Steady Progress

A house finch declare that he's ready for the breeding season to start

Old snowbanks begin to loosen their grip

daylily shoots in a sunny spot

me, sketching trees near the river

Sleepy Swan

The view through one of the bridge's arches reveals a swan resting on a small ice shelf
Feb. 27, 2015

I returned this morning and the swan was over on the sunny side
March 7, 2015

detail

The Ibis

The dam
colored pencil
2/1/2015

The weather has not been cooperating lately. We are under the lash and it's troubling. I miss these expansive moments of the river's white noise and my contemplative focus. Also, various projects have stacked up; moments spent on one task is time stolen from another. There are moments where dealing with the necessities of life are the most clear and rewarding: shoveling snow, cooking and other domestic chores, doing laundry… Even writing is a form of procrastination.

Such is life and it will change. Projects will be completed. And through it all I still hear ducks overhead and see life at the bird feeder. The snow piles up in last year's nests and interesting animal tracks are seen in the snow. These creatures who share their lives without calculation, illuminate a path for me.

I worked in my studio this morning (like all my mornings) and considered my reason to draw outdoors: to attend and be gently surprised and reminded of the basics of Life beyond my small intelligence. And this picture emerged:

two ibises in Old Egypt (detail)

2/6/2015
mixed media

It's not such a good painting but the sentiment is true for me: the imbalance between what the Egyptian feels about the Ibis and what the Ibis feels about the Egyptian. It brings me some peace in this very troubled world.
Bonne journée mes amis.

1 - 2 - 3

Sacred Heart Church
charcoal
25 January 2015

Pleasant Street Bridge
ink, charcoal, lithographic tusche
25 January 2015

Pleasant Street Bridge
charcoal, ink
25 January 2015

We had a few inches of fresh snow yesterday. A blizzard is on the way tomorrow night. But today was brilliant blue and white and not too cold so I was able to get in these three drawings in my morning rounds before we went to church.

Sometimes I get tired of drawing and I wonder when things will dry up and I have to figure out what to draw next. I need to be interested in what I'm doing. Sometimes my attention or pleasure wanes but so far, nothing to actually stop the motif from calling to me.

But those gaps, those "writer's blocks" are perversely essential and need to be endured. Then I burrow in deeper or approach things from a different angle or hold the pencil in my toes left-handed, whatever. Just keep the dialogue going whatever the cost.

Freezing Time

In a peaceful forest, as I drew/painted a tree, my ink and brush were freezing. It was 8º F (-13 C). Luckily, the ink in the bottle wasn't freezing so I could daub away merrily, like Matisse on a sunny Summer day!

I'd taken a walk into town for coffee and to work on a couple of books. The path goes through forest and around a frozen lake. It was beautiful (and very cold!). But my mind kept tripping over photographs I'd seen earlier of a man being pushed off a minaret to his death.

The man doing the hurling/pushing, the executioner, wore a mask over his face. Why a mask? Why masks on the Kouachi brothers? God sees past the mask right? Are the killers afraid of men? Is it to spare the populace so they won't see the truth that one of their own has just murdered one of their own? Maybe a mask makes the soldier braver. My head spins and twists at the insanity of killing like this.

I almost went down to the river this afternoon just to get away from my imagination for a little while. I just wanted the white noise and the needs of the drawing in front of me. And my freezing fingers and the urgency and clarity of the moment. The moment that drowns out the crazy world and replaces it with the simple fact of my consciousness struggling peacefully with itself and Creation. AND NOT HURTING ANYONE!

The Sparrow

Sparrow
ink, crayon
11-30-14

Patience is a gloveless drawing of complicated tangled branches in the cold sunlight until a sparrow alights and sings a fragment of its song and then flies away.

Below are a few more drawings of small birds.

Yellow Warbler

herons and a dead finch

a baby wren

Robin on its nest

The Hawk

This morning, high above in a leafless walnut tree, a red tailed hawk contemplated the meaning of Thanksgiving. The sky was a deep gray, covered in a low, thick blanket of sullen wintery clouds. No ducks. The swan has left. The heron is indisposed. Even the sparrows are gone off, perhaps to that feeder in my back yard which delights and torments my house-bound cats. So the hawk looked on. His feathers all fluffed up keeping it warm. It flew off as I was absorbed with my final sketch. Do wild animals say "Thank you?"

It started to sprinkle rain which will turn to snow tonight. I walked home and put a few more yard things away for the coming season and took out a few snow shovels to keep nearby.  I also filled the bird feeders. I love their cheeping and chattering. Cheep!

Red Tailed Hawk
charcoal
11-26-14

Red Tailed Hawk
charcoal, burnt siena
11-26-14

Red Tailed Hawk
charcoal, burnt siena
11-26-14

Icicles!

First icicles
colored pencil
11/20/14

Choppy water
paint stick, oil pastel
11/21/14

Say Hello…

tree reflections
charcoal
11-19-2014

It's quite cold and windy today. I made this uncomplicated drawing in 15-20 minutes with gloves on.
I'm trying to face the fact that winter is here. Yeah. I'll offer to take his coat and hang it up and we'll settle in for a few months of discomfort, quietude and icy beauty. The river will continue to flow even when it is covered with ice. Perhaps the ducks will find an ice shelf near the island to shelter from the wind and sleet. Maybe one reason we have winter and why I don't mind it so much is that it whets my appetite for spring —which is only five months away :-0

Ducks on the ice

Ice forming above the dam

Winter encampment

Flowers will bloom again!

Looking for Spring

This is the winter with no end. But there are tantalizing glimpses here and there of warmer weather. I've seen flocks of robins for weeks. Last week I saw my first red-wing blackbirds and grackles. Great Blue Herons are fishing wherever they can find open water. Crocuses, tulips and day lilies are elbowing their way up into the sunshine. The sap is flowing!

It was sunny and Spring-like last Sunday so I gathered my sketchbook, put some pencils in my pocket and biked a few miles to Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary. I had "spring fever." It looked like Spring but it felt like Winter: I wish I'd brought gloves! By the end of the excursion my fingers were stiff and had to be pried off the bike's handlebars. I made two drawings (how to choose from a the myriad of motifs??). The first one (below) is of an old beech tree grove. I added a bit of color to it the following morning. 

Beech Grove, Broadmoor March 23, 2014
crayon, watercolor

The added watercolor on the right helps the forms emerge from the confusion of the drawing

Stream with beaver dam, Broadmoor 3/23/2014
charcoal, watercolor

original drawing on left. I added some watercolor washes the following day (on right) 

This drawing (above) was done where a stream flows out of a pond that a beaver dam have created. I love moving water! It's hard to draw however. I need a system I suppose. Paradoxically, my ineptness pleases me and forces me to observe and take note of what's in front of me and also what inside of me is resisting the active process of really Seeing. It's a problem I live with. Fortunately, a little touch of watercolor can help clarify the tangle of lines and smudges.

Getting Caught Up

It must have been a warm day on February 2nd because I stopped and drew the cows at the neighboring farm. One cow was focused on getting the last particle of food from a black rubber bucket that appeared to be stuck on its head. And now, over a month later we are experiencing another warm day: the birds are singing like mad and we set the clocks ahead tomorrow and ponder that Summer is not some abstract concept.

But this winter has been unremittingly cold and onerous. The last month more onerous than the month before. But like a pernicious patch of weeds that we rip up in a righteous fit, what will be left when Winter is gone? Will we get a delicate and soothing Spring or will we hurtle into a Summer of see-sawing extremes with new pernicious greenery, biting bugs and hungry slugs? And where, has timelessness gone to? How do we suspend the moments when we're so focused on trends? We don't live in fear of the weather. We live in fear of climate. The senses reel at their own confusion and powerlessness in the face of abstract and frightening speculation and prediction. We have lost our innocence but maybe a few art-filled moments of observation and wonder can sew a patch on our frayed selves.

I will try to love what I can of it and draw and draw and draw… till the cows come home.

studies of some cows. One is eating from a bucket.
02-02-14

Bitter cold morning, the trees are coated with rime, mist. I saw a Bufflehead duck
02-11-14

02-23-14
The sun is casting shadows across the swirling foam below the dam

02-23-14
View upstream; the river is encased in ice.

02-27-14
This drawing done from inside my car. I'm tired of winter!

03-02-14
Last Sunday morning: a view downstream from atop the Pleasant Street Bridge. 

03-03-14
Trembling reflections; drawn with a big blue child's crayon

03-07-14
Glowing hoarfrost and Icy skirts on the island's rocky shore

You can't put your hand in the same river (or season) twice.

Under Ice

The island
02-01-2014
charcoal, wash

The delicate fringes of ice around the island indicate the gradually falling water level. The ice is lacy, placenta-like, like a jellyfish sinking and rising in warmer waters. Beneath these thin icy skirts percolate dark watery blobs where the flowing waves touch the ice.

I think how good it would be to take a film and just focus on the mesmerizing blobs (like a Lava Lamp!) but I haven't the technology. And, the world is full of so many stimuli that could be more accurately presented as motion and light. But I'm a draftsman and I draw things and freeze the moments. A drawing is only one of an infinite number of perceived moments. The pictures are like the dark blobs forever flowing downstream.
I wonder how many millions of gallons of moments have flowed between the banks of my mind…

River Views

01-07-14
A quick cold view of the island below the dam

01-12-14
another view from farther away. The dam is on the right and the river flows down from the right.

01-16-14
The ice covered river above the dam. A curious swan motors up to investigate.