Honey Locust

I picked these up on my walk- maybe near Shannon's- brought 'em home in my pocket to sketch later. Good drawing practice, and also good way to learn about the honey locust bean....

It is interesting how when they begin to turn dark in the fall, they do it abruptly, but in spots. So you have this pod that may be any degree of light green and or dark brown. So the light green recedes in a distinct line from end to end in an odd pattern across the surface of the pod.

2/8/17 Is the date. This was the second time and the pods were a consistent color. They have a characteristic shape whether laying on the table or hanging from the tree. This pod had been dark all winter.    

the cider makin'

Standing near the ne corner of the barn, this is the view I noticed.  You  may not have. But I was dodging tractors with wagons full of parents and kids taking a tour of the farmstead. Seems like a very attractive arrangement of angles and structures, with some activity in the background, where they were squeezing apple cider for everyone.

This ink drawing was done in September, not in October as I first said.  A view like this isn't hard to find around an old farm. It was done on part of sheet of the 9 x 12 inch pad I was carrying.

more from the hog roast

 The hog roast was a major event. Lots of food & fun for the kiddos and fellowship for the adults.     I got there after the activities were well under way, but there was plenty of food. Actually I was as interested in getting some sketching done as getting some food, but managed to do both before the sun was gone and everyone was pretty much gathered around the bonfires while the kids did marshmallows.

These sketches were actually from our first visit to the 'museum." It was a fall celebration, with corn shucking and cider making to boot. 
An artist should get more practice than I do working with people milling around making small talk and/or commenting on your work. Here are a four sketches done of stuff inside the barn, done while people were doing just that.   Much of this is a hundred years old I suppose. The Conestoga style wagon is fantastic, and although not in perfect shape, gives you a great sense of what it musta been like fording rivers and weathering storms rolling across the high plains 170 years ago.
This was done in a 9" x 12" pad, with pencil, ball point pen and a Sharpie.
I'll try to post one more from this set tomorrow.

Chapel bell

Here are a few sketches and drawings from a couple trips to the place where Justin and Stephanie are living. It is south of Eudora on the old place where Richard Knabe grew up. He has turned it in to a museum of sorts. It makes a great place to draw.

The little o'l church building came from just down the road and was moved to its current site on the Knabe place.  I guess the bell did not come with the church building according to Mr. Knabe. Whether it came from a local school building or not, I did not ask. 

There was a hog roast there this evening, and though no one could go with me I decided to make an appearance.  As I was walking up to the party I stopped and did this sketch before the sun got too low in the sky.  Then later I added the bell study below...

Then there is this sketch done on the October trip from the west side of the chapel.

Yup, this is just a quick one, so I could say I had some record of the "chapel".  Can't even find a signature; and the photograph is lousy.  It also shows the bell. 

When I walked into it there was a young couple (German Baptist?) sitting there singing an old classic hymn together a Capella. I had mixed emotions- like I was an intruder on one hand, and like I wanted to add some tenor to the mix on the other....                      

The ethereal nature of the drawing is nothing compared to the ethereal nature of the history of the places and people. Is this really all we have left?   A few museums, some ragtag equipment, a small stack of written memories, written histories?  Fortunately there is someone keeping records who is not limited by time, nor hampered by the distance of age.

This drawing was done in a larger format than the 5 x 9 that was used for the first one. 

languid "wort"

So here it was late in the season for Spiderwort. And this fella is begining to droop. But there were still blooms to be had. And even as they age, you can see their good breeding. They always have that classy look to them.
Maybe it applies across the board?...

This was pencil to begin with as you can see there is still a bloom below that did not get finished.

Common Spiderwort

And here is yet another spiderwort. Mid May, and late in their season.                                                    I believe this is actually the Common variety of spiderwort. There are others...  And they are pretty common in the prairie March to May. You might say that in spring that all your worts are showing!
Actually these two make me imagine a couple turkey vultures swooping low over the park. Except that -if this were in color -  the bright blue flower head would be a dead giveaway- ha!   No bald heads here. These flowers are very classy - the perfection of understatement. 
I should have yet one more spiderwort ink to post and then, finally, on to something else...

The spider and the fly

           

There was a spider sitting on the flower being kept company by a fly...                                                  Here we have more classic lines of the spiderwort. Can you see it on the upper left flower? The fly on the blade of grass was an added bonus.   Often while drawing plants in their natural setting, you will come up with a visitor or two.  These guys were not friendly toward each other.

This is another small drawing started in pencil on the spot and finished later with pen. You can see some of the pencil 

Spiderwort again

This "wort" definitely looks like a spider wouldn't you say?   But the charming blue blooms belie the name.     This one was done on the 9th of March this year.  These guys bloom very early in the spring, so it is always nice to see them show up.

Spiderwort pair

    

         These flowers, the Common Spiderwort I presume, are some of the most fun to draw. Look at the "impertinent angle" of the leaves - to steal a description from Patricia St. John.  They seem always to be heading off strongly in odd directions.  They have crisp lines that are nice to follow.
          They come as a reminder that spring is here!  The prairie over at the park had a bunch of these during those days. Memorial day was upon us.
          Seems like we went there one evening, and they were all closed up for the night.  So go during the day when they are a fantastic display of deep blue flowers showing up individually or in small groups wherever they may.
         

Mimi the doggie

Let's have a change of direction here.
              It is not easy to get this dog to hold still for a portrait. That is why I am so amazed that I was able to get this much....                                                                                                                                           There are plans to do more, but the dog will not quit running around.

Bromelsick studies

                                                                                                 

     This is the page I used to get me going on actually doing detail drawings of the house. That was after I had done the quick inks of the place at some distance when I first drove up. The idea of doing several quick sketches first is a very good idea and one I could use on a more regular basis. Usually I just dive into a complicated drawing with too much urgency and angst, and not enough observation.
    So here we have a detail of the chimney behind the apex of the roof.    We also have a detail of the old tie rod used to hold the building together, and its relationship to the window nearby with the stone between. You see these tie rod in many vintage stone structures around the country.  Some are seen in the old Lawrence Bible Chapel building at 10th & Kentucky.
    Next is a sketch done from the parking lot of a house across the street from the Murphy-                   Bromelsick place, which was still one that got me in the frame of mind to look, to pay attention.

Jeep 2-8-17

         

          It was a rainy day at the end of February. Stephanie was getting her driver's license renewed, and I had gone along. The place was full of people. I left her sitting as there was no room for me, and went out under the canopy and walked south to where this jeep was parked in the rain. I cut the session short a bit as the rain got to really pouring and splashing around my feet.
          Thought this would be a good post for a bit of a change.

northeast corner of M-B house.

                       

           Yup, another drawing from this corner of Hobbs Park.  This is the corner of the Murphy-Bromelsick house that used to have a wooden addition with a shed roof. That was before it was moved from Pennsylvania St.
           This is kinda my favorite corner of the house. I will post some more sketches, done on earlier trips- maybe even a watercolor if I can find it- of this corner. You talk about a variety of construction materials, this is it.
This ink drawing is a bit understated. I guess that's the way it ought'a be - put in the lines you need and leave all the rest out....

"Long-legged" Hydrant

             We pass this Mueller hydrant on a regular basis.
             It sits across from the entrance there to Prairie Park at the corner of 28th Terrace and Harper.
             It is a nice relationship between the tree, the pickup in the parking, and the hydrant sticking too high out of the ground giving extra sense of depth to everything. The hydrant is the oldest thing in the drawing if you think about it, except maybe for the dirt it sticks out'a.
            This  is one long-legged hydrant. That one drawing yesterday was a hydrant with a grand-daddy long legs.
            This drawing, maybe the more creative of this set, was done before any of the others. It is the one that inspired me to do some hydrant studies.
            This drawing still has a bit of pencil underneath, though not much of it shows now. Done in the 9 x12 inch pad I sometimes carry to the park .

Long-legs and hydrants

                     Here is another couple drawings I promised. These are the other type of hydrants you see in Lawrence. The Waterous castings hail from St. Paul. As you can imagine, in Minnesota you see little else, at least in the newer areas.                                                                                                                        It is done in pencil in a 9 x 12 inch format. The one below is pencil as well but 5 x 9" format
                     This top one I drew while listening to KU get beat at football on the 9th of September. I was sitting on an empty street east of our place. I was sitting on a chair across the street from the truck, with the truck door open and the radio blaring   Now KU is just getting beat at basketball...    
                             

              In the comments on "the Mueler" posted 10/17/17 I made a mistake.

              That one was a drawing done, well,  I am not really sure where. But the hydrant in both these drawings is the one sitting on Shannon's lot; and I remember the granddaddy longlegs walking over the top of it while I was drawing.  You can barely see him in the drawing, 'cause he's not moving!  

                   I will try to post yet another hydrant drawing tomorrow. My last such for awhile.

Murphy-Bromelsick porch

 The Murphy-Bromelsick house is a hodge-podge of early vernacular styles of wood, brick and stone dating from after the Civil War and the rebuilding of Lawrence.   A small brick 2 room, (maybe “hall and parlor” ?) style, there was a stone addition later. Before the structure was moved it had a small wood addition with a shed roof filling in the back corner.

I did not have long this particular day, so I settled in pretty quickly on this drawing of the north end of the porch rail. Does not show much of the actual structure, but the porch itself is very much like the early days.
This pencil drawing was finished up at home as pencil drawings often are. It was done in a 9x12" pad, but did not fill the whole page.

Here is a quote from historicmarkerproject.com about the house.
“The Murphy - Bromelsick house, relocated to this site in August 2000, is a product of the spirited rebuilding of Lawrence in the decade following the Quantrill massacre. It was constructed in stages between 1866 and 1869, at 909 Pennsylvania, almost 300 yards northwest of this site. Irish and German immigrants built and owned or occupied this structure until c. 1941.“

Mullein at Hobbs Park.

Mullein at Hobb's Park
      This stuff is very common but does not colonize heavily. It was imported from Europe in the 1700's, and well may have spread to eastern Kansas along with the settlers who came to places like Lawrence. The stuff growing next to the house at Hobb's Park is way more healthy than what you usually see growing in the country. For this ink drawing I was looking up at some of the spikes.  I suppose it is the city that maintains most of the stuff growing there, but I can't imagine them maintaining this patch of mullein. It was late in the season and most of the flowers were dried and the minuscule petals fallen. This patch is on the south side of the house as I approached, so I could not resist an ink drawing in the 9 x 12 inch pad that I had with me.
      As I was standing on the sidewalk around the house it was nearly evening and I was going to have to quit drawing soon and head home. Just then here comes a neighbor of the park area wanting to strike up a conversation. It was Mark Kaplan, the fellow who sorta “spear-headed” the project of moving the Murphy-Bromelsick house and using it as the center piece of a memorial of the Civil War, the Jay-hawkers, Quantrell's Raid, and the Abolitionist newspaper man John Speer.  Mr. Kaplan had no idea who I was or why I was there, but was glad to offer his take on the topic of Lawrence and its relationship to Civil War history, as well as to offer me any assistance I may need for whatever. I guess a friend of the old house is a friend of his.
       Although this park is in east Lawrence, in 1866 it was not east Lawrence, it was east of Lawrence; it was a cornfield in which Mr. Speer hid during Quantrell's Massacre.  Lawrence was a bustling little town of a couple thousand people.

M-B from the SW

                Another of the first sketches I did after arriving at the park one of those September days.  This one was after the “south elevation” drawing when I had walked a bit closer.
                This is probably the most descriptive angles on the house though it does not show the porch. It shows the brick and the stone in their symbiotic relationship, with a heavy emphasis on the stone, with the brick mostly obscured by a tree in full leaf.

Murphy-Bromelsick from the south

It was mid September when I made a couple quick runs up to Hobbs Park to do sketches primarily of the old house that sits on the north west corner of the park. The plan is over the next few days to post some of the work that came of those trips.  Some of the drawings have no date. Some barely have a signature. Makes it a bit hard to pinpoint when they were done. But in this case, there is both a date and a signature on the drawing. Such a sketching excursion doesn't take much planning, but it does take being ready with pencil and paper when there is a break in the schedule. 

Me thinks this was the first “inkie” I did after getting out of the truck. I was still a couple hundred feet from the building. This actually is the type of sketch I like to do when sipping down the highway. But it is not as easy to do when you are on your feet and not in a hurry to catch an image. So the idea this day was to calm down and from some distance fill a page or two with quick ink sketches that catch some of the character of the place.

This small drawing is only a few inches square. It was done with a gel pen in a 9 x 12 inch Canson Recycled Drawing pad.

Jerusalem Artichoke

Don't really know much 'bout these sunflowers. That is partly what prompted the drawing of some of 'em. They are a late bloomer, even later it seems than the most common of all, the Annual Sunflower. I had been wanting to see if I could tell the difference with my limited experience, so was glad when I found these guys in early September. The small central flower disc, the somewhat narrow, glossy leaves (compared to the Annual Sunflower) and the bloom time help in the id. The top of the leaves have a coarse feel to them. There are a number of flowers here ready to open, but only one fully open. Each individual bud, with its bracts and petals have a distinct character.

This drawing was done in 3 or 4 steps; steps that are not clearly defined:

1. Find something of interest. In this case it took only a walk through the wetlands while the late summer flowers were in bloom. Make sure I have some paper and a pen or pencil with me. More than once I have gotten some minutes from home when I realized I had nothing in my pocket to make any marks at all.
2. Do a basic sketch using a soft pencil. In this case it was the usual Pentel 0.9mm with B or even 2B lead.
3. At some point (later in the day or whenever) start adding ink to the drawing using a ball point pen. This time, as is often the case, it was the Zebra F-402 0.7mm with black ink.
4. Next I start at some point adding darker, bolder lines with a gel pen of some sort. Often a Bic Gelocity 0.7 black. Sometimes I use a larger black Sharpie for the larger, darker areas as well.

I suppose it would be a good idea to use inks and maybe even papers that are more permanent than some of these unproven, newer types. But the ease of acquisition, and the reliability of the function makes it difficult to return to the black markers that I have used in the past.

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