I cracked out the old iron gall ink and dip pen to sketch an oak gall and acorns, because why not get meta?
Iron gall ink is one of the most frequently found inks in manuscripts from the 5th to the 19th century. The American Declaration of Independence was penned with this ink, as were many drawings by Leonardo da Vinci At its simplest, it is made from four main ingredients: oak galls, iron sulphate, gum arabic and water.
I want it long, straight, curly, fuzzy
Snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty
Oily, greasy, fleecy
Shining, gleaming, streaming
Flaxen, waxen
Knotted, polka-dotted
Twisted, beaded, braided
Powdered, flowered, and confettied
Bangled, tangled, spangled, and spaghettied!
My homegrown cucumbers are very prickly. It’s not a problem; the spines are easy to scrub off. But before doing so today, I decided to examine some of them under the microscope. Now I’m curious about cactus spines!
Sketched from a photo, following John Muir Laws’ Happy Little Trees workshop. He shared a lot of good tips on drawing both broadleaf and coniferous trees, near and far.
We hiked Nicholas Flat for the first time since spring. The new bridge has remarkably high sides; Vic says it’s to make it safe for horses.
Pretty much the last harvest of salad veg for the year; there’s still cucumbers on the vine, and lots of basil, but I pulled the last tomato plant today. This sketch shows 1/50th of the green tomatoes now filling a big colander on the counter, so we’ll still be eating them for a few weeks. Looking forward to brassicas, beets, chard, potatoes, onions ….
Built in 1929, the guard house of the historic Adamson House sits just inside the entrance gate. I’d love to have a peek inside, but it’s not open to the public; it’s the private residence of a State Park ranger. Is it full of spectacular tiles, like the main house, I wonder?
The playground at the Santa Monica Pier features a large concrete sea serpent head, and a small boat. I was just about finished this sketch when a couple of kids came to play, brandishing toy swords and loudly declaiming in a language I didn’t understand. Perfect pirates. So fun to witness.
I met up with Urban Sketchers Los Angeles at Santa Monica Pier yesterday; it was much easier to sketch the seated sketchers than the tourists walking by!
On Sulphur Mountain I saw a curious phenomenon—clusters of baby acorns on one of the coast live oaks. This makes no sense to me, for multiple reasons:
I know we’ve had a weird weather year, but I only observed this phenomenon in a single tree out of many hundreds I passed. Why would only one tree be affected, if weather was the cause? What’s going on here?
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