Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Back Yard Landscape


I did a lot of traveling in the USA in 2003 and I sketched everywhere I went. I did sketches in colored pencils as I later did for my winery drawings, but in some places I had a large kit of markers with me which I could use to get almost a watercolor effect. This is one of the marker color drawings that I did at my parents' house in August of 2003. It's the back yard of their house, which even 10 years ago was becoming neglected and overgrown. My challenge was to make some sort of orderly portrayal of all this vegetation. You can see one of my father's canna flowers as a small splash of red to center left.

Just last night I talked to my mother about the back yard. After my father's passing she is finally getting someone to cut back the jungle brush (yes, there is jungle in Massachusetts), weeds, and small weed trees which have taken over the back yard I used to play in. 

I have thought of putting together another marker kit to take with me to vineyards and other sketch destinations. So far it is difficult because markers are larger than colored pencils and take up a lot of space when carried to a site. But the drawings look so good that I might just want to use portable markers again.

Ink and markers on sketchbook page, 6" x 9 1/2", August 16, 2003. Click for larger view.

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