Sketching on Kauai

Last month (May) I went with a friend to Kauai (the northernmost island of the Hawaiian Islands) to do some sketch/journaling. We rented a house on the north shore near Hanalei, and although we encountered a LOT of rain (we were marooned for three days due to the Hanalei River overflowing the road) I managed to get a lot of good sketches on the beach and in the back yard of the place where we stayed.

This sketch page shows the lovely purple pond lilies (NYMPHAEA) in the backyard pond (which overflowed leaving our rental car standing in 4" of water!) complete with one of the noisy bullfrogs, which are imports from the American South. Loving all the extra rain, and shifting into mating gear, they spent a great deal of energy keeping us awake at nights with their monstrous croaks.

The African Tulip Tree, Spathodea campanulata is rampant on Kauai, an absolutely beautiful tree which the Hawaiians are trying to eradicate because it grows and spreads like a weed. But it is truly beautiful. The pond lilies are likely imports, as well, but I'm not sure of that.

I'm putting these journal pages together with a tutorial on how/why I journaled each page, creating a downloadable version which I'll put on my sketch/journal webpage. I'll try to post more of these individual pages as I go along.

The tutorials take time, but they're fun, combining photos of the subject, the surroundings, ways to add interest to a page, etc. When I'm done, I have a nice little scrapbook of my vacation. So far I've finished five of them!

Irene Brady