Four Autumnal Drawings

The Cormorant
11-07-13
charcoal

One Mallard
10-27-13
charcoal

Reflections in still water
11-02-13
colored pencil

Reflections
11-06-13
charcoal

Water World

June 2, 2013

At the head of the island which is just below the dam, there is a small quiet space, a pool where the reflections of the grasses settle and shimmer. But the river races along on either side as if the right and left banks worry that they will be separated forever. Where they join at the downstream end of the island, you may spot mallards resting and dabbling in the calm eddies.
Does water have a memory? Eventually, the rivers and seas are the depositories of all our innocent and murderous launderings. They are the library and witness to the wine spilled, the blood dabbed from a child's knee, and the runoff of our too-green lawns, the hair and soap and waste and rainbow flecks from the sky. Does it also contain the frozen footprints that the ducks left in the ice last winter? Can it contain, like a paper envelope, my clandestine cat-like thoughts and ship them around the wet world? And that object, bobbing down the river… is that a letter for me? From, you? Marvelous!

Ice Land

Big dendritic ice crystals have started to form in the smooth water just above the dam.
01-03-13
charcoal

Below the dam, amid the turbulent water, a frilly pleated skirt of ice and icicles cling to the rocks and rock wall.
01-03-13
crayon

More Reflections

vernal pool, Broadmoor Audubon Sanctuary, 12-04-11
colored pencil, crayon

Lake Waban from the boathouse
crayon. charcoal 12-05-11

still water above the dam, drizzle starting to fall
12-06-11 crayon

Reflections

The Hunnewell Pinetum from Tupelo Point, Wellesley, MA
11-25-11
colored pencil

The South Natick Dam: Thanksgiving Day
11-24-11
colored pencil

Does anything ever stand still?

We have it all: Snow, ice, standing water!
3/7/11 wax crayon in sketchbook

A few days of warm weather have unleashed the frozen snow. The river is very full as it rushes dangerously over the dam.
3/7/11 wax crayon in sketchbook

These were drawn yesterday during a short respite of warm, rainy weather. I know it seems crazy and surely, I'm asking for too much but I hope that Spring is slow this year. I want to document it :)

Carrying water

…trying to render moving water

The moving river's surface is all chaos and dynamism yet there is also the reliable and soothing pattern of the waves. And what actually is the surface: a moving sea of watery dunes reflecting the world in odd angles, bangles and shredded shards? I keep looking for patterns to help me capture it. I often stop and realize that the river has been flowing here for millenia with no one to ponder its character. And I have formed a relationship with it. Does it look forward to my visits? My attention? My drunken mental meanderings?
À votre santé!

Brilliant and Bitter

Brilliant sun and bitter cold

"Spring is just around the corner" says the grim-faced coffee shop owner as I wipe the fog off my glasses and await my order of hot coffee. Whatever you say!
Good morning people! The sublimating snow is leaving fanciful lace-like spires and icicles. Sticks and stones are revealed like bones from a grotesque injury. We are half past the Hunger Moon and larger animals are very hungry now that winter is in its eleventh hour. But mockingbirds and robins have started to sing.
How can we be so grim when the sun shines so marvelously (although some would say mercilessly)?