What Will I Draw Today?

In the past few weeks I've been building a database of all my sketchbooks. I'm currently cataloging my books from 2020. I record the starting and ending dates, elapsed days and notable events or ideas that occurred to me and were recorded in a specific book.

So far, I've processed 152 sketchbooks starting in the year 2000. Five more years to go to get up to this year. Because I'm a completist, I'll go back and record the 20-30 books that I have from before 2000. And the database evolves as I work through things so that will mean going back through everything at some point soon to get all the records to a similar level of detail.

And this made me think about this date, December 8th and what natural observance I made on it in the past few years, 2020 to 2024. I wonder what I'll see and draw today?

12-08-20-mergansers02

12-08-21-geese

12-08-22-hawks02

12-08-23-cattails01

12-08-24-yellowhouse

 

Turkeys

02-03-19-turkeys
charcoal

11-06-25-turkeys
charcoal, wash

"In the Woods" poems by David Elliott
Candlewick Press, 2020

 

Autumn Colors

I leave my studio in the early morning with the bare minimum of art supplies* in my hands and pockets. But Nature throws a spectacularly colorful New England autumn at me. I do my best and try to be inventive yet strategic in my drawing and painting.

*most materials are obvious but by "crayon" I mean oil pastel, china marker or water soluble Neocolor crayons.

10-08-25-island
pastel, crayon, charcoal on colored paper

10-14-25-bridge
pastel, charcoal on colored paper

10-15-25-heron
crayon, pastel, ink, charcoal

10-16-25-mallow02
ink, crayon, charcoal

10-20-25-mallow
pastel, crayon, ink, charcoal

10-31-25-oak
pastel, crayon, ink, charcoal

11-01-25-bridge
charcoal, ink, pastel on colored paper

11-03-25-island01
mixed media

11-04-25-island
crayon

Arches

Pleasant Street crosses over the Charles River on Eliot Bridge. I see it every day and I've drawn it frequently over the years. Everything about it is familiar and still challenging to draw. The Pleasant Street Bridge, also known as Eliot Bridge, is a historic dry-laid masonry arch bridge with four spans, each 25 feet long. It is listed in the Massachusetts inventory of historic places and stands as one of the few stone bridges on the Charles River that has retained its original form.

01-20-25-arch
pastel

06-14-17-arch
ink

07-01-15-arch
charcoal, ink, wash

08-10-14-arch
charcoal

08-16-16-arch
pencil, ink wash

09-14-20-arch
crayon, oil pastel

11-03-14-arch
pencil

04-06-24-bridge
charcoal, ink wash

04-15-25-ducks01

 

A Pop of Color

10-02-25-dam
pastel, ink

10-01-25-mallows
pastel, oil pastel, crayon

 

10-03-25-water
ink, pastel

09-13-25-geese
charcoal, ink, crayon

09-23-25-pickerelweed
oil pastel, pastel, ink

09-06-25-mallows
pastel, ink

The Night Heron & the Snapping Turtle

A few weeks ago, I spotted an immature night heron just below the bridge perched on the boulders. The river is low. Mallards paddled by and the osprey flew overhead. In some ways it's an unremarkable bird but I see them very rarely so I got excited.

09-05-25-nightheron

 

09-07-25-turtle

Two days later, in the rain, a saw a large snapping turtle which had been hit by a car but was still alive and trekking away from harm to a creek a hundred or more yards away. I was saddened by this and called The Turtle Rescue League who were able to find the beast and bring it to safety in their rehab center.

09-08-25b

I continued to think about the two animals and started to incorporate them into my "Angry Birds" series of drawings. Here are a few Angry Birds drawings. They are where I process my pessimism about politics and the world in general. The birds are trying to tell us to get active and be thoughtful and caring of each other and Nature. I like it when my nature drawings done outside find a way to join my studio work.

02-01-25b

01-04-25a

01-07-25a

02-03-25c

09-11-25b

09-19-25b

Mammals

 Besides a few birds which seem to, increasingly, animate my drawings at the river and elsewhere, I try to capture the sleek and fleeting realities of furry creatures I see "down by the River Charles" and closer to home. They live enigmatic, urgent and beautiful lives. Please give them some space as you move through the world. They are, after all, family.

09-15-25-weasel

08-03-25-deer

07-21-25-bunny

07-11-25-rabbit

02-16-25-coyotes

03-12-25-chipmunk

04-16-25-squirrel

Color and Landscape: update

"Color and Landscape"
Dec. 2024, 67 pages, paperback, $18.00
buy your copy

From the introduction:
"The images in this book exist at the meeting of drawing and painting. Both are entwined in the depiction of natural objects and natural phenomena in space."

Here are a few works from this summer that continue the theme of Color & Landscape:

05-17-25-south_salem01
pastel, crayon

07-11-25-heron
charcoal, pastel

08-03-25-deer
crayon, ink

08-07-25-swans-geese
crayon, ink

08-08-25-heron
oil pastel, ink

08-09-25-island
oil pastel, ink