More from the garden

I can't seem to tear myself away from my garden these days. First, there's all that weeding and grooming to do, so there's a constant tug of obligation to yield to. But, much more fun is the equally compelling call to go out there and draw!
Here are a couple of recent sketches. More on my blog Laurelines.

My garden: May sketches

Where I live, May is the most glorious garden month. By summer, certainly by the end of June, the heat and frequent droughts we have here have turned out the lights in our gardens. Well, late September and October can be gorgeous, too, but we're not talking about them, are we :D.

I have posted a couple of other sketches from this series on my blog Laurelines.

Happy May to us all!

Pages from my new garden journal!

Not much time for art making this month, but time enough to document my newly redesigned gardens in my new garden journal. Here are some pages:

Another look at my windmill palm!

Hint: It won't be the last!

I am so enamored of this unlikely-for-these-parts tree that I've just added to my garden! It's a windmill palm, as I mentioned, and it's supposed to be cold hardy up to zero degrees F, so we shall see. It made it through this past very cold January and February, so I say kudos to it!

Gardens are nature, too!

Purists might object to garden sketches in such a forum as ours, but we ignore them. Don't we ? Quickly, before Kate can tell me not to, here are some recent sketches relating to my garden.

More birds! They're hungry!

The birds in these parts got a lot of attention this past weekend. Sketchers sketched them. Photographers photographed them. Everyone fed them. We were snowed in, what can I say?

Birdy calligraphics

I'm trying to develop a lightning quick drawing hand and eye---it's one of my art goals for 2010. To that end, I've been (loosely) following the precepts in David Rankin's Fast Sketching Techniques, and have applied them in these sketches of birds outside my windows. I was so taken with Kate's recent squirrel sketches that I wanted to add some of our local crew, haranguers at the bird feeder, to my own repertoire. Ahem. When you WANT squirrels to come to the bird feeder, do they come? No, they do not. Don't want them and they'll be there like wicked fairies at a christening.

NEWS FROM OUR MEMBERS--Laura Frankstone in Artful Blogging

Our own Laura Frankstone's wonderful blog is featured in the August 1 Artful Blogging magazine! Be sure to find it, and check out the particulars here on her blog, Laurelines. You'll see more of her nature sketches as well as some of the wonderful work that's come from her year-long focus on painting water--always a challenge, as I'm sure you know.

Congratulations on a well-deserved honor, Miss Laura...I can't wait to get my copy of the magazine.

And to our other correspondents, please keep me up on similar happenings in your lives and we'll share them here!

A bouquet of stars, July 22nd

July walk, early morning

Late to the party!

I'm ashamed to say that this post constitutes my first contribution to the group! To say that I've been otherwise engaged is an understatement. I am STILL otherwise engaged, but soon, soon, I hope to be able to go outside, in nature, like our dear Kate, and just draw to my little heart's content ;D.