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| 3/29/21 Dibble Ave. NW, Crown Hill neighborhood |
Dibble Avenue Northwest in the Greenwood/Crown Hill
neighborhood is a regular stop on my annual petal-peeping tour. Sometimes the
cherries are in full bloom by mid-March; other years I’ve had to wait until
early April. Last year, they were at peak by late-March.
They’re late this year. Most trees were still full of tightly closed buds, but a couple had arrived early to the party. I was nearly done with the sketch when a black kitty appeared and took a seat by the basketball hoop for a few seconds – not long, but long enough.
Technical note: Capturing the form of a white apple tree was no problem with the solid blackness of water-soluble carbon, but pale pink blossoms are another matter. I can hardly see the shadows, and I don’t want the shading to be too dark with such delicate pink clouds. Finding the right shadow color for sunlit pink is always a challenge, too. As I mutter this to myself, I can already hear Kathleen Moore’s voice in my head from the graphite tree class: Make thumbnail value studies first to find the form. Yes, teacher. (I was so eager to go out and play that I obviously didn’t do my homework.)
I like the softness of this combined with a bit of texture. No pink blossoms here yet. Everything is a bit behind the normal schedule. I've seen daffodils, a few tulips and forsythia that is just starting to bloom. Hopefully tomorrow I will have a bit of time to find some of those bushes. Those always scream spring to me.
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