Soaking Wet and Annoyed

Oh so wet!  Rain drips off his beak off his feathers, off the mossy branch and off the twigs.  He (a sharp-shinned hawk) is perched in our front yard, hoping to catch sight of a meal.  All the lucky birds have disappeared.

This shape-shinned hawk was a regular visitor to my yard in December.  Sometimes I sketched him though the front window, and sometimes I eased the bathroom window open and could sketch without any glass between us.  I haven't seen him for a couple of weeks .... good for my yard birds.

He reminds me of an owl .... lots of head bobbing when he is hunting.  Such a treat to be so close to a relaxed, wild hawk.

Deck Decor, Revisited

So who says you have to stop working on a page!  I noticed the box elder seeds yesterday, and added them to the decor...

Winter wild flowers

I haven't been doing a lot of nature sketching recently having been rather busy with the 75 day challenge set by Brenda Swenson.  I chose to draw my collection of pottery as winter seemed a good time to be working indoors.  I have also started posting my 2012 nature journal on my own blog Colours in the Briez: http://valeriejaneg.blogspot.fr  Do go and have a look to see a year in my garden.  The bouquet above I picked on the verge in my lane on Christmas Eve.

jellyfish on the beach - Australia

Gold Coast, Australia. I spent two days at the sunny Gold Coast in Queensland. (where it was much cooler than Sydney)


I had a few hours to myself at the end of the afternoon and went back to the beach specifically to draw. The first object was a bluebottle jellyfish.

I had particular interest in drawing this creature as I had been stung by one while swimming in the ocean that morning. It was not big, but had a large fine tentacle that wrapped around my legs. OUCH it stung ! That lasted about 15 minutes and then welts were there for a few hours. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_man_o'_war

When I returned to the beach later in the day to draw, there were signs up at the patrolled beaches warning of Marine Stingers in the water.
Studying and drawing the jellyfish was fascinating – the blue colour is so intense in some area - it is almost jewel-like.



I drew other things on the beach and then came across a bell or blubber jellyfish. These are the sort of jelly fish that I vaguely remember seeing on the beach as a child. However, none has been as perfectly formed as this one !!

I am not a beach person and did not grow up on the coast or have beach holidays. So this past few days was an education and an adventure !

Deck Decor

The squirrels and birds have been decorating my deck with bits and pieces of what they're feeding on--lots of tree buds and hackberry fruits, it appears!

Oranges On The Tree Branch

Oranges On The Tree Branch, a photo by Teri DC on Flickr.

This is the view right outside our door.
Done in ink with watercolor for the oranges on handmade paper. That paper with all its inclusions is so perfect for this kind of sketch.
I chose to do just a branch as it comes up from the trunk. And just had to write a haiku.
Delicious oranges!

Dandelion Clocks - Warm Week and Buds Breaking

Dandelion Clocks - Warm Week and Buds Breaking, a photo by linfrye on Flickr.

8" x 12" Watercolor
Arches 140#CP

Amazing to think that here it is early January and already there is a slight haze to the woodlands as buds begin to swell in anticipation of 'Spring'! I noticed yesterday that even our dainty dogwoods have swollen their flower buds ....And my Prunus mumi (apricot) and an 'late winter bloomer' is showing a bit of pink on some of the branches.... sigh. The weather forecas for the next few weeks is for warming temperatures, as high as 50F and 60F most of this week, though the evening temperatures still fall below freezing. The spring ephemerals - dandelion, chickweed, henbit and other early spring flowers that take advantage of sunlight through the bare trees, are now breaking ground -- Very crazy weather and seemingly far too early in the season.

Last year the USDA changed our plant hardiness zone from 7b to 7a ... indicating that our temperatures have warmed significantly over a long enough period of time to warrant the change. This means that those plants that once were consider too 'tender' to be planted where I live, now have a much better chance of survival .. and my choice for plant varieties have increased for cold tolerant plants and have become more 'iffy' for those plants that don't like too much heat.

For me as a utilitarian gardener, it means that instead of beginning my spring garden in March -- I can now begin weeks earlier in February .... geez ... where is the winter??

But like all else weatherwise, predictions are not necessarily fact, and I can still hope for snow before I plant the spring lettuces. At least I can hope ...

Lin Frye
North Carolina

Wild Rose Poster

This is an ink line drawing of a wild rose I did this past summer. I was camping at Carp Lake in northern Canada. I drew this in my tent while waiting out a thunder and lightening storm. There were wild roses everywhere and I had wished I'd brought my paints , seems it was their peek blooming time.

This particular Wild Rose is Rosa acicularis, one of my favourite wild flowers to collect and draw.
I  cleaned up the background and formatted the drawing into a poster in Photoshop Elements.

Also just re-launched my blog it is now www.lauraashtonartist.blogspot.com please stop by if you have a chance.

From the window of my kitchen...

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM ITALY!!!

Sketching Nature...outdoors and in!

I'd always heard that gray squirrels and fox squirrels wouldn't share territory...ours sort of do, but not necessarily happily!  What did surprise me was that the smaller gray was the victor.

And even though Norman is now an indoor fish, I find watching and sketching him still fits my definition of nature as it interacts with man.  Most interesting!