Learning to Draw III + some ramblings

 As Spring sprang, I kept drawing and felt pretty good about my progress.  Especially as new flowers and trees started blooming, I'd be inspired to run home and get right to my brush and ink.  It was fun to see how my hand would render the flowers or if I could even be happy with the outcome.  Here are two early but large studies...

Crabapple blossoms details

Serviceberry sketch details

both sketches in full
46 x 9" each

I like being able to see the rough, curled edges of the paper, but this creates the problem of how to exhibit the work (these were meant to just be sketches but sometimes sketches turn into full blown pieces).  Also, taking pictures of the rumpled, wavy paper isn't easy.  This is why seeing art in real life is so much better than looking at or buying a reproduction (not always possible, yes I know).

Several years ago I was able to see Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" (after missing it twice before due to it being loaned out--MoMA!  Always sharing!).  This is said about many famous art works, but it was much smaller than I expected, and you know what?  I could see the raw canvas at the edge of the frame.  Same with Dali and many more.  This is not something you can appreciate learning from a text book, and it made it so much more real to me.  "A person made this and this is where he chose to stop painting."

You can see a bit of edge in this image, but that was all cropped out in the textbooks of yore.

That tangent was brought to you by my current struggles on presenting my work for exhibition.  It's one reason I love working with aluminum and panel wood--no need to frame, just set it and forget it.  In addition to my pieces being in very non-standard sizes, it's expensive to frame a piece right and who knows if that's even the best frame for the collector?  These are roadblocks I give myself. 

I'll end with a little about serviceberry.  Two years ago I learned of this delicious tree from a landscaper working on Main Street in my hometown.  It was the end of May or early June and the berries were ripe and ready and he encouraged us to take as many as we wanted.  They are quite tasty and have a bit of an apple flavor, but small like cherries.  Turns out there are serviceberry trees all over and I'd just never known.  They bloom in April.  Keep an eye out.