Category: watercolor

Travel Sketches..

For the past three years I have had the wonderful opportunity to travel in Europe on a bicycle with a wonderful new life partner.

Our now annual three month European bicycling lifestyle slows life down with frequent stops to sample the local coffee, tea, wines and beers as well as farm fresh veggies and local breads and cakes along the way. At our stops, I am increasingly confident in pulling out my sketchbook and capturing the moment. From time to time interested people will peek over my shoulder and sometimes even start a conversation. This opens the door for me to practice my emergent German.

This was one of my first sketches in Germany. We visited the outdoor museum in Detmold. Here, historic houses from the Westphalia area were dismantled from their original settings and rebuilt in the open air museum. On this day we wandered through heritage orchards and explored farmsteads from the 1600’s and on. Needless to say some of our party found an opportunity for a nap.

Eine meiner ersten Skizzen aus dem Freilichtmuseum, Detmold https://www.lwl-freilichtmuseum-detmold.de/

I’m looking forward to visiting again next year. Ich freue mich schon auf meinen nächsten Besuch im nächsten Jahr.

Monsoon Butterfly invasion

..the joys of rain

Giclée Print of Watercolor, 11″x14″

Drawing to the end of August 2021 and southern Arizona has experienced a magnificent Monsoon. Rainfall has exceed our annual rainfall in just one month. At the end of July, after 18 months of almost no rain, the desert had dried and the natural world seemed dead. We braced for a repeat performance of last year with summer temperatures over 100F for over 100 days. But then the rains came. Almost over night the desert greened, cactus bloomed and the wonderful smell of the creosote bush engulfed the humid atmosphere. A while later butterflies of all description appeared. This, the Queen, is often confused with the Monarch butterfly and indeed it is similar, even enjoying milkweed to lay its eggs. This particular butterfly found a safe place to perch on my bird fountain. The calcified edge created enough texture for it’s legs to grasp the edge and sip at the damp surface of the pot.

Inner Light

There’s exquisite beauty in agaves that are giving way to their off-spring

There’s something fascinating about how cactus age. For this agave, its ability to sustain upright leaves is fading. The cat’s claw imprints that outer leaves emboss on inner leaves have started to fade. The base of the leaves start to crumple but glow with rich colors of pinks and gold. young plants “pup” from the parent and pop up several feet away.

Water color, 9″ x 12″. Cold pressed Arches paper