Pond Sketches

I was busy sketching the top cormorant at our local 'duck pond' when a second cormorant flew in, partially displacing the first.  I really like the gesture of the two of them together and wanted to capture it before things changed .... so I superimposed the two.  I like how it turned out, even though it was just a matter of grabbing the instant rather than a planned process.

and here is another from that day:

Weedy Overgrowth

Here are some recent sketches of weeds/brush that I've been doing in the mornings. I love sketching at this particular spot because it has a jungle like atmosphere with all the vines. I recently bought a new Lamy Safari fountain pen (EF nib) and filled it with the Lexington Gray ink that everybody loves. And I love it too!!! You can see more sketches that I've posted on my blog here and here.

©2013 Carolyn A Pappas, Weeds (6-26-13). Gray Ink in 6.5 x 9 inch sketchbook.


©2013 Carolyn A Pappas, Weeds (6-28-13). Gray Ink in 6.5 x 9 inch sketchbook.

January Morning Sketches

I've begun a habit recently of keeping a sketchbook in my car and doing a small 10-15 minute pen sketch before I go in for work in the mornings. I find that it helps to clear my head, and I enjoy looking at my sketches as they accumulate day after day.

Nature Sketching Project: pen and ink calendar

In an effort to complete more nature sketching, I decided to do a lot of little sketches instead of trying to sit outside for a few hours and do something really expansive (this is not possible for me anymore with a 1 year old). I turned my sketches into a hand drawn calendar for the upcoming year (flickr set: 2013 Pen Sketched Calendar).

Here are some samples, and you can see the rest on flickr:


Sedum. Pen and ink on 140 lb hotpress paper, apx 5 x 4 inches.


Chives and Dill. Pen and ink on 140 lb hotpress paper, apx 5 x 4 inches.

I spent about 10 minutes on each sketch and the subjects are various nature objects and vignettes from around my home in September and October. I now have the whole collection in my cubicle at work, which really brightens it up and brings a little bit of nature indoors. I have licensed it through Creative Commons with no restrictions, so you can print it off for yourself if you'd like.

Parking Lot Vines

The only nature sketching I've been privileged to do lately is sketching some overgrown brush and vines at the edge of a parking lot. I've sketched it a number of times already and these are my two favorite sketches. At first, I thought it would be a very mundane subject, but I've come to see now that there is more life there than meets the eye. Just the other day I saw a female cardinal hopping around.  
©2012 Carolyn A Pappas, 8-17-12 Nature Sketch. Pen and ink in 6 x 7.5 inch sketchbook.  
©2012 Carolyn A Pappas, 9-5-12 Nature Sketch. Pen and ink in 6 x 7.5 inch sketchbook.

Small Nature Objects

©2012 Carolyn A Pappas, Small Nature Objects. Ink and Colored Pencil in large handbook sketchbook.

A top of an acorn, a piece of bark with some lichen, and a pussy willow that I was lucky enough to come across. Normally, I've been sketching with just ink, but this time I added some colored pencil.

I have some exciting nature sketching excursions planned over the next few months. I am going to make an effort to add color of some sort to my sketches.

It's been pretty chilly here in Massachusetts, but I am excited that it is officially spring. I can't wait for the weather to warm up so I can spend some more time outdoors with my baby. She is almost five months old now.

Mother Nature At Work

©2011 Carolyn A. Pappas, 10-9-11 (Covered Bridge). Pen and ink in large handbook sketchbook.

Although I didn't have much to talk about after Hurricane Irene, I did get out to Greenfield, MA the next week and take some photos of the damage there. I was a bit rushed, however, and didn't get a chance to sketch anything until this past weekend. The whole area looks pretty much the same as it did then, although they did have earth moving equipment bringing in rocks to try to repair the riverbank. It's too bad that they are going to have to tear down the covered bridge.

The next day I went a few miles upriver and made another sketch. Here, the river looks more like it did before, except that it is wider now in most places. Sections of road were washed out and there is still some debris from a house that was carried off its foundation.


©2011 Carolyn A. Pappas, 10-10-11 (Green River). Pen and ink in large handbook sketchbook.

Ink Sketches on a Watershed Tour

5 October finds us on a bus tour of the north east section of the South Nation River, sketching in my journal when as we stop at various places. For eight years now, the South Nation Conservation [Authority] has replaced the old Fisheries Committee tour of fisheries projects with a generalized tour of their activities in some quarter of the South Nation drainage. This year it was the northeastern portion of the watershed, which we have seen the least of, and featured projects such as water source protection, manure treatment, bog flora in the Alfred Bog, forest management in LaRose Forest, and seining up Silversides at Jessups Falls Conservation Area.

Our first stop is an organic farm, where a fence was being built to keep cattle out of the creek. We are attended by a flock of companionable turkeys, which I sketch as the project is explained to our group.

When the bus arrives at the LaRose Forest pavillion so that we can hear presentations on forest management and native herbal lore, I decide to sit in the sun at the foot of a Red Pine to stay out of the chill wind, and Fred brings me a Lactarius chrysorhea mushroom. There are so many things to notice about it!

If you can read the notes on this page of my journal, you will see that the seining demonstration came up with a Brook Silversides - the first one found SNC staff in the main channel of the South Nation River! This huge fallen Willow tree reminds everyone of a dragon, and is a favorite vantage point for fisher people and for basking turtles. You can see the bridge in the distance on the right, just downstream of Jessups Falls, which isn't really a falls anymore, because it was blown up to let logs past in the 1800's.

This little Tamarack reminds me of the one I painted in Alfred Bog after our first daughter Elsa died in 1985. The raffling of that painting contributed to the funds that the Ottawa Field Naturalist Club needed to purchase and conserve the first portion of the bog. Now the whole central area is protected, and planning is going forward to preserve its water level from peripheral drainage.

Soft white tufts of Bog Cotton sedge wave above the little tree, and a wonderful diversity of bog plants rejoice all around it. I sit on the boardwalk to sketch as the tour walks past me, pointing out Pitcher plants and red-berried holly bushes, and our old friends Labrador Tea and Leatherleaf, and many others. The sun is warm on my back, and being low among the bog vegetation protects me from today's cool wind.


You can see more of my on-the-spot work on my blog as we continue our South Nation watershed project, "Art and Science in the Watershed"

Grasses, Sage and a Little News - Laura Gillis

I think I may have mentioned before how much I like the grasses... so, here are a couple of pages of grasses with a little sage thrown in there (‘cause I liked it a lot). These were all found in Mueller State Park, Colorado.

From left to right: Unidentified - this looked a lot like wheat but was different; Witchgrass,Panicum capillare; Letterman Needlegrass, Stipa lettermanii; Orchard Grass, Dactylis glomerata; Purple Reed Grass, Calamagrostis pinpurascens or Spike Trisetum, Trisetum spicatum; Fringed Brome Grass, Bromus (Bromopsis) ciliatus; and on the far right, the very fragrant and beautiful Arctic Sage, Artemisia arctica.

These are my best guesses on the names... adding to the challenge of identifying the grasses is the fact that it was late for most of these and the flowers and seeds were already gone. Sometime I would like to find a botany book that has photos or drawings of plants post flowering. So many books focus only on the flowers and if the flowers aren’t there, you are just out of luck.

This is the last of the Colorado vacation sketches. I will be back sketching Texas and maybe some more bugs now that we are back home.

I do have some exciting news about the bug sketches and sculptures though... Bob Phillips and a crew from the Texas Country Reporter show came to visit me yesterday and the bugs and I are going to be on an upcoming episode! (Most likely in December.) The crew came up and filmed me most of the day and Bob did the interview sitting in my workshop with me, the bugs and Shorty the dog. It was really exciting and I have a whole new appreciation for people who do that kind of thing. I was wiped out at the end of the day but I am anxious to see how it all turns out.

Pen & ink on hemp paper in the nature journal

Early Morning Sketching

©2011 Carolyn A. Pappas, 7-17-11 Nature Sketching (Wooded Area). Ink and watercolor in large watercolor moleskine.

We are in the middle of a heatwave here in New England. This makes life very uncomfortable, especially since a lot of homes don't have central air conditioning. I have been holed up indoors with the window a/c running or even going to the mall or the library to take advantage of their a/c. I am not particularly interested in going outside at all and nature sketching feels like an extreme sport, but I did manage to get outdoors early in the morning last weekend. At 6:30 am it was getting hot already, and the dew had even dried from the grass!

I normally don't sketch so early in the morning, but I must say that I liked it. There were no cars on the highway to make extra noise in the distance and all I could hear were the birds and the flies buzzing around. The birds were so loud I thought I was in an aviary, but unfortunately I didn't spot any. I set up my little stool near a section of woods where a sort of path has been cleared. The light created a nice dappling effect. I didn't set out to draw a scene exactly like what I was viewing, but I wanted to pick up on some of the details and try to capture the shapes and textures. Some things I noticed were the pine and maple saplings, lots of old leaves from last fall, broken twigs and small pieces of rotten wood. Little bits of blue sky were peeking out from behind the trees in the distance. Thankfully the mosquitoes weren't bothersome even though it was almost completely windless.

At the Edge of the Woods

©2011 Carolyn A. Pappas, 6-5-2011 Sketchbook Page (At the Edge of the Woods). Pen and marker in large handbook sketchbook.

I made this sketch at the edge of a patch of woods, so the leaves I sketched were a combination of lawn type weeds and typical underbrush that you would see in the woods. Even though it has been really hot here, the leaves still look "springlike" because they are all varying shades of green instead of the uniform green of summer. The ferns have all sprouted up and the dragonflies were out in full force.

You can also see some downed branches from the recent storms last week. The tornadoes did not come near my area, but we did still have severe thunderstorms. It is pretty remarkable for tornadoes to come through Massachusetts at all, and these were particularly destructive, carving a thirty-nine mile path across the southern part of the state from Westfield to Brimfield.

Rhododendron Blossom - Carolyn A Pappas

I sketched these white and light pink rhododendron blossoms this morning. I haven't seen that color recently as most of them around here are the dark pink/purple ones. The bumble bees were really loving them; there must have been ten of them buzzing around at one point.



©2011 Carolyn A. Pappas, Rhododendron Blossom. Black and sanguine Pitt pens in large handbook sketchbook.

Sketching While Trapped - Carolyn A. Pappas

The other day (Tuesday) I went out to the mall to do some after Christmas shopping with my mother. The mall was very busy, so much so that we were stopped in traffic for over one hour just waiting to leave. My mother (and a number of other people) actually called 911 to have the police come and direct traffic because some people were starting to get major road rage. Luckily I had my sketchbook with me and some pens, so I could at least do some sketching. I think it stopped me from having a full-on panic attack. I also love drawing trees in winter because you can really see their "bones" easily.

Stippled Clematis ~ Sigrid Frensen

I've been so busy lately with a lot of things. Most of them had nothing to do with botanical painting, drawing or gardening. A bad thing, although the other things had to be done too. Last week we had a week off. We went on holiday, away from home and all the things that still need to be done here. We went to museums, slept a lot, visited my parents in law and I celebrated my birthday. All in all another busy week. But this was fun.

I actually found some time to draw a bit again. It had been ages since I made my last pen and ink botanical and I really felt like doing one now. Another artist, Michael Murillo from the US, asked me if I would like to trade drawings. I saw a nude sketch he made and I was impressed. I really loved it. He wanted to give me that sketch and trade it for one of mine. I don't have a lot of sketches. At least I don't think they are worth a trade. So I thought this pen drawing could be nice for him if he liked it. He did. So I started dotting this amazing deep purple violet Clematis viticella 'Black Prince' from my mother's garden. It was so much fun and so relaxing to do. Yesterday I finished it and here's the result. I think I might stipple another drawing soon.