Tag Archives: Finley Wildlife Refuge

Daydreaming about May

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Sketch of wild iris

"Daydreaming about May", mixed media by Kerry McFall

Going through photos from 2011 as part of my “get better organized” New Year’s resolution yielded a nice shot of wild iris at Finley Wildlife Refuge from last May.  It’s been so bleak and soggy here since we got home that I felt like a bit of Flower Therapy was in order for the sketch book, so I spent a couple of glorious hours Sunday afternoon daydreaming about May…  I put into action a suggestion from a wonderful  book about sketching that I’m reading (The Art of Travel with a Sketchbook by Mari Le Glatin Keis) – start with a watercolor wash on the page.  So simple, but so effective, and as I read I was delighted to recognize the names of several contributing Corvallis artists I know: Gale Everett and George Norek.  I wish I had read the book before I traveled, but then again, it felt like I had enough going on without more ideas to overwhelm me!

After enjoying the book so much, I was left with a sense of real loss when I googled her name and discovered that she died about this time last year from breast cancer.  She was about my age.  I wish I had known her.  The book seems like such a gift for those of us who couldn’t go with her on her sketching journeys.  And it is inspiration to keep looking and seeing and sketching – and daydreaming on paper.

Sketches Before Supper

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three birds of prey, colored pencil sketch

Cruel Beaks

Making a sketch a day is practicing what I preach.  I have told my children for years that if you want to call yourself a writer, you must write every day (not an original idea).  A singer must sing every day.  Ergo, if you want to call yourself an artist, you must make art every day.  Or at least something that has to do with art.   Thus daily sketches.  However, in the crush of making a living (art is not particularly conducive to that currently) and keeping up with family, I have to fight for my creative time.  I ignore the people at work who razz me when I leave “early” after six hours to try to get to my studio for a few hours each day (yes, the math is undeniable – “part-time” artists work 60 hours a week minimum), I ignore my cats yowling to be fed, I try to listen to my husband…  but the hours spent with art are hours of low blood pressure and quiet satisfaction.  Thus it is that tonight I had 40 minutes between chopping carrots for the chicken pot pie and putting the bubbling pie on the table to devote to birds of prey.  A labor of love.   The pie wasn’t too bad, either. 

Even the most rudimentary sketch teaches me to pick out the key elements and patterns.  Birds are amazing, they just have too many feathers…  These are from photographs by Jim Leonard, someone for whom I cannot find an email address, so more research is necessary before I can give him proper credit.  Like me, he loves Finley Wildlife Refuge.  Unlike Mr. Leonard, I do not have a telephoto lens… so I hope he does not mind if I learn from and rejoice in his photos.