Tag Archives: wild iris

Daydreaming about May

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.