Oct. Lawrence Sketch Crawl

This month's sketch crawl gave me an excuse to explore a Lawrence park we've never been to. Wells Overlook Park. Gail organized it. Attendance was small, with just Gail, John and I, but it was a beautiful day for it.
It's a small park with just an observation tower and a covered picnic shelter, but such a view! I couldn't sketch the 360 degree panoramic, but I could handle smaller parts. A sketch crawl in a city park lends itself to drawing maps, too.

I did the map last night, before the crawl. Recently bought the book "How to Draw Fantasy Art & RPG Maps, Step by Step Cartography". I have a thing for cartography and it's on my "To Learn" list. When I saw the book I HAD to buy it, and it's a good one. I used a few of the concepts. To do it right would take HOURS of work, so I did a sketchbook short cut version.

While I was sketching, I struck a conversation with the father of a family out to walk around the park. The family dog was a Great Pyrenees, and she was beautiful! Once the ice was broken she was a push-over and ate up all the petting I could give her. The dad said the park has a trail system, too, so I need to get back to check it out.

Spring Break

It's a little late, but here's my journaling for our Spring Break this year. Went to see our son at his new job, and it's in Seattle.


For this trip I didn't get to sketch much at all. Too busy and now time to myself. So, I took plenty of pictures for sketching after we got home. It's not my preferred way, mainly because I take too long to post-process everything (witness the slow posting). When I sketch in the moment, it's finished when the moment passes and not several weeks later. But, it's still fun to sketch it at home.

Seattle was fun to explore. Our son had the itinerary set, and all we needed to do was keep up. I've got sketching locations figured out for our next visit(s). We now have a feel for what Seattle is. Experienced some typical cloudy/rainy time and some partly sunny time. This Kansas boy wants to do some big boat sketching, and I want to research the different types of deep sea fishing and crabbing boats so I can understand the equipment differences.


I think it would take a lot of visits before I'd get bored of Seattle.

Walkabout 2009, Part II

This is the second half of the travel journal. The sketching worked well
because it forced me to slow down, which wasn't a bad thing.
I'm not in as good of shape as 40 years ago
when I started this backpacking thing. There's no hurry. I usually get in trouble when I have flashbacks of the energy levels of youth and try to do it now. Gotta keep grounded and hike smarter, especially since I'm solo. Don't need any overuse injury complicating things. And this trip showed me the enjoyment level is just as high as when I covered twice the distance. Actually more enjoyable because I'm absorbing more of what I see and smell and feel.

In reading what people are posting on the web about solo backpacking, one said that it's not better that going with a group, it's just another form of backpacking. It's still fun to go with a group but it's a totally different experience because you're always interacting with the others. That communication is fun but distracts from experiencing what's around you. I think that says it well. That's also why it blends so well with sketch journaling, which is also about absorbing what's around you. They were made for each other.

One last thing I wanted to note here. When Wilma and I took a week in July '08 to see Glacier National Park I created my first travel journal. It was a combination of pre-trip, trip, and post-trip sketching and photo transfers. I like that approach for big trips. But another approach is to have a goal that when the trip is over, the journal is over. I wanted to try it, so for this trip that was the goal. The sketches you see are done live (one from memory) or not at all. The only exception is the map (which took some post-trip analysis) and a couple factoid inserts. My conclusion: the "sketch now or never" is OK if you're in control of your time, but I don't think it would work for trips with others. That said, it sure is nice to be finished with the journal and not drag it out.

Long Weekend in Ely

The week before the July 4 holiday Wilma and I took a 4-day weekend to the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota (OK, it's a little crazy driving 746 miles for two night in a cabin, but I'd do it again). Had an offer we couldn't pass up to visit friends who were up there for a longer stay. I've been up there a couple times for canoe trips but Wilma hasn't yet. Good chance to show her what this beautiful country is like. Ely (pronounced e-lee, for anyone who cares) has just over 5200 people and is a tourism town today. In recent times it was big in steel, and it's in transition. The transition hasn't been easy. They call themselves the "end of the road" because of their closeness to Canada, separated by a wilderness of lakes, streams and forest. Big things are canoeing/fishing in summer and snowmobile/dogsleds/cross country skiing in winter.

It's a neat town. The outdoor supply stores are serious and it looks like they are all individually owned (no chains). Outfitters. Wide assortment of stores. Great restaurants. Their radio channel, FM 94.5, WELY, is public radio that plays an eclectic selection of music(?), has local commercials(?), and sets a mood for the place. It has an Internet stream at www.wely.com, along with the other radio station at www.boundarywatersradio.com (blues, jazz and eclectic). Both cover local issues and you get a real feel for the town. I listen some at work on my PC.

As a coffee addict I love their Front Porch Coffee. The weather is much cooler than Kansas. Lakes are clear and plentiful. A canoe on your car roof is considered normal. Company was great. What more is there?

Last One In

We forced ourselves to make reservations this year for Memorial Day to start camping. Always comes too soon, but if you don't make plans, things don't happen. The mud daubers were at it again (see last Sept.7 "Camping Time"), causing mischief and mayhem with their nests. Very enjoyable time, though. Forgot salt, pepper, cinnamon, bug spray, and forgot to check charcoal (but we had enough). Thought we had water and electric services but only had electric (had half tank freshwater and it was enough). Not bad for first camp of the year. But we got labeled as "Last one in".

PS: I'm taking Kate Johnson's Watercolor Pencil class for the next 6-8 weeks so my posts here will be less frequent. But they'll continue.

Spring Break '09

The weather's been nice. Spring Break is here and it's time to get out and do some hiking. We headed over to northern Arkansas to the Buffalo National River. It was Amy's idea to see some hiking and backpacking country. I was all too pleased to plan it out. We kept too busy for me to sketch during the trip. Took pictures, though. Got home and figured out what I wanted to show. The country there is so scenic I think we'll be back.

Trip, Part 3

This day was short, as the main activity was a white-water trip in the afternoon, which does not lend itself to active sketching (or photography). A short hike in the morning rounded out the day. The view from the motel got me kinda excited and I didn't actively check perspective with my pencil as I sketched. Oops.





This map is an overall map for our time spent in the park. I love maps, so I really was looking forward to doing this sketch. They tell SO much with so few words. Need to learn more about mapping. I fell in love with the Columbian Ground Squirrels, so they had to make an appearance here, too (taking pictures pays off).

Pre-Trip Sketches

The wife and I just got back from a 10-day vacation to Glacier National Park in Montana. This is a big trip for us, and the first one since I starting really sketching. It was my time to play with what I've learned and what suggestions I've gathered from my EDM and LTJ communities. My travel journal has begun. This first sketch is blatant copying of an old magazine add that was used in a publication I purchased to plan this trip. It's my private journal (forget the fact that it's shared here with millions of people through Internet). I loved the image and wanted it for my first page.

Since this is my first time for a travel journal, I'll admit I don't know what I'm doing. Every trip won't be done this way, maybe, but until I try some things I won't know what style I like. Here's the first few pre-trip sketches. That's not exactly true. I WANTED them done before we left, but it's not to be. I worked on them during and after the trip, too. To finish the rest of the journal I wanted my digital pictures printed to base some sketches on, and transfer some pictures to the journal. Not exactly fast stuff. I'll post more as I get them done.

Close Call

It's been a hectic tornado season this year. Here in Kansas the towns of Claflin, Manhattan and Soldier's Creek sustained horrible damages last Wednesday with loss of life. The following day Topeka was spared damages when a hook cloud with rotation came through. Too close for comfort. This is a textbook tornado-producing cloud system, but this time it just put on a show. It caught the wife and I off guard in our car.

Spring Break

We used our daughter's college Spring Break to go down to Oklahoma. The eastern part of the State has plenty of lakes and hills and trees, etc. We wanted to get in some hiking, rapelling and top-roping. Kansas is rather vertically challenged and places to use our ropes and gear are minimal. We don't do anything radical and we don't do technical climbing. We rented a cabin at Lake Eufaula and drove to Robbers Cave State Park for the fun stuff. Never been to either place and I'd go back again.

Childhood Home

In another group I'm in the idea came up to draw a floor plan of some home in your past. I thought of this home from my early years. It was demolished this year to make room for some health care facilities to be built soon. I plan on doing a couple more sketches of the other two homes in my youth. This was a good chance to talk with my Mom and siblings about memories.