nearly over August

white sweet peas

blue and white Fuji morning glory sketch

first proof print of the new Old Willow Oak etching from last month's sketch in Lafayette park.

I find it's nearly the end of August and I haven't posted any of my drawings nor photos nor thoughts since the end of July. I have been pretty busy working on a new print and doing my drawings and garden tending. Trips to museums with friends for lectures and shows have taken up some time and energy and to visit Manassas for a few days with my mom a couple times in August was fun. I haven't had male figure drawing on Monday evenings this month but I have seen lots of Antiques Roadshow on those evenings and HBO's documentaries, like the amazingly scary GASLAND about the new way that natural gas is being extracted from shale rock around the USA. Beware it is coming to a region near you soon! Look out, fracking often poisons the water and the gas companies that pollute don't accept responsibility for ruining the drinking water. The movie is making it's way around the country and I expect it to be part of the environmental film festival this fall. It already won a prize at the 2010 Sundance film festival...

I celebrated my 55th birthday on August 21st and it was a special year for me because I finally turned 55, matching the year I was born, 1955. I had as a kid wondered what this year would be like and if I would survive to find out. It is fun too that Keith is going to be 46 this year and he was born in 1964! Together we both add up to ten! 5+5=10 and 4+6=10 but other than that we don't know what the significance of the numbers. Perhaps in the year 2010 to be two tens seems good but will it bring us luck? We played 55 on my birthday in the Powerball lottery and that didn't pay out so bring me back to the real world.

I am looking forward to fall and the garden has been interesting this month but not as showy as it was in May, June and July. The flowers are slower and fewer. The humid heat was with us but not as bad as July. We even had regular rains this year through most of what is usually the hottest driest part of the year. Green lawns and trees in July and August after dried out yellow in June? Curious and curiouser the odd weather continues and no one in our government is making a move to stop the coming climate changes that I fear will ruin our world. Having survived one epidemic of horrors I hope that I didn't live only to see the beginning of something far worse. Thank goodness for nature and it's power to cleanse the mind and restore the spirit. I work each morning in our little urban garden documenting some small part of nature. Sketches are becoming part of my every morning habit as I had hoped. Here are a few from last month the newest ones are not yet scanned.

two sketch crawls

Old Willow Oak (Lafayette Sq. Park)

I enjoyed two steamy sketch crawls during July in Washington DC. Many of my usual pals were out of town this past weekend for the international #28 but I went ahead and lead a small group downtown to some shady spots and inside cool museums to draw. We met at Farragut Square where to my excellent surprise was a 60 member Brazilian drum corps practicing that made great subject matter to try to sketch. The sounds were so exciting and really captured my heart and soul. I took a couple short videos to bring back to share with you a taste of the exotic music we heard. I went on from there to draw in Lafayette Sq. across from the White House and ended up focused on some excellent old trees. I managed to channel a tiny bit of Van Gogh in my cross hatching on the old willow oak's bark. That was my favorite sketch of the whole bunch but if you want to see the rest and the photos that accompany them I offer you a link to the July 17th Sketch Crawl Set in my flickr. pages and the July 31st Sketch Crawl Set which includes the delightful drummers!