Journal 3: Learning to field sketch

4/22/19 1:20 pm, Licton Springs Park, 57°, humid, cloudy

            Since I’ve been here last, my site appears to be a lot greener. Some of the vegetation has grown and spread a good amount.

This is my “repeat” image of my site at the 1 sq. meter spatial scale. The salmonberry plant in front of the closest tree definitely grew taller.

This is my “repeat” image of my site at the 50 sq. meter spatial scale. You can get a good look at how the area is a little greener than before.

Everything just seems to be a little greener and a little taller. The horsetails definitely grew and there seems to be more of them.

This is a picture I took of one of the many horsetails that cover the area. Some of them are more mature than others, but more are definitely popping up.

            Also, I can now confirm that the singular pink flower I saw at my site in the first week was salmonberry. I can tell by the shape of the leaves and the flowers. Now, there are even more flowers, but there are no signs of the actual berries yet. With the pink flowers popping up more and more, I’m realizing that there are quite a few salmonberry shrubs on my site which is exciting. I’m really looking forward to actually seeing the berries and maybe even trying a few.

This is an image of one of the flowers from one of the salmonberry shrubs. The last time I was here, there was only one and it looked a little wilted. This one looks pretty healthy.

After going to Ravenna Park and learning about the different tree and shrub species, I can also identify the trees on my site. The most common one seems to be red alder, indicated by the leaf shape and color of the bark.

This is my sketch of the red alder leaf. At the time I didn’t recognize it, so I wrote “unidentified tree”, but I now know that it is a red alder.

One of the red alder trees on my site seems to have been defaced. Someone took a sharp object and inscribed something on the trunk.

These marks were not here as of two weeks ago, so someone must have come at some point between now and the last time I visited to scratch their name (?) into the tree. 

There is also a young western red cedar tree growing which I could identify by its leaves.

I knew this tree was a western red cedar despite it being so young because of the scaly leaves.

For the “Leslie Field Sketching” exercises 1-5 and 8, I chose to do a fern. I didn’t know what kind it was when I was drawing it, but from what I learned at Ravenna Park I can identify it as a bracken fern. This is indicated by the bi-pinnate structure of the leaves and the fact that the leaflets are very rounded.

This is my exercise #3 memory sketch of the bracken fern. It was more difficult to do than I thought. I was tempted to look at the fern pretty often. 

This is my (embarrassing) exercise #4 contour sketch. It was really difficult to do repeated patterns and return to the original spot I thought I was at without lifting up my pen.

For my exercise #5: quick gesture sketch, this was all that I could manage to get on the paper in three seconds.

This is my 5 second quick gesture sketch. It looks pretty similar to the 3 second sketch but I was able to draw in a few more details.

For my 30 second quick gesture sketch, I was able to accomplish a but more. The leaflets are cleaner but I was still not able to finish the entire image.

In my 60 second quick gesture sketch, I was able to actually finish drawing the whole thing. I still felt rushed, though.

This is my exercise #8 study drawing. I took my time with this, focusing on the shape and direction of growth of the leaflets. I also payed attention to the spacing between leaflets and how they were arranged.