Mostly Fauna, One Flora

8/16/15 ink

The main purpose of our trip to Minnesota was Greg’s family’s annual reunion picnic, this time held in the town of St. Charles about a hundred miles south of the Twin Cities. I did resist sketching during the picnic (difficult, yes, but we all know the sacrifices we make for family). However, I got my opportunity for sketching immediately following the picnic, when we were invited to visit a nearby dairy farm belonging to one of his relatives.

While Pam, the dairy farmer, gave us a tour of her artisanal cheese-making operation, I kept looking around for cows to sketch. At first they were all grazing on the far end of the field, out of sight. But as the tour of the farm continued, I lagged behind a bit and was rewarded. Three or four cows wandered out of their barn, and a couple of them even walked right up to the fence where I stood, staring at me. On auto-pilot, I pulled out my usual Sailor fude pen, but after unsuccessfully trying to capture their constant movements with that, I realized I was using the wrong tool. I then pulled out a brush pen, and this time I had slightly better luck making bovine gesture sketches.

8/16/15 Kuretake brush pen

The last two sketches are both part of the exterior décor of the Country Inn & Suites where we stayed in Bloomington. “Hear No Evil” is a bronze sculpture of a clothed chimp attached to a bench. I kept thinking his brothers (who neither see nor speak evil) should be nearby, but I never found them. Strangely random.

Less random were the large urns of colorful leaves and flowers on either side of the hotel’s main entrance. Each morning while I waited for Greg to shower, my routine was to get coffee from the lobby and then look for something to sketch nearby. One morning I drew the urn arrangement; the next day I painted it. As soon as I had started sketching, I realized I had sketched it previously – almost exactly two years ago (the plants were different then, though).

(See the next post for more travel randomness.)

8/16/15 ink

8/17 - 8/18/15 ink, watercolor