Around the house and town

Here are a few stray scribbles from when we were sitting around, or whatever we were doing in Florida...

 Driving down I-95 toward Orlando

The pond behind the Kid's house in pencil.   

Only one alligator! I think...  

And Ruru and I saw many birds some I had maybe not seen before.  

Spoonbills, egrets, tir-colored herons, the wood stork you can see below, and some ducks as well. Ospreys are there year round I believe.

Similar view, done in ink. 

This morning sketch of the pond is actually mislabeled as Sandhill Terrace.  

They dredge the ponds to get enough sea shells (read dirt) to build up the place and put houses on it.  It is a great fishing hole right behind the house as some of the grandkids can attest.

   

I took a short walk down the sidewalk in the late evening.

 Headed around the lake to see this fella. Barefoot because of the sunburn...

I had neither my binoculars nor a sketchpad, as I remember, 

so this sketch was done later, back at the house.   

Then later, after googleing it, I scratched out the original guess, as you can see.

Palms

 Filled up this 5 x 9 page.  In Kansas you do not get a lot of practice drawing palm trees, so we were taking advantage of the time we had.

And this one with a little more variety

These 2 palms on the top right are maybe my favorite of this batch of sketches.

There are of course mostly palm trees of various ilk.  Some nice pines, and some the kids call "Fake real pine trees". Because they are real but look fake. I stuck mostly to the palms as you can see.

These were all done with a Sharpie extra fine point, which gives you no time to worry about a little mistake here and there...

Ocean Side, across the 2 rivers from Melbourne.  Boats, pelicans and pines.

the Surfin' Turtle

We took a drive one evening to "Beach side" just to get some ice cream at the Surfin' Turtle. It is THE place to get ice cream in the area.   This drawing is the view from under the canopy. The  really big box turtles are in a cage just beside the eating area. The pelicans are flying over heading down the beach which is just behind the umbrella and the flag. We are looking between two hotels sitting on the beach.

Sketches from the beach

Block House Beach

The last time I was at a beach actually prepared to swim was nearly 50 years prior to this.  But there we were on the beach on a blistering day trying to hide under the sun screen and umbrellas.  THAT did not work very well!  Well, so we got a bit brown (burned some might say) we also got some good time birding with the kids and sketching the scene there in east central Florida.  It was straight up noon, and a pretty active place. The brown pelicans were flying overhead and feeding just past the little surf. This was in June, so quite some time before the hurricane went past. They did avoid any serious damage in the immediate area of Melbourne I do believe.
                                                                           Pelicans & Grackles

 Pretty slick shelter the MGH's brought from GA.  Anchors in the sand quickly over a couple poles and it is ready to go, and windproof. The grackles were often very close. RuRu and I saw our first Black Skimmer, watching it feed is something you don't see in KS.

                                                            More from Block House Beach

Fun trying to catch a sketch of the Pelicans diving.  

It is only the last split second- a few feet above the water- that they pull their wings in tight.

To the beach...

Packing the cooler, crossing the river, and skirting the Air Force Base...Hence the name: Block House Beach.

I know, not much for sketches, huh, but you gotta figure that each sketch is merely preparation for the next one, right?

Brevard County Library

We had made a quick run to the county library so the kids could get some more reading material. While they poked around I had a chance to do this sketch of a little rocker sitting in the kids section. It was nice to have a different rocker to put my hand to. They offer a little different challenge as far as chairs go.  Cropped from a page with other scribbles on it as well, makes this image show every detail, every flaw...and a scrap of the other sketch sharing the page.

MCI

We were just on our way to Florida for the first visit ever. Here are a couple early sketches.

Priority Boarding:

The boarding area in KC was jammed with people waiting for a flight or 2 before us. But for a few minutes I had a seat next to Steph and while there watched the folk lined up for their flight. This was the sketch I did.  The people were a lot more dignified than this cartoon indicates; fortunately they did not see the results of my work.

Gate 43: 

We had just gotten through security at Kansas City International. We had another flight ahead of us and had about a half hour to kill. The place was jam packed with people, but I was pretty inconspicuous leaned against a pillar  doing this drawing while people were milling all around me.

Brown-eyed Susan

8 am. Prairie Park. Brown-eyed Susan.  At this south end of the "Prairie" the flowers, taking their cue from the weather. were a bit behind schedule as I recall.  So I was able to get a petal or 2 in the drawing.  This is one of the drawings that inspired me to do more of the plants in the park.  And maybe actually learn to identify a couple of 'em.  Is it really what I think it is??  Maybe someone could educate me...

Here below is a sketch of the sycamore leaves.  These guys are growing in the rocks of the dam. Not sure how good that is for the dam. but  for now they are very small. And the leaves are very interesting. They have the somewhat unusual habit of draping backwards from their attachment at the leaf base, unlike most leaves that stand somewhat upright from the petiole.

I-35 south hill

The dimensions of this painting are 7.5" x 13.75"  Done on  Canson 140# paper.   The date on the drawing was    12/6/15 - it was 45 degrees outside at the time. The date on the painting itself was 12/9/15.  We often see this place as we go south...  Looks like the Flint Hills to me.

towards Caboul

 Other than the notes on the pencil sketch that I added on 2/23/16 when I did the sketch I don't have much info about this subject.  I have misplaced most of the sketches and drawings which led up to this final painting.  It has the color of late winter or very early spring in southern Missouri. (The title even has the twang of a southern Missouri drawl...)   Done on a sheet of Canson 140# watercolor paper on the 27th of March of this year.

the rock place

The back side of the Galdamez's place.  We were there for a weekend get-a-way with others of my Prairie High School graduating class of 51 years ago. That's longer than this rock house has been standing!

mail box

There are as many kinds of mail boxes and posts as there are houses it seems.  When I find 2 or 3 alike (very strange in our 50 year old neighborhood) it is more surprising than finding a different one.  We call these mail man targets, but in town it is usually not the postman who knocks 'em over, it is usually someone backing out of a driveway.

Lawrence Public Library sketches

Two different days here. April 15th & the 22nd.  The question is then did I do any sketching between?  Probably, but that's the difficulty with having too many sketch pads laying around.  Yesterday's seems to always be misplaced.  The fine black marker is an immediate sort of drawing tool.  There is no turning back, only forging ahead- or scribbling ahead.  Looks like this was done in a 9 inch by 12 inch sketch pad.

From Burlington

From Burlington was done last year actually; from a sketch done while heading to Quincy alone. 10/4/15 was the date on the painting, but the trip was before that.  Had gone to help move a shed to El Dorado. That will be our last trip to Quincy I would guess. All the old places are gone, except for the little house where we stayed overnight more than once.  There are a thousand subjects on the roads between here and there.

from the sketchbook

Done on the fourth of April, 2016.      Another automotive moment.

UMC Coffeeville

We were on our way to Tahlequah, OK with a stop for lunch in Coffeeville, KS.  After pickin' up some fast food, I had a minute or two to do a quick sketch of the United Methodist Church just behind where we were stopped.

Sometimes the quicker the sketch the more it catches a notion of what first grabbed your attention.

Walmart, USA

We had stopped in Columbus, GA

to get some snacks at Walmart. I stayed with the car and did a few sketches.  These are from my sketchbook. I usually use 11" x 17" copy paper for sketching while actually on the road, but switch often to a sketchpad when we are stopped and I have a few minutes.

eye Doctor

It seems once in awhile, when you are at a Dr. appointment, you are forgotten.  (Not this day- I only remember one time when that really happened!)  But they had sat me down in a hallway, as things were getting a little too crowded I guess in the waiting room.   I was sitting directly in front of one open door however, were this equipment was standing.  Good thing I had my sketch pad along, huh?

Dump truck tail gate

Another one of those quickies done without even the courtesy of a signature; not even a set of initials.  Oh well, I could not pass it up, and it is a small thumbnail.  Done on the road as we were following this fella for a few minutes on the road to Florida.

5th & Maine

 Here is the sketch done 2 days before the painting.  I had a few minutes; so driving down this street, this is one scene I saw and one  of 3 ink drawings I did in about half an hour.  This is my favorite of the three, but not the only one of which I have done a watercolor.

Here is the full size pencil drawing in preparation for the watercolor.  It's on the 11" x 14" copy paper that is my standby. I buy it by the ream and use it for sketching and layouts as well as studies of many different things.

This painting was stretched out side to side if compared to the first sketch because it seemed to me that the ink drawing had been scrunched together too much, and I hoped this would add some volume to the hill.   Although that "scrunching" is often what gives a drawing a quaint interest- the fact that you can jam more information into a space than is really there.    From 8/22/16 if you can read the scribble on the ink drawing... done on 8/24 on 11" x 15" Canson 140# paper.

Columbus pick up

One more sketch from the sketchbook this one was in Columbus, Georgia.   We had driven in circles a bit to find this particular Walmart way off the beaten path that showed on the garmin. Interestingly, as we got back on the interstate to head nw we were soon to pass a Walmart right off the highway. We may have been better to follow "our own devices" rather than trust the electronic ones...