Nature Drawing

Hi all! Something a little different today.

This past weekend, my family and I went out for a little nature walk at one of our local everglades parks that we have scattered all over west-central Florida (where I live). Since a lot of tall grass, shrubs and trees are featured heavily in one of the graphic novels I'm working on, I decided it was also a good opportunity to do a little observational sketching while I was there.

Unfortunately, we were also with a few friends and I completely underestimated the patience level of non-artists (particularly the patience level of non-artists under ten-years-old) so I wasn't able to get much sketching done. But I thought I'd still share a few that I managed to scribble down.

These were all drawn with only my trusty Pentel Pocket Brush and an old waterbrush. I wasn't timing myself but I don't believe I spent longer than 30 minutes on any of them. My motivation wasn't to do any particularly amazing drawing (and none of these are), but by simply spending the time to draw the stuff around me, it forced me to better see the general shapes, structure and colors and the way those things connect to each other. That observation will hopefully help me later on when I'm drawing similar foliage in my evergladeless studio.

A nice surprise on our walk was that I wasn't the only adventuring artist! We found a bunch of these hand-knit little works-of-art along our journey. A message was attached to the back of each one that they were gifts to whoever found them and hopefully brought a smile or two. I love that.

This was such a nice way to spend an afternoon and enjoy the brief amount of outdoor time we have here in Florida between too wet and too hot. I'll certainly be doing more of it and will continue to share if there's any interest. The only difference is next time I'm going to remember to bring sketchbooks for my boys too so they can draw right along with me. :)