Blot on the landscape

Indian ink and brush marker in Windsor and Newton sketchbook.


The plums are just beginning to form, green with a slight blush. Possum under the tree looked like a blot, so I thought I'd render her in indian ink. It had dried up a bit in my aquaflo brush pen, so I made a mess of the tree, but the dog looks, um, like a blot!

Waiting, tea

Sketching makes it easier not to focus on how time slows down when one waits. 

Brush marker in Windsor and Newton sketchbook.

Churchyard

Brush markers in Moleskine sketchbook.

Bloomsday

Brush markers and a touch of red pencil crayon in Windsor and Newton sketchbook.


16 June is Bloom's Day, if anyone's forgotten. Celebrating Leopold Bloom in Ulysses. If I'd have remembered on time, I'd have made a Dubliny, Joyce-y drawing today. Mind you, it's also the anniversary of the Soweto riots, which I remember well because I was still living in Johannesburg in 1976. But no... I choose to draw Possum resting on a huge bean bag. And other dogs and people seen in town while out shopping this morning. 

Soccer fever?

Brush markers in Moleskine sketchbook

Houses on the outskirts of the next village.

Driving towards the storm

Brush markers in Moleskine sketchbook

About to turn

Brush markers in small Moleskine sketchbook.

There is a tangle of leaves at the water's edge, bottom of the garden. We call this a stream, though ditch might describe it better. 

Turning

Brush markers in Moleskine sketchbook

The flowering seasons are so short! The beautiful, pink blossomed weigela is about to turn, so tried to capture the sense of its abundance on our deck before it disappears.

Rather pageantry than soccer

Ink pen, pencil and pencil crayon in Windsor and Newton sketchbook.

Scribbling while watching tv last night. Yup. It's true. No soccer. We started as we mean to continue!

Abstract expressionism of the shadow trees

Sunny again today. I sat under an apple tree to draw the silhouette of hanging branches of the ash tree at the bottom of the garden. No luck. Trees are the hardest thing - to know how to tell the wood from, and so on. How much detail in, how much out. Having wasted a few precious Moleskine pages, I noticed that the pages of the sketchbook itself were dappled and marked by the shadows of the swaying branches above me. I very quickly traced the movements the shadow trees were making on the sketchbook pages.

And then finally, I drew the branches again, this time under the influence of these shadow trees. Not much to write home about, but here it is!

All are brush markers in Moleskine sketchbook.