Sketching in Nature is Back!!

I am so delighted that Echo Point Books has brought my Sketching in Nature back into print!  It was originally from the Sierra Club, and I had an absolute ball writing and illustrating it in 1990, working with one of the best editors ever, Jim Cohee (actually, on that book and on Painting in Nature, also in the que to be republished!) 

In 2005, I was asked to speak on sketching in nature to the first International Sierra Club gathering, in San Francisco, an amazing experience.  (It was also the first time Joseph and I were able to take a trip together--or rather meet up in that iconic city--heaven.)

As usual, I walked right into the ocean, clothes and all...PRIMAL!!

Imagine my shock...along with many other authors, photographers, and editors...when Sierra Club suddenly got out of the publishing business!  The book languished, out of print, for some time, and although I had a few author's copies I was able to share with people, it was just gone except for aftermarket sellers.

Now it's out in brand new, crisp, beautiful form, and I'm stunned at what Echo Point was able to do...the cover is different, of course, but the book is intact, just as it was, all 230 pages!

The book covers almost everything, from the very basics of composition, format, and lighting, exploring tools and mediums, to field sketching and a whole chapter in sketching in color, including colored pencil, watercolor pencils, and watercolor, as well as working on toned paper. (Upcoming Painting in Nature has many more mediums included, so watch for it!)

Format and composition...

Choosing a subject and deciding how you'll depict it...

Suggesting form and volume with values...

Using a round brush...

Using a variety of tools, in fact...this is the pencil page, with examples of marks

A variety of color pages...

Loved the color wheel exercise I set for myself...

A whole scene in watercolor, from planning to finish...

Or focusing on a single tree...

A chapter on field sketching is one of my favorites...the how, when, and why of it...

Maine tidewater and bird life...,

Working on toned paper is almost like sculpting!

Learning to observe when field sketching...

Capturing a biosystem...

Observing and sketching birds and other creatures...

And the table of contents....LOTS covered in this dense, heavy book!

Can you tell I'm really excited to have it available again?? Grateful, too.  Sketching in Nature is on Amazon, as well as a number of other sites!

**Amazon link is here, added by request: CLICK

Down by the River...happily sketching!

Finally, a cool morning and off to the river for some quality time...I had plenty of time to think and dream and just BE.  This is my small Noodler's Creaper pen with DeAtramentis Fog Grey ink...

Not really wild if you're wearing shoes, but the new rubber sandals allowed me to wade on the gravel and sharp rocks...I call it a compromised win!  I felt like a kid, though...

The light was magical...

Joseph heads off downriver to fish--I actually outlasted him for once.  He walked home, I drove when I was ready...

No idea how this got turned up on end...I like to think a particularly hungry raccoon was looking for shellfish...

Driftwood shapes...you'll recognizes these last two in my sketch!

Ripples catch my eye...

Green July peace...

Day 16, re-wilding...life, and death, and the eternal cycles

"Missing people in our lives are like wounds we reopen with our thoughts." - Hunted, The Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne ...and so it may be.

That is often true for me, in a life of change and loss--and finding again. But it's a normal and necessary part of life, and we get through it.

There is beauty in all the cycles of life and death; in nature, in the forest, this is especially so.  We have a plethora of these lacy leaves here, and I can't resist picking them up to study and use as prints and stencils and collage.

But still I do love that Nature will repopulate, heal, restore itself--if allowed to.  I am most blest when I can help in some small way in that process; it is a cycle that nourishes and heals me as well.

The Smallwood reclaims the ancestral forest that once covered this land--and I protect and aid it when I can, picking up litter, discouraging invasive plants, rejoicing in the burgeoning life, exploring the forest floor.

The air smells of the fertile green Earth--as well as the cycle of decay that makes possible a NEW cycle of life.  Leaves fall to earth, decompose, and become rich, life-sustaining humus.  When trees die, colonies of lichen and moss and fungus grow on their recumbent forms, breaking down the cellulose in trunk and limb.  The slow combustion of decay returns them to earth as well.

Just a few short days ago these little mushrooms looked like this...

They are among the quickest to return to the earth, with the aid of insect larva, moisture, and time...

Even the bones of deer and fish and small animals provide sustenance...I see the toothmarks of rodents searching for the minerals in the bleaching bones.  Eventually those minerals return to the soil to nourish new life.

Some indigenous cultures believe that vultures carry the souls of the dead back to Creator; huge black shadows swim through the sunlit leaf canopy as they circle above the trees, and I smile to greet my own departed loved ones.  Parents, sister, cousins, friends...I wish you peace and joy.

Rain and Being...Day 6

I've talked about feeling scattered and rather unfocused...that's part of what this 31-day discipline is about.  Finding my OWN way, staying aware. 

"Let your focus be gentle, not forced.  Enjoy it, drink it in, pay attention...but a quiet, accepting, flowing attention.  No need to push in any way...let it happen and gently notice when it does.  Let it unfold, allow it to reveal itself to you."

That was the sense of guidance I got on the 6th day...and so, I did.  The rain fell straight down in sheets that obscured Siloam Mountain...I caught it in my hands, and tasted it, and washed my face in soft freshness, just because.  My gratitudes were many and heartfelt...

My succulents remind me that we all need different things...these lovely, varied plants thrive in dry conditions, and so I had to move them back from the edge of the porch to allow them time to dissipate some of that moisture from the splashing rain!

Although it was rather hot and sticky, by afternoon, I decided to go with my husband to the lake after all; he would fish, and I would explore...but I chose to drop him off and explore the other end of the lake, which was uncharacteristically deserted.

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Rocky Hollow evening, alone on the east side of the lake...and much cooler than I expected.  A pair of green herons ply the shallow water at the inlet end, and a kingfisher startles me with his rattling flight and loud voice, diving after his prey and darting away to perch on an uprooted tree.  Later, a great blue heron joins the fishing party...

I've always complained about the debris that ends up in the lake, like this big tire...however, the green heron found it the perfect perch from which to fish!  Adaptable serendipity...the water is so shallow on that end that the tire was resting in the mud.

As always I am fascinated with bits of weathered wood that tells a myriad stories...I see so many shapes there...

I can see my husband, off in the distance across the calm, mirror-like water...there is no one but me on this end of the lake and the quiet is palpable and comforting.

I've drawn this tree half a dozen times in a variety of seasons...graceful and enduring.

I wonder who lives beneath that rock...

A huge fish swims slowly in the shallows, his fin protruding from the water like a shark's...and of course he is NOT, but I enjoyed the fantasy.  Don't go in the water!

On Being...Day 5

The day after Independence Day...and checking the smallholding for debris, I find this huge cardboard tube smelling of gunpowder and blackened on the end.  I am grateful it's been so damp; it was a year for noise and and flaming wads shooting through the neighborhood, knocking me sideways off my chosen path of peaceful inner journeying.

Loud, unexpected, dangerous, illegal and inconsiderate noise tends to make me cranky as a bear just out of hibernation!

But...the day after is quiet and peaceful and I am beyond grateful...and paying attention.

What do the stones teach me this hot, super-humid day? To hold onto the cool of night as long as possible. To touch the earth.  Even to sweat--and I would not have noticed them had it not been for the debris. 

And had I not noticed the sweating stones by my doorstep, catching and reflecting tree and sky--and me--I would never have seen the patterned, scalloped bone, like infinitesimal fish scales, nor graceful calligraphic lines like an angel's wings...

These are turtle bones, or fish, or bird, or deer...they once contained and supported life; they still sustain the intricate beauty of the miniature, the Plan writ small.

And best of all in learning all this from the stones in Hotei's garden, I rediscover the eyes of a child, delighting in tiny, beautiful miracles of design that God leaves in our path.

"Look!  Look at this!  And this, and this..."


Infinite, worlds within worlds.

It had not rained for two days...this was condensation between the cool earth and the thick, humid air.

Ornate and beautiful turtle bones...

I see a fossilized mermaid's tail, what do you perceive here? (And yes, it's also a turtle bone of some sort, old and weathered...)

The mint is lovely and lush...spearmint is my favorite, tasting of summer...

Peppermint is bold and spicy and a remedy for many ills...

I didn't see the tiny grasshopper till I looked at the photo full size...I've always been drawn to tiny things.

A gift from the garden...a volunteer squash.  We are letting nature surprise us, this year, cheek by jowl with our own planted vegetables.  So far, it's Nature 6, Garden not-so-much, which may speak to us about the concept of allowing.

May the Creator grant the eyes of a child to us all...

A day of remembering, paying attention, listening, looking...Being There, Day 4

On a day when many people go on big family or neighborhood picnics, attend events, rip up and down the lake on speedboats, celebrate Independence Day with light shows and noise, we opted for quiet, hungered for it, immersed ourselves in it.

It was glorious...

...for the most part!

I'd been meaning to draw the other odd bone I'd found near the lake...I see so many fae faces in it, depending on how I look at it.  Isn't that often the case?  I see how artists like Brian Froud might find inspiration here, I certainly do.

Three fae faces in this single artifact...the bottom one looked vaguely porcine to me!  I turned it right side up, and upside down, and there were more each time I looked.
Can you see them?  I know there are probably more still...but the fae often hide if you look at them straight on.

I'd forgotten how much I like sketching with my vintage Sheaffer pen...responsive lines are such a pleasure.

Alas, I seem to have lost the knack of making a flower chain...this is much stemmier than I remember!  Tighter knots perhaps?  Closer to the end?

I knew how, once upon a childhood morning...

Small, slow lives play out beside our own...he was very beautiful and a bit shy. retracting those stalk-like eyes if I startled him.  Perhaps he imagined I couldn't see him if he couldn't see me...so I tried hard not to startle him!

Tiny forests of moss colonize the rocks and make their living beneath our feet.  Reading Robin Wall Kimmerer's Gathering Moss recently, I was amazed again at the complexity of these miniature landscapes, and long for my magnifying glass.

An entirely different kind of moss...this one with a wee spotted beetle I didn't even see at first, till I enlarged the photo...

Tryst Falls was noisy with the raw power of recent flood...but that's the kind of noise that is more energizing than exhausting.

Later, we went to the lake expecting holiday crowds and not planning to stay long...we were delightfully surprised to find only a few of our fellows out soaking up the firework-free quiet.  The loudest noise this late evening was the soft plashing of his paddles and the conversations of geese as they prepared for the coming night.

The recent hard rains exposed more of the  mess left last week by the people with the water balloon party...these were half stuck in the huge mud wallow they left.  

Joseph asked why I felt it was my job to pick thim up (this from the guy who picks up trash and monofiliment on his walks and fishing!)...but it is my job because it is a privilege to restore harmony and beauty, as much as I am able.  (That is not to imply I don't grumble and mutter dire imprecations on their heads, of course!)

I am just sad that no one has taught that reality to so many...this is the only Earth we have.  As they say, there IS no Planet B.

But order and peace restored, I got in one more quick sketch of the lake, and soaked in the welcome quiet.