Week Two




Madrona Park 
10/6/14
70 Degrees F
5:25pm




I was able to practice my drawing skills with a pen this week at the park. I consider myself an through practice, not at all through talent. when I got to the park I realized I had forgotten the drawing tool I am most comfortable with; the pencil. Instead all I had was a regular old bic pen. Immediately I'm out of my comfort zone, not necessarily a bad thing. Here are some photos of my drawings from the park. I drew a ground plant that I photographed last week and have still not been able to identify. 

                                                    Memory Sketch

                                                    Contour Line Sketch

                           Timed Gesture Sketches: 3 seconds, 5 seconds, 30 seconds and 1 minute

                                                    Diagrammatic Sketch

                                                    Testing ways to use the pen

                                          The actual drawing

My greatest challenge while sketching was translating what I was seeing onto the paper with a pen. I cannot figure out how to shade or decisively make shapes the way I can with a pencil.

It is clearly becoming fall season here in the park this week, the air is drier, and orange can be seen slowly taking over the lively green leaves of summer. The sword ferns have begun to brown at the edges and some are shriveling up, as if they are fearful of the changing weather. Every time the wind blows the sounds of leaves and pine cones falling and hitting the ground can be heard. Along with the sounds of falling leaves are the sounds of several species of birds calling. A new addition to the family of organisms here today can be seen. Several adorable looking, somewhat cliché mushrooms have shot up out of the ground. This could possibly be attributed to by the rain and the shade under the tree cover. They look to be very small meadow mushrooms.

                                                    Small Meadow Mushroom

 At first glance I mistook them for white berries, perhaps fallen from a nearby plant. That plant which I believe is a common snowberry plant. The plant has ovular leaves that are beginning to brown and small spindly branches. It has produced some shriveled, pathetic looking berries as well. 

                                               What I believe is a common snowberry plant

Slightly below the snowberry plant lies a a smaller plant with triangular arrowhead leaves, most of which have wilted in preparation for fall. The plant is small, with only three leaves growing out of it.

                                                    Unknown arrowhead leaved plant

 More pinecones litter the ground this week, and though I am here at the same time, it is noticeable that it has become darker earlier in the day than last week. While I was working on sketching the dark ground plant from last week, a minuscule bug crawled across my hand, it was white and had a small black line across it's back. I believe it might have been a young spider but I am not certain.

                                                 Small bug could be mistaken for a freckle 

 Sean came with me again and he seems to be enjoying his time here, every so often be says "It's so beautiful here" and then talks about how there is almost nothing like this in the big cities he visited while he lived in China. It's been really fun to have him along because he lends a completely different perspective to what I see all the time as a Seattleite. Here's looking foreword to next week!