Red Oak

 

 

I don't get to paint with oil very often, but I enjoy it when I can.  This is a red oak leaf painted a few falls ago.

Blue Jay Feather

 

An old sketch of a blue jay feather

White Oak Leaves

 

 

 

The fall color is just about peak here and one of my favorite trees, white oak (Quercus alba), is displaying a wide variety of colors right now. Yesterday on a walk with my son I grabbed a variety of white oak leaves representing a wide range of shapes and colors. I cant be sure these all came from the same tree, but they did all come from three or four individuals in a small area.

An Unusual Epiphyte

 

September was a busy month - my wife, son and I moved from Cleveland, Ohio to a small town in Central, IL and attended family weddings in Chicago and New Orleans.  In a three week stretch I went from Cleveland to Cent IL to Chicago to Cleveland to Cent IL to St. Louis to New Orleans to Cent IL so I have had almost no time to sketch or post to my blog.

 

Anyway, while in the New Orleans Garden District I loved seeing the old live oaks (Quercus virginiana) almost all of them were hosting the epiphytes resurrection fern (Polypodium polypodioides) and Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides). Normally I would be bothered by a bunch of garbage or non organic junk hanging from such beautiful trees, but the Marti Gras beads hanging from oak limbs along the parade routes did not look out of place at all and were actually attractive. 

 

When I finally got some of my art stuff unpacked this was the first thing that I decided to sketch (colored pencil) and paint (watercolor).  If it looks funny in the middle it is because it is a poor splicing job by me - I need a larger scanner or a better computer program.