Trees. I love them. I hug them. I thank them and revere them. And I don’t enjoy drawing or painting them. Not sure why — just not drawn to them, unlike flowers which I can paint every day. So it’s a good exercise to use them as subject matter. It stretches me. In this cute cabin in Plumas County, where I am taking a few days off, I’m surrounded by trees and I’m too tired to venture out much (napping takes priority) so I grab my folding chair and go just outside the sweet kitchen dutch doors and make myself intentionally uncomfortable. The painting on the right was fun as there was this twisty branch spiraling off the pine tree that was interesting, and I wanted to focus on it and draw with sticks and ink and water-soluble graphite. It’s not a fabulous success but it evokes the feeling of the forest just out the window. The watercolor on the left is OK too. I wanted to capture the weight and solidity of these glorious creations.

And I’m writing this inside as when I was done painting, rain was starting up. As the dark clouds roamed through, a lightning strike stabbed the meadow in front of my spot, about 100 yards away. Very exciting — startled the hell outta me. Makes me glad for all the adventures in life (yesterday after a squall the electricity went out so the kind neighbor and proprietor of this Air BnB spot brought over a Coleman camp stove so I could finish cooking dinner; was pretty fun and it worked!). Oop! More rumbles. I’ll get this uploaded in case the wifi goes out.

ink, watercolor, pencil, water-soluble graphite on paper