Showy Lady Slipper

 

 

I have been meaning to do this drawing for awhile and actually started it in July right after these orchids flowered in June in a fen in Northeast Ohio.  While I worked in Ohio I was responsible for monitoring this population of showy lady slippers (Cypripedium reginae) on an annual basis.  Showy lady slipper flowers are about the size of a chicken egg making them one of the largest of the native orchids - it is also covered with hairs that can cause poison ivy-like dermatitis on some people.  I never had an issue with orchid hairs but I have with the poison sumac (Rhus vernix) that shares the same habitat.  Besides the poison sumac the fen was always a very enjoyable place to spend the day counting orchids and botanizing.  Also in this illustration are two sedge species Carex leptalea (3 flowering culms) and Carex interior (1 flowering stem) that are commonly found with the orchids. 

 

This is 16"X20" and done with Faber Castell Polychromos colored pencils - I had to scan it in four pieces and splice them together resulting in some inconsistencies in color.

Pecan

I have been meaning to illustrate a pecan (Carya illinoinensis) fruit to ad to my previous post on hickory fruit.  Today I finally illustrated a pecan nut (without husk) and with a nice weevil hole.

Christmas Present

In October I switched from using Crayola to Faber Castell Polychromos colored pencils - you can see that post here.  I first bought the 25th Anniversary set and then added as many greens and browns to my collection.  I was very happy with these pencils and asked for the rest of the colors for Christmas.  I received a bunch from my mother a bunch from my sister-in-law and some from my wife and now have 117 of the 120.  I am very excited to start the new year.

Barred Owl

A barred owl on a snowy blustery day, and some in-progress snapshots.  Watercolor, acrylic and colored pencil.

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.

 



Summer Notes

Our family is in the process of moving back to the prairie of Illinois so I have been without my scanner and much of my drawing supplies so I have nothing new to share.  However, here are a few pages from my field notebook from past summers spent in the Ohio forest!

 

River Clean Up

When the summer is dry and the rivers reach low levels it becomes all to clear how much garbage pollutes our rivers and streams; even the most pristine stretches of water.  It is a great time of year to cool off in your local stream and pick up some garbage while your at it.  Here is a sketch that I made for a local river clean up a few years back; beer cans and tires....