Escape to the North

Finding that last summer's 'escape to the north' vacation worked well to disrupt our protracted Texas summers, we repeated the venture again this year, this time visiting New England. Unfortunately, we were met by a number of less than ideal circumstances - I contracted some kind of illness almost immediately upon our arrival and Hurricane Irene was on the approach.

We spent a very long first day making up for all the hiking we didn't get to do this summer - first at Flume Gorge in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Following lunch we started hike #2 on Falling Waters Trail, intending to climb all the way to the summit of Little Haystack Mountain. We thought surely this would be no problem at all as the trail was only 3.25 miles one way. I knew it was a steep mountain just from reading about it, so I must have been deluding myself that the trail would gently meander it's way up the mountain. I was wrong. It was 3.25 miles of up. Boulders, stairs, crossing streams here and there. It was beautiful - just what we've been missing out on in Dallas, but it was too strenuous for us out-of-shape, currently non-hiking hikers and we decided to give up after learning from several descending hikers that after about two and a half hours on the trail we still had an hour of up to go before reaching the summit. Even so, we enjoyed several gorgeous waterfalls along the way. I think this one's called "Cloudland Falls:"Having a little bit a daylight left and suffering the disappointment that we didn't get to enjoy a view from the top, we cheated our way to the top of a different mountain by way of the aerial tram on Cannon Mountain. We had a nice view of Echo Lake from the tram:And a nice view of a black bear too!Hurricane Irene, turned tropical storm, did ruin our plans to spend a day in Cape Cod where I'd hoped to capture some good beach reference for my "Sand Lion" painting (see previous post), but we did manage to drive through the blustery wind and rain to Plymouth, MA. Being near the coast, we were really lucky to miss out on the worst of the storm. I know a lot of people were not so lucky and I hope they're recovering well from the damage... Our day in Plymouth was aimless and relaxing. The power had gone out mid-day, so we weren't the only ones out wandering around the waterfront in the wind and spitting rain.It seemed so fitting that the night we spent in the oldest town in New England happened to be completely blacked out. We spent a candlelit evening in a house built in 1782 and even enjoyed an impromptu ghost-tour of some nearby houses led by a friendly neighbor.

We briefly visited both Boston and Battleship Cove in Fall River, MA before finishing our vacation in Newport, Rhode Island where we visited six of the impressive Newport Mansions and finished out the day strolling along Cliff Walk.Our vacations always seem to be a bit more busy than relaxing, but we can always say we're never bored! It was great to get away for a short time, but it was also good to come home (despite all my complaining about the heat!). Hopefully some of those pleasant New England temperatures (and rain) will follow us here soon!

The Sand Lion

Here's a sketch that I've just barely started as a digital painting. This was another idea pulled from maybe over a decade ago: I guess I'd be worn out too if I'd spent the day building a huge sand lion!

IF - Obsession

This week's Illustration Friday topic gave me a good excuse to start a sketch for a painting I've been wanting to create for a while. When I was in elementary school, I was quite obsessed with unicorns. Unicorns were the end all be all for me. I collected them, had my room decorated in all things unicorn, and of course, drew them. I had gathered up a number of my old unicorn drawings a few years ago while putting together a presentation and thought how much fun it would be to take one of those drawings and re-illustrate it today in my current style and technique. I imagine I'll add more detail in the final painting, but for now, here's today's sketch:
And here's the drawing on which it's loosely based - probably over 25 years old now:
As you can see, in my childhood fantasy world, rabbits could fly which is why in my new sketch we find a lop rabbit sitting in a tree. According to a small note at the top of the old drawing the unicorn in the picture's name is "Pollen," whose acquaintance I'd imagine no one suffering from seasonal allergies would ever desire to make.

Another illustration on the topic - if you've ever visited my Etsy store then you've probably already seen this painting, but since I'm on the subject I thought I'd post it here too:
This is an ancient painting from my art school days. Nearing the end of my time in college, I realized I hadn't yet revisited my favorite subject of old, so I did this painting for a class assignment. The little girl riding the unicorn is more or less my childhood self, complete with great big glasses and a school uniform. This little painting's for sale here.

IF - Perennial

For this week's Illustration Friday topic, I decided to play with watercolors and created this little painting of one of my favorite flowers - poppies (which I think are a perennial flower, but I could be wrong).
This painting is cobbled together from several photos I'd taken when we lived in Los Angeles. This type of poppy (Alpine poppy?) was a popular garden flower in California. I remember seeing sizeable beds of them at my husband's office and we had some smaller collections of them at our little apartment complex. I always looked forward to their blooming every spring!

This painting is for sale - here - at my Etsy shop.

The Garden Witch

This little character popped into my head the other day, so I made a rough painting of her over the course of a few morning sessions:
I don't know why her hat is so tall or how exactly it stands up as well as it does. Maybe she stores something under it - perhaps flower seeds or some such, although that seems highly impractical. I probably won't get to it for a while, but I do eventually want to do a full-scale painting of her in her garden:
I'm not sure what to do with the background yet. Maybe some dynamic clouds or possibly some tall silhouetted pine-y trees to give contrast between a dark background and the sunlit, brightly colored garden. I'll have to give it some more thought....

Springtime Planting Final

I finished up this one a while ago, but just came back to it this week to add a couple minor finishing touches. It seems like it always helps to step away from a painting for a while and come back to it later with a fresh eye.

I wanted to have red punctuating the green wall of leaves, so for a while it was a toss up between tomatoes and scarlet runner pole beans. I can't say why, but the pole beans won out this round. Tomatoes will still have their day, I'm sure.

IF: Remedy

I thought I'd revisit the squirrels for this week's Illustration Friday topic in this rough sketch, wherein the remedy is hot chocolate:I did a second sketch on the topic. This is me. Sort of...

Probably not a very well-proportioned me, but who can tell with the blanket, right? I've developed a bit of a reputation for being cold all the time. My family likes to tease me about it. Blankets are common Christmas presents for me - which is not a bad thing at all since, as you can see, I like them. They're both decorative and functional after all. My husband likes to ponder the reasons for my chronic coldness. Current theories revolve around my having poor circulation or quite possibly "a small, cold heart." It couldn't simply be that when I'm cold it's because it's just plain cold outside, could it?