Sweet Gum Season

 

9/2/23 Green Lake

I just needed some time to work out my denial. I have, and now I’m fully embracing the end of summer and the beginning of fall. And the best way I know of to do that is to sketch the Green Lake sweet gums. I couldn’t find a sketch done last year during the first week of September, but that probably means there wasn’t enough color to sketch. There’s definitely more color now than two years ago, when it was just barely beginning at this time of year. It’s not my imagination: The color is early this year.

Color and media notes: The Caran d’Ache botanical palette is working out well for early fall, but I’m missing the easy intensity of Museum Aquarelles. I’m going to stay with the palette a while longer, but I’m going to swap out some Supracolors for Museums when I have colors that are close. I also need to add back in my favorite dark, cool green from the Museum palette. In these parts, even if my sketch is about glorious deciduous trees, they are usually fringed by firs, and the darkest green in the botanical palette is too warm.

After putting up with the bright purple Fibralo Brush Marker as long as I could, I swapped it for a Derwent Inktense Dusky Purple (730), which is warmer than the Dark Purple (750) and Nightshade (770) I used often for darks during my early summer friendship with Inktense. I like it here as a complement to the fall hues.

Also new in this sketch is an Archer & Olive Acrylograph Paint Pen, which I had never heard of until I got one in a SketchBox. It seems to be close to Posca markers in that it requires shaking and priming, so I’m guessing that the paint is similar. When I used it for the first time at Green Lake, I was instantly peeved: The cap doesn’t post! (Also true of the Fibralo markers, and I can’t believe I forgot to rant about it!) You’ve heard me say this before, and I’m not going to stop being cranky about it: There’s no legitimate excuse for a pen to have a cap that doesn’t post! It costs the same to produce a cap that posts as one that doesn’t! That cap is just asking to be lost! So as much as I like the lovely calligraphic marks this pen tip makes (and the color I received just happens to go well with my current palette), it probably won’t last long in my bag.

Nice marks from the Acrylograph, but the dang cap doesn't post!