Tag Archives: sketches

Lovely Day for a Quick Plein Air Sketch

sketch of lupine

“Lupine”, watercolor and ink, by Kerry McFall

sketch of fields and mountains

“Midge Cramer Trail”, ink and watercolor by Kerry McFall

Half a mile from the parking lot at the fairgrounds, there is a bench on the Midge Cramer trail, the perfect spot for sketching.  By the time you’ve reached it, you can’t help but feel your batteries re-charging.  It smells good (wild roses and sweet meadow grass), it sounds good (crickets and birdsong), it’s gorgeous and green.  People jog and pedal along smiling, dogs can barely walk for wagging, the occasional horses even seem glad to see you.  There are lots of wildflowers this time of year, and unfortunately also lots of poison oak so stay on the trail.  The lupine I sketched above are undoubtedly transplants from someone’s garden via a blue jay or squirrel, they’ve sprouted up just behind the bench.

Technique Notes

I sketched these in my Grey toned Strathmore book, which just happened to be the right size to fit in a small pack, and discovered that a toned paper is really great when you’re sitting out in the direct sunlight.  Instead of being blinded by the reflection on bright white paper, you can actually see what you’re doing.  And as a bonus, just a white charcoal pencil makes for easy highlights.  I wondered if the watercolor and colored pencil would still be as bright after photographing, and I think they look good!

If I Were a Beer Brewer…

…I would be in Seventh Heaven here, watching my hops vine climb merrily over the fence, across the neighbor’s deck, and up onto their garage roof.  I may not be able to keep a sunflower plant from being chewed to bits by unknown cooties, but my hops are phenomenal!

HopsVinesSketch1

We’ve reached the point in the Willamette Valley spring where if you don’t like the weather, just wait an hour… anything goes!  The sky was gorgeous one warm afternoon last week, here seen from under the bridge just south of Corvallis: 

"Willamette Spring", mixed media by Kerry McFall

“Willamette Spring”, mixed media by Kerry McFall

The week before that, a mean little hailstorm attacked my baby lettuces, but they survived with bruises and spots.  

"Hailstorm Sketch", mixed media by Kerry McFall

“Hailstorm Sketch”, mixed media by Kerry McFall

Now the question becomes, did I jump the gun this morning and plant my tomatoes too soon?  Time will tell.  In the meantime, I’m just sketching away every day, finishing up assignments for my online Sketchbook Skool, and preparing for the next class.  Here are a few of my recent sketches:

A Multi-Cat Day

This morning when I sat down to begin my “sketching warm-up exercises” (which I have to say are far less painful than the Yoga Plank thing I tried recently), I noticed my old cat Baby catching the sunrays in the front window.  Given the lack of other nearby inspiration, she had her portrait done.  In pencil.  Then I added watercolor.

Next came a flip through the pages of a design book about Art Deco, and the Mean Keelah was born.  “Mean Keelah” was what our little neighbor used to call one of our cats when he was learning to talk… Skyley, aka Mean Keelah, was the original Grumpy Cat.  Only meaner, and with bigger teeth.  As I worked, following the style of G. Darcy from 1920, Mean Keelah was reincarnated.  Reincarnated several times, as I experimented with this and that, including a digitally-enhanced version.

Then I got to wondering how that mean kitty could become a cute kitty – what is it about those lines that implies such evil?  So I messed around for a little longer, using the same approach and style.  Meh… the technique works for “cute kitties” as well as mean, but the cats are just more in a long line of simpering felines – nothing is new under sun.  I like the Mean Cat #2 best, the rest got a bit too dark with additional paint layers.  Although, that digital version does have some distinct Halloween possibilities…

 

 

“…So Good It’ll Make You Slap Your Neighbor!”

Colorado was 200 miles of Awesome.  Kansas was miles and miles of Flat and Tidy.  As we traversed the state of Kansas (West to East, mostly on Highway 400), I slowly understood why the first part of the movie “Wizard of Oz” was black and white: the wind sucked out all the colors.

sketch of winmills on prairie with quilt pattern border

“Kansas Landscape”, mixed media copyright 2014 Kerry McFall

Approaching Kansas from an artist’s perspective, the Kansas horizon must be drawn with a ruler, precisely perpendicular to the power poles and windmills of various vintages.  Below the horizon there is grass – in February, it’s dead, drained of color by the vampire wind.  Above, there is silvery bluish sky.  Okay, that was easy.  Next, a little contrast maybe, some shadows, some texture?  Nope, not in the winter.  No trees.  No blackberry vines.  No ivy.  No scraggly jumbles of overgrown anything anywhere.  Not even a sly dandelion lurking just under the surface.  You would never need a weed whacker in Kansas.  The grass is all precisely 1.5” tall, even in the back corners of trashy trailer parks.  Which aren’t very trashy because the trash all blew away.  (Apparently to Missouri or Colorado, where plastic bags make eerie ornaments on trees and barbed wire.)  Even though the simplicity is somehow soothing, if I was an artist living in Kansas, I’m pretty sure I would start doing abstracts.

After hours of flat, straight, dry pavement with absolutely no traffic, and that colorless landscape, an emerald castle on a hill above a misty field of poppies seemed like a really good idea.  Hell, Flying Monkeys were beginning to sound like fun!  Until the speeding ticket.  But I digress. To be fair, it is February, and apart from the wind, we had marvelous weather – a tiny bit of gropple, according to the weather guy, but it just looked like snow to me.  So Kansas is appealing in its own symmetrical way.  I’ve gotta believe that spring on the Kansas prairie would be fabulous.  And it was worth the whole drive just to see signs like “Aunt Toadies Diner,” and discover this field full of “political sculpture” outside of Mullinville, Kansas.  It stretched for acres, and although this photo doesn’t reflect the R-rating, you can see more details at this website http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/11212

Political Sculpture

Political Sculpture

Now we’re in Missouri, where BBQ joints advertise that their “burnt end sandwich” is so good it’ll make you slap your neighbor.  (Don’t worry, Caroline, the last thing I want to do is slap you since you take such good care of the kitties while we’re out gallivanting all over the country!)  McDonald’s and KFC may be as ubiquitous as ants, but I simply cannot imagine them coming up with marketing phraseology as original as that… and it WAS good barbeque!  And guess what beer was on tap?  Deschutes Brewery.  ‘Nuff said.

Technique Notes:  The border I added to the Kansas landscape above is a pieced quilt pattern called Rocky Road to Kansas, among other names.  Tradition has it that this was popular as emigrants headed west, which according to my map analysis means that the rocky road to Kansas is actually… yep, in Missouri.

 

Primrose Optimist

sketch of orange primrose

“Primrose Optimist” copyright 2014 by Kerry McFall, mixed media

I quit my job January 10th.

Yes, that was me dancing with my steering wheel, the blasting soundtrack of Mamma Mia making my little car hop and skip up Harrison street that morning. (Out of deference to my children, who do still have to visit this town occasionally, I did not make a video of that and post it on YouTube.  You’re welcome!)

Verbs are important – note that I did not retire.  I quit.  I made an investment in my future happier healthier self.  I spent the first week waking up in a panic thinking I had slept through my alarm.  I updated my LinkedIn profile.  I started a class on The Art of Marketing Your Art.  One morning it felt like all of the federal passwords and userIDs in my head went into a bucket of sludge and were dumped overboard, leaving a lovely clear space on my internal disk drive.    I read the January issue of National Geographic cover to cover.

I quit.  What does that mean?  At the moment it means the same thing as when a highschool graduate, or a college junior, says, “I’m taking a break for a year.”  Or, “I’m taking a gap year.”  For them that probably  translates to, “I’m not sure what I want to be when I grow up.  I’m moving back home.”

For me it translates to, “I’m hoping to take my art to the next level, and my husband and I are fully committing to it.   Because I’m as grown up as I’m ever going to be.   And I am very sure what I do NOT want to do.  Because I’ve done it for the last seven years.”   (I draw the line at moving back in with my Mom, though!)

The second week after I quit, I planted primroses in the pots on the front porch.  On a whim I pulled one back up and painted the above picture.  And so begins the next chapter of my life – colorful, optimistic, simple.  A day at a time.

Woohoo!  So long and thanks for all the fish!

(For the record, kids, next time I have that much fun, I’m gonna do the video!)

 

 

Listening to the “Choir” at Finley

sketch of bridge across ash swale

“Wetlands Bridge”, mixed media by Kerry McFall

The geese are in full voice at Finley Wildlife Refuge.  As graceful necklaces of birds stack up overhead apparently wating for clearance to land, the choir on the edges of the reservoir perform the Hallelujah Chorus.  Their songs make my heart sing.  And for comic relief, every now and then some duck cracks a joke and all his duck buddies join in with their coarse wack-wach-wack laughter.

Each autumn we make a pilgrimage to hear their wild songs. A 20 minute drive and we’re there.  We usually go before October 31st, which is when the nesting areas and the dam path above the reservoir are closed for the season.  But now that there is a boardwalk across the ash swale, you can get fairly close to the reservoir any time of year, and there are several trails open in the oak savannahs up the hills also.  Down in the swale, the world seems to be almost entirely covered in drippy lichens and moss, primarily a soft grey green but occasionally an eye-popping chartreuse.

Every visit reveals new wonders: this time, it was swans (or maybe white geese?) visible through the telescope from the gazebo, and lovely white moths who seemed to have collapsed in the damp weather all along the boardwalk.  It was too wet and windy to want to sketch on site, so we hiked around with our hands in our pockets and our hats pulled over our ears, and I took a few photos.  I came home and worked from the photos in the warmth of my “studio” (aka dining room), cat in lap, wine glass at the ready (always being on the alert not to dip my brushes in the wine), candle flickering just for the cinnamon-roll scent.  November can be quite cozy – the trick is to get out and get a little chilly exercise first.

Still Life with Recipe

"Still Life with Recipe," mixed media by Kerry McFall

“Still Life with Recipe,” mixed media by Kerry McFall

Tracy and I have been enjoying afternoon tea together for many years.  Since she no longer eats anything containing wheat (gluten), finding a suitable treat to go with the tea has become a challenge for me – mostly because I think that gluten-free translates to “tastes like bark mulch.”  However,  this week I had an inspiration – bananas!  I looked up Bananas Foster, but that requires rum, which meant a trip to the liquor store, and I didn’t have time.  So I did a little classic McFall Improvisation, which generally means eliminate all ingredients not already in the cupboard.  So the result is not quite “bananas flambe”, but it is warm and suitably gooey.  It’s also quick, it’s easy, and because it’s served warm it feels elegant.  Bonus – the ingredients gave me an opportunity to do a quick “still life” sketch – a win-win situation!

(What’s a “diagonal oval”?  It’s when you slice the banana not in rounds, but slant your knife diagonally against the long side of the banana… it’s the same cut used in Chinese cooking to get the celery in fried rice to look like it isn’t really celery at all but some exotic ingredient…)

Farmer’s Market Find: Studebaker!

sketch of red pickup

“Farmer’s Market Find,” mixed media drawing by Kerry McFall

Saturday found me roaming downtown by the river, enjoying that “last rose of summer” aroma in the air as autumn moves in.  You know that smell, still a little sweet, with the richness of wet soil and leaves beginning to decay.  I didn’t really want anything from the market, having gotten the Fit of Domesticity out of my system the weekend before.  But I was thrilled at what I found at the north end of the market – a brilliant red Studebaker pickup.  It was clearly somebody’s baby, not a speck of dust on it, gleaming in the October sun like a giant red chile pepper.  Gorgeous.  And I don’t even really like cars!  This is the first time I’ve ever been the least bit interested in drawing one – it must be the color that attracted me – and I have to say cars aren’t easy.  I think it must be like the relationship between anatomy and life drawing – you really need to know a little bit about the chassis (now there’s an automotive word!) underneath it to make a believable drawing of the outside.

I remember hearing my Uncle Creston argue at family reunions with my other uncles about how Studebaker was the maker of the best automobiles on the road… funny how some words stick with you, so the first thing that popped into my head when I saw the Studebaker logo shining on the passenger door was an image of Uncle Creston.  I’ll bet he would have loved this one!

Autumn’s Kitchen

sketch of acorn squash with guilted borderr

“Autumn’s Kitchen,” mixed media by Kerry McFall

At the risk of being asked to turn in my “Locavore” badge, or my Grow It Yourself license, I reveal that I was actually shopping somewhere where they felt it necessary to slap a sticker on a squash, proclaiming that it is “US Grown in WA”.  In my own defense, it was a full two days before the Farmer’s Market, and I was nowhere near the co-op, and it was raining cats and dogs,  and I was experiencing a brief Fit of Domesticity.  I had visions of steaming bowls of chili (my very own recipe for 3-Bean Chocolate Chili), rich baked acorn squash with brown sugar, and hot buttered biscuits.  The chili used up a big bunch of my homegrown tomatoes, if that earns me any points back.  Of course, as I pulled out the cutting board and knife for splitting the squash, it sat upon my kitchen table, burnished by some waxy substance rubbed over the surface by the grocer, calling out to me, “Kerry, paint my portrait!”  So as the chili simmered on the back burner, I pulled out my paints, and thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon.  Supper was a bit later than originally planned, but it was worth the delay.

The quilty border is a start on a new project where I will be exploring “lines and borders” as part of The Sketchbook Project that I am about to begin.  I might even make  a small print of this one and paste it in the beginning of the book.  More on that project soon.

The Fate of Tomatoes

 

"It's Been A Good Summer", mixed media by Kerry McFall

“It’s Been A Good Summer”, mixed media by Kerry McFall

Long, hot summers make for fat, red tomatoes!  Not something we experience in the Willamette Valley very often, so it’s much appreciated when it happens.  Right now, mid-September, I have more tomatoes than I know what to do with.  My friend Tracy said, “Roast ’em – they make great pasta sauce!”  So I picked a bunch, washed them, and three jumped out of the colander and onto the pages of my sketchbook…  The rest of them went into a 275 degree oven, after rolling around briefly in olive oil, basil, oregano, and sea salt, and there they basked for two hours or so.  Here are the phases of their fate:

It’s too hot to cook, so tomorrow they will reach their ultimate fate: the key ingredient of spaghetti – or if tomorrow is too hot, into the freezer they go.