Red cliffs in Springdale, Utah

Attempting to catch the color, vertical rock lines and horizontal bands of sandstone. A mere suggestion of what I saw, but at least I tried.

There is some blue pencil for the sky here, but too light to show in the scan.

Photography stepped in for most of the rest of the trip!

Pen, pencil, w/c on Moleskine w/c paper.

Moab area, famous rock formations

Drawing on the move through Utah's canyon parks. I did these on index cards with graphite, added some colored pencil afterward.

Just to catch the sense of the moment at Landscape Arch and Balancing Rock.

slightly different angle

Same third-floor view, slightly different angle and emphasis.

That black line is a distant road.

Charcoal pencil in the Paper Blanks journal.

Kripalu landscape

The view south, from a third floor window.

Snow and a frozen lake in the Berkshires, Mass.

charcoal pencil in the lined Paper Blanks journal.

a familiar site in Kansas

The wheat came from a stamp, then I painted over and through it.

Acrylic in a Raffine sketchbook.

over there, a new project

A big dumpster means a house remodeling project. A view from my window.

Pencil in the Handbook journal.

road on Loon Mountain

For the new year, may your road go up, in spite of snow, ice, and bare trees.

Eventually we'll find Spring again.

W/c on site, but from inside where it was warm, 140# w/c paper.

Happy 2012!

Perkins Cove, after a month off

A variety of things kept me from scanning and posting for a whole month, but after six years and three months of regular postings here, I decided taking a little vacation from the scanning/posting side was due.

The main thing is, I never stopped drawing, doodling, stamping, painting, gluing and making.

Tthe start of the Marginal Way in Perkins Cove is in the distance to the left. A gorgeous day in Ogunquit, Maine, at the end of September.

Pencil on 140# paper.

imagining the coast

Pen and w/c in the journal. A scene similar to what's on the Ogunquit shoreline.

playing with flow

An abstract landscape of the mind, I guess.

w/c on 140# paper.

two blue pots

Another view out a door, not quite accurate beyond the green ivy-covered ground.

W/c in the journal.

Water in the woods

Coming through the woods, I found this perfect little stream and culvert.

Drawn on site, painted later.

backyard landscape

The woods, rock, rhodo, and if you look closely, even a gray squirrel.

W/c and ink in a Robert Bateman sketchbook.

jack in the pulpit

The green bulb in the center is the seed head. I drew this from a low chair and it came out as though from a faerie perspective.

Ink, painted in with watered-down acrylics. In the journal.

grasses out of control

I can't decide if the lefthand streaks are grasses or ghostly trees. They're too golden to be of a burned forest.

Or perhaps the perspective is that of a frog's, peering out of the water's edge.

Markmaking practice, again. W/c on good paper.

more than grasses

So after yesterday's piece, I started with the idea of near grasses against distant mountains. Playing with making marks again, using a sponge for the dark brown.

W/c in the Aquabee sketchbook.

abstract grasses

The plan was an abstract, but I turned it into a sort of stream with grasses. Mostly I was just making marks with the brush, a half-inch flat.

W/c on good paper.

graphite painting

Scribbling tonal shapes with a Derwent 8B watersoluble pencil, then it became a landscape when I swished on water and imagination.

In the Reflexion sketchbook.

Vegas at 105 degrees

I did a watercolor interpretation of the mountain view from the ninth floor, working in air conditioned comfort.

In the Clester w/c sketchbook.

Outside Las Vegas

Last week while my blog was automatically posting, I was in Las Vegas touring the sights.

These are the mountains as seen from the ninth floor of the hotel, looking southwest.

Or should I say, as drawn. The clouds were moving and the light on the shapes was changing constantly.

Graphite on the hemp paper sold by Dick Blick. I got to explore an actual store there!