats but not a single canine, so I went to my friend Andee's house to sketch her pooch, Cody. He's very sweet.

LEARNING LANDSCAPES: a conversation with myself

                         

On my journaling journey, I experiment with supplies, try new techniques, leave my comfort zone when it comes to subject matter, and share the good and the bad with my art friends. Today, as part of the learning progress, I  am self- critiquing my Neversink Overlook landscape.

Urban Sketching in Boyertown... And Tree #135/10,000

So used to drawing organic shapes! Buildings and angles are hard to understand. But I gave it a go anyway. This is the Good Shepard Church in Boyertown, PA. The church was built around 1814 and the steeple was replaced by the clock tower about a 100 years later. Instead of tackling the whole building, I started with just the clock tower and one chimney. What a wuss. I probably should take Liz Steel's course on drawing buildings or at least practice, practice practice.

Gum Ran is a wonderful artist who puts up with my sketchbook antics while she masterfully executes watercolor paintings. The other day she actually said, "You're getting better!" 

Egads! Look at the angles on that tower!

Ahhh, saved by the trees on the side of the church. 

Interesting display of very old tombstones behind the church. I searched for information about them on the webber-net. All that I could discover was that a cemetery was "reduced" for the expansion of a bank and then again for some work done at the church.  The headstones are arranged in 5 double rows. The names on the monuments are barely or not at all readable and yet someone planted an American flag by one of them.

Tree #135/10,000.

More trees:

Who's been eating the Zinnias? Mystery solved...

What's on my mind? Well, someone asked me what could be eating their Zinnias. I just figured that it was a beetle of some sorts, but while keeping a close eye on the flowers outside my front window I spotted these culprits systematically laying bare each bloom petal by petal. 

It was hard to get a good photo through the window. This one's been cropped quite a bit. You can see the evidence in his bill: a pink Zinnia petal. I caught two males and one female red-handed or pink-petaled, as the case may be.

I sketched, inked and painted this page with Neocolor IIs while riding in the car last week. I convinced my husband that I was not painting but "coloring" with crayons. Remember the car has white leather seats.

The sketchy wiggly lines are due to the motion of the car. Coloring wasn't easy either. Before I could finish this Zinnia, I dropped the green Neocolor II under the seat and I couldn't retrieve it. It was a balancing act featuring journal, waterbrush, and crayons on a small pillow in my lap.

I love to sketch birds in action - something besides the "guidebook pose."

More birds: