Wednesday, July 22, 2009

An Afternoon at the Beach...


...Or at least a couple of hours. I live equal distance from two city parks on the water. I adore the one in Sandpoint, as do most of the population it seems. I'd not been to the other one in Dover, so headed there today. I figured if nothing else, it wouldn't be too crowded since Dover is such a tiny community. I was correct about that; however, to call the part of the small park next to the water a beach is a stretch at best. And the water is more river than lake at this spot. Still, it was a lovely day and I found a shady spot to spread my blanket, eat my lunch and sketch.


I think it was the camp chair with it's many legs that intrigued me enough to sketch the girl totally engrossed in her reading. I soon reverted to drawing the negative shapes as I'd learned in my class to get the angles right. I was amused at her big floppy straw hat, something I'd expect a much older woman to be wearing ( or maybe I'm not in step with current fashion). It was difficult to capture because there was a breeze, so the brim kept changing shape. The girl kept changing position too, but would soon return to the position I was sketching or close enough.. I knew I'd incorporate that tree on the left once the girl was sketched, but hadn't planned adding any of the rest of the background. Once I'd loosely interpreted the pine tree, I guess I was on a roll and used a similar loose technique to add the shoreline, tall grass, bushes and trees. I'd say the drawing class has helped a lot. This sketch is a huge improvement over the ones below I was making back in 2006 when I was out here house hunting. Those sketches were so light I had to fiddle with the scan so you could even see them. Not so with today's drawing.


When I returned to the parking lot, I noticed the osprey on its high high human-provided perch.


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