Heidi

I love how you got the look of the feathers and the coloring on the head and wing. I also like how you captured the texture of the branches. I need to figure out how to do that.  It's beautiful!

My favorite experience happened after finishing the section on chiaroscuro and suddenly seeing highlights in objects, paintings, and photographs. It sounds like such a simple thing, but I had never really noticed it before. The same thing happened after finishing the section on mixing colors and suddenly noticing the nuance of colors in the everyday objects around me. I also loved drawing the song sparrow upside down and having it look like the actual picture I was copying. One of my most frustrating experiences was working on filling a sketch with color, attempting to erase a slight pencil mark where I wanted to place the eye of a bird, and smudging the still-wet section. Ugh. Lesson learned.  

My first experience with nature writing was when I started teaching high school English. It seems impossible, but I had never read Henry David Thoreau until I started teaching over 30 years ago. I taught American Lit to a bunch of 11th graders and eventually 10th graders when we shifted the curriculum. Don’t ask how I managed to miss this icon of nature writing during all of my schooling. I couldn’t tell you. But as I read passages from Walden for the first time, I was captivated by his links between the natural world, everyday life, and emotions. I started assigning photo essays to my students and eventually learned about the Walden Woods Thoreau Summer Institute. During that time, we read various books, essays, and poems from Walden to “Walking” to Cape Cod and beyond. I took students to the woods in town, and they observed, took pictures, and wrote. Some loved it; most students saw it as a way to get out of classes for the day, but all understood the importance of maintaining open spaces in their communities. Places where they could go to shake off a bad day, contemplate life, and listen to the world of the woods. I started seeking out more writers.  I enjoy reading David Gessner and Mary Oliver’s works and continue exploring various authors. Each writer brings a different part of the country to light. I especially love Mary Oliver’s essay “Owls,” published in Owls and Other Fantasies: “But the great horned I can’t imagine in any such proximity-- if one of those should touch me, it would touch the center of my life, and  I must fall. They are the pure wild hunters of our world.” Her words capture the essence of a being so beautiful and powerful. Over the years, I have gone into Hopedale Parklands, sat, listened, and written about my thoughts. It’s forced me to look at everything in nature differently. I see two trees emerging from a common stump and envision people buried upside down, only hips and legs protruding from the earth. I hear the wind move through the trees and know it’s the fall wind pulling at crisp leaves or the winter wind no longer buffered by them. I’m so glad the email for this class popped up unexpectedly in my inbox just as I was thinking about taking a beginner art class. After taking this class, I see light, reflection, and color in ways I hadn’t before.  It is another step closer to learning how to capture the essence of what I see and hear. Art is not my forte by any stretch, but I now understand better how to capture some images that I want to ponder more deeply in my writing.

Yes! Very frustrating! I thought it was me, and then I saw your entry.

As I go through these steps, I’m getting better at judging size and shape, but it is difficult to create white space when the outer lines of the wings are white. I was trying to refine a duck drawing, and the intricate wing patterns were extremely difficult to capture due to the mix of white, grey, and black feathers that crossed over layers of other feathers. It’s the detail that is frustrating to capture. I know that will take a lot of time and practice.

Although I find it tricky, it is definitely helpful when figuring out how to capture images on the page more accurately. The weather is not conducive to getting outside to do this in the field, so I am stuck with objects in the house for now. I’m hoping to get out tomorrow.  The easy part if getting the measurement at the top; the hard part is moving the pencil down to count out the size. This was tricky for a stationary object. I can’t imagine what it will be like with one that jumps around. In doing this assignment, I definitely found my observation skills improving. I drew walrus tusks that have been hanging on my wall for approximately 8 years and I never realized there were carvings on the sides before. If I get outside tomorrow, I will comment on the measurements of various subjects.

I think your springbok is impressive as are the others.

I love the beak study. I wish I could draw like your artist friend!

I'm definitely struggling with creating depth in the landscapes. Hopefully, that lesson will come soon:) I also realize I don't have a lot of patience for drawing lots of details. There are so many trees that made sketching very complex for my basic skills.

I can SEE how the skills can be applied, but I can't quite figure out how to get the ideas to work on the page. I tried to draw a grapefruit (that looks like a pomegranate) and could see the light and dark spaces. I also noticed how many little dots there are on a grapefruit I had never seen before. I used stippling to capture that effect and tried to use the highlight, light, and shadow to capture the light and dark. Although I feel more comfortable putting marks on the page, I have a long way to go.