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.

Painting Outdoors

©2012 Carolyn A Pappas, Outdoor Watercolor Sketch. Watercolor in small watercolor moleskine.


I have a small confession to make. This is the first time that I have painted watercolor outdoors. In the past I have always done sketching in ink or pencil and then painted indoors later, or have looked out the window to paint. 


This little sketch doesn't seem like much, but it was really exhilarating for me. It was about seven o'clock in the evening and I sat on the back porch to paint this. There were dark clouds and the sun was filtering through, reflecting yellow light onto the water. 


The wind was blowing my stuff all over the place! I can't believe I waited this long to try painting outdoors and I can't wait until I get another chance.

At the water's edge

After I put my daughter down for bed yesterday, I sneaked outside and I sketched the grass and rocks at the edge of the water. It was just starting to get chilly and slightly dark when I went back inside.

 
©2012 Carolyn A Pappas, At the water's edge (6-17-2012). Graphite in sketchbook.

Sketching at Poet's Seat Tower

©2012 Carolyn A Pappas, 4/29/2012 outdoor sketching (Poet's Seat Panorama). Colored Pencil in large handbook sketchbook.

I did some sketching at Poet's Seat Tower (see this link to my blog for a photo and more info) yesterday using colored pencils. This is the highest point above the city of Greenfield so it offers a spectacular view (but lots of wind).

This is another experiment with sketching in color. I had a limited variety of colored pencils with me, which I selected because they were "natureish" colors. They were a good mix, although I will add a darker green for next time.

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.

Feeding the Green River

©2012 Carolyn A Pappas, Feeding the Green River. Pen and watercolor wash, 13.5 x 10 cm.

This is not a nature sketch, but I thought you would all like to see it anyway, so I'm posting it here. I would have loved to sketch this on location if possible, but it was situated right on the edge of a steep dirt road next to a winding river. I did this from a photo I snapped after Hurricane Irene, when the river and streams were especially high.

I sent this small piece along to Norway, for the Twitter Art Exhibit which is raising money for charity. It is worth checking out.

Some January Sketches

Here are some recent sketch experiments of the lake. The weather this winter has been very mild so far. From time to time the lake has started to form a skin of ice. It hasn't frozen solid though as we've had many days in the forties and even fifties. It snowed about two inches yesterday; a wet, slushy snow. This morning everything was blue and it was super foggy.

Tina Mammoser has done some nice abstract drawings of the (New) Jersey Shore. You should check them out.

Sketching the Lake

©2011 Carolyn A. Pappas, 12-15-11 Lake Sketch. Colored pencil in large handbook sketchbook.

I bought some Derwent Coloursoft pencils recently and I did some sketching of the lake yesterday to try them out. I had never used these pencils before but I can tell that they are my new favorites. I love their buttery texture. They also have a ton of muted, nature inspired colors that are great for nature sketching.

It was a rainy, windy and overall gray day. I really wanted to try out a lot of different colors though so I wasn't entirely accurate in my color choices.

Birds on the Lake

©2011 Carolyn A. Pappas, Birds on the Lake (9-12-11). Pen in large handbook sketchbook.

I was lucky enough to see some water birds when we were taking our last boat ride on the lake for the year. There is a family of three swans (two adults and one juvenile) that I've been noticing swimming around the lake. After doing some reading, I think these are mute swans because they have a knob on their forehead. At the bottom of the page, I sketched some ducks, which look like little blurs because they were moving so fast.

I also spotted a heron on the water's edge (lower right). This particular heron likes to walk along our shoreline and fish from our dock. Before we took the boat out of the water, I spotted it climbing onto the boat to fish! Even though he moves very slowly, I was still only able to make stick figure like sketches of it (see below).


©2011 Carolyn A. Pappas, Heron on the Move (9-13-11). Pen in large handbook sketchbook.

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.

Red Maple, and testing my new pen

©2011 Carolyn A. Pappas, 6/27/11 Nature Sketching (Red Maple). Noodler's Bulletproof Black ink in large watercolor moleskine.

Normally I go outside later in the day, but it was so beautiful out and the weather hasn't been the greatest lately so I took the opportunity to get out earlier in the morning. It has either been rainy or oppressively muggy, so a nice sunny, non-windy day is a welcome change. I also wanted to test my new Noodler's Flex Nib pen and see how I liked it on location for nature sketching (the main reason why I bought this pen).

I sketched this large maple tree, trying to get a sense of the texture of the bark. I am pretty sure this is a red maple (acer rubrum), although I can't claim to be an expert on tree identification. I already know a number of maple trees by sight so I figure this is a good place to start though.

The pen was great but the ink was very slow to dry and also not so waterproof in my watercolor moleskine. I waited about fifteen minutes to make sure the ink was really dry and I painted the watercolor wash indoors.

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.

Trees in the Snow - Carolyn A. Pappas

Perhaps one day I will get the proper gear and fortitude to do real outdoor nature sketching in the winter. Until then, I'm still looking out the window. Earlier today I took the opportunity to quickly paint some the trees and brush outside. It snowed about five inches or so, and has now switched over to the dreaded "winter mix."

Safe and Warm - Carolyn A. Pappas

This is the closest I'm coming to Nature today. I think She would try to kill me if I were to go outside right now! The snow is coming down about 2-3 inches per hour and the wind is about 35 mph. Luckily I don't have to worry about commuting anywhere.

In this sketch I was experimenting with some grayscale markers that I don't use too often. I thought it the perfect opportunity because it is so gray outside right now. Even the pine trees outside look like a weird dark gray, although it is pretty to see the snow swirling around in the wind.

Bird's Nest - Carolyn A. Pappas

This is an early morning (I was still a little groggy) sketch of an abandoned bird's nest that appears to made with unraveled cassette tape. We are leaving it up in the tree in case the birds can use it again next year, or take it apart and build something new. Plus, it looks kind of nice up there.

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.