One of the lovely things about spending time in the woods is that you can look around and see things you might not notice otherwise. Small wildflowers at your feet bring your attention to a patch of unexpected color, a complex and ornate flower in early spring or the rough-and-tumble of late summer’s tall golden flowers. They’re all worth sketching and painting.
If you’re quiet when you go into the woods, you’re liable to see wildlife as well as flora and fauna. Be still and quiet, and they’ll accept you—albeit warily—and go back to their normal life. Squirrels may scold from behind a branch. Birds resume their song, feeding and mating and nesting all around you. Butterflies and moths flit by, without a care. Watch for graceful lunas and the amazing camouflage io moths, who flash large “eyes” at would-be predators.
Different flowers bloom in different areas, of course, depending on your latitude and longitude, weather, soil type and elevation. The beautiful, modest coral-colored columbine in my woods is nothing like the huge sky-blue versions in the evergreen forests of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains.
The light was fading and I was hanging onto the side of a steep bluff as I tried to capture this pretty bellwort, but I painted as much as I could.
Ferns and mushrooms are fun to paint and draw. Look around as you hike or ramble, or just sit for a while and let the forest show itself to you. You may see something you’d normally overlook.
Here’s a quick technique for sketching in nature: Do the basic drawing with a wax-based colored pencil (I used black here). Then use watercolor pencils or watercolor washes to splash in some color.
I added some detail and tightened up the sketch a bit after I got back home.
WOODSTOCK TOWER TURTLEHEAD
Watercolor pencil and watercolor crayon on Arches hot-pressed watercolor paper
12" × 9" (30cm × 23cm)
A quick sketch will help you get proportions right. If you need to, you can draw one side of the butterfly or moth, then lay a piece of tracing paper over that half, trace it and flip the tracing over to make sure the other side is symmetrical.
The larger mammals like deer are a bit shyer, but you may still see them, especially in parks where they are protected by law. They seem to know they’re safe.
The io moth comes in several shades. Some have very dark upper wings, and some are bright golden yellow, but the underwings are always a surprise when they “open” those eyes at you.
In your wanderings, you might even see a bear (they’re becoming more common in many states). In that case, though, I don’t suggest a close-up study. Binoculars are good when the animal is a large predator. A quick sketch to finish at home may be your best bet. You can always work from your drawing or just splash on a quick watercolor wash.
DRAGONFLY PRISMS
Watercolor pencil and graphite on Arches cold-press watercolor paper
7" × 10" (18cm × 25cm)
I rendered this little fellow with watercolor pencils, first lightly sketching in the shape with a graphite pencil that doesn’t lift when wet. I left the wings on the left almost untouched to show the progression, and here you can see the very light pencil lines. I worked from light to dark, wetting and blending each layer as I went—on the left side the top wing has not been wet while the bottom one has. I continued to strengthen the values of the greens, blues and prismatic lights on the wings on the right, then added the rich blacks, blending carefully where they met the more brightly colored areas, and keeping sharp, dark edges where they needed to be defined. The green background that allows the dragonfly to shine was done with a variety of yellow, blue and dark green pencils, blended but allowed to retain some variation for more interest.