Wait, I thought this series was about nature study at the beach? Well, yes! One of the beautiful elements of our local coastline is the redwood forests that blanket the mountains that lead down to our shores. The Northern California coast has a combination of sunny, sandy beaches and rugged, tree-laden stretches. It’s the best of both worlds!
They grow alongside several other tree varieties, like spruces, firs, and laurels, but they always steal the show!
I found a few pinecones to paint back at the house.
The one on the far left is the redwood cone: so tiny! On the right is the Douglass-Fir (which is actually not a fir at all, so I learned). The pamphlet we picked up at the park mentioned that the distinctive extended bracts look like little mice bottoms scurrying into the cone. I will never look at one of those cones the same way again!
8 comments
Celeste – what resource would you recommend for learning dry brush techniques? Your artwork is amazing!
Hi Lucy! Thank you so much. 🙂 Before I suggest anything to you, I will just point out one difference between how I like to do things and the CM approach: I prefer to do my sketching in pencil and then ultra-fine tip marker before dry brushing the object, whereas CM had her students do their preliminary sketching in watercolor as well. I didn't use any particular resources to get going–I really just learned by trial and error, keeping in mind a couple basic principles, like using water just to activate the paints and mix my colors and then working from a dry brush as much as possible after that. Since then I've seen a few posts that might be helpful to you:
https://www.charlottemasoninstitute.org/a-dry-brush-tutorial-or-who-is-afraid-of-a-little-paint-by-jeannette-tulis/
https://educatingmother.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/and-the-mother-who-learns-to-dry-brush-a-guest-post/
https://childlightusa.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/nature-study-demonstration-lily-by-deborah-dobbins/
And Eve Anderson has a DVD on nature study that I haven't personally seen but have heard good things about:
https://www.perimeter.org/ls/bookstore/eve-andersons-teacher-training-tools-set-of-3-dvds/dp/2337
Hope that helps!
Lucy–I meant that comment below to be in response to your question but didn't click "reply." 😉
Awesome! When my oldest was a baby and we lived (briefly) in Oregon, we made a trip down to northern California to see the redwoods, and it's something I'll always remember. I wish I had known about nature journals then, but at least we still have the pictures… developed, on film ;-).
I grow miner's lettuce in my garden, by the way. It's very hardy through our winters here and is a nice addition to winter salads, very high in vitamin C.
How fun! We have lots of miner's lettuce at our local county park. My kids love how their cups fill with dew. They are one of our first bloomers of late winter wildflowers and we always look forward to them. I haven't shared with the kids yet that they're edible… 😉
Ferns are so enchanting! 🙂 Love the paintings at the end!!! 🙂 Hope to see the Pacific and the Redwoods one day. 🙂
Ferns are so enchanting! 🙂 Love the paintings at the end!!! 🙂 Hope to see the Pacific and the Redwoods one day. 🙂
If you make it out this way at some point, I'd like you see you! And I love ferns–their leafiness always seems very faerie to me. 🙂