First Snow

 Woke up to our first proper snowstorm this morning. It wasn't very much snow but enough to frost this gnarly tree and bring out its undulating wavelike properties.

Black, white, and gray ink on toned paper

4" x 6"

Another monolith

Sketched over two 30 minute sessions at the UMass Sun Wheel, plus detail work from reference photo.

This was interesting because of the variation in how the different facets took the light, affecting both the overall values and the textures.

Little Tinker Hill

I've done this scene a couple times before. There's something adorable about its gently curved profile that keeps bringing me back. The late afternoon light in the fall is always spectacular.

Dead Bird

Poor thing crashed into a window at the bank entrance and lay there as customers came and went.

This is likely to be its only memorial.

I'm guessing it was a swamp sparrow,  although this one's colors are a bit darker than the illustration in my Roger Tory Peterson bird book.

Forest Path

I've sketched this little path heading into the woods several times in different seasons and times of day.

Election day significance? Well, we are heading into the unknown. But really I just happened to be in the neighborhood and revisited the spot.

Monolith

I was waiting for a friend at the UMass Sunwheel and sketched one of the monoliths used to track astronomical events.

These roughhewn granite stones are good sketching subjects for practicing measurement and proportion because their shapes are pretty arbitrary - no preconceived armature to fall back on. 

Three Dumpsters

Twice in as many days have I found myself in a parking lot with a little time on my hands. In both cases a cursory search revealed, in a remote corner, a dumpster or two, occupying that liminal space between the gritty asphalt and the rampant foliage asserting Nature's claim to our unproductive and neglected bits of turf. I tried to get a coherent image using only pen and ink on white paper, relying on texture and hatching to indicate a value scale.