Rain Walker

A pen and ink sketch from this morning. Walking in the rain and melting snow, saw a lone woman in black silhouetted against the misty background, tried to draw from memory.

New shed in new snow in new sketchbook

 The sun was low in the sky behind the shed, casting the front surfaces into shadow and creating rim lighting around the roof. The snow on the roof, while technically in shadow, had its own luminosity, collecting and reflecting the skylight.

 Time for a new Montanapolitancroptic sketchbook!

Here are a few from the old one that I hadn't gotten around to posting:

Another of those rocks from the UMass Sun Wheel. People gather there to observe the solstices and equinoxes.

At first I thought these guys were building a shed but it turned out they were carefully disassembling it. In any case, the light was very striking.

The former Amherst, MA train station. It's right down the street from the old Emily Dickinson place, which apparently was no accident - her family held a lot of stock in the railroad company.

Self Service Car Wash

I was initially attracted by the luminosity of the snow and white fence vibing off each other in the sunlight. As I was working I saw several people coming and going on the beaten path leading up the hill. I wondered if there was a name for such unofficial byways and thought that "via vernacula" would be a good one. I found no instances of "via vernacula" on the web but did find a couple references to existing terms: "social path" and "desire path." Results of searching on "social path" got about 50/50 "Did you mean 'sociopath?'" and a k-pop song of the same name. "Desire path" got more legit hits but had mostly negative connotations of environmental damage caused by lazy or impatient people bushwhacking across the landscape. Furthermore, "desire path' sounds like a route for a street car. Neither has the zing of "Via vernacula," so I am hereby nominating it as the term of record.

Backyard climbing structure

 For years I've been drawing and painting this climbing structure in our back yard. For some reason it always cheers me up, like a friendly little being looking back at me and reminding me of happy times with my kids. I've done it in different media and seasons, although with a predilection for snow scenes, and made it my avatar on line. Alas, all things must pass; the structure was falling apart and becoming an attractive nuisance, so today we had it taken away to be supplanted by a garden shed. Here is a little farewell tribute to a long standing muse.

Skue

You’d see upon the highway years ago
Serving as an ad hoc wall and warning
Old oil drums guarding worksites, row on row
Crudely painted orange stripes adorning.

Word was, they were provisioned by the Mob.
For this cause, perhaps, or one less drastic
A new, updated model got the job
A drum simulacrum of orange plastic

It retained the features of the barrel,
Public recognition not to squander.
How to call it in a cry of peril?
“Look out for them skeuomorphs up yonder!”

Now we see once more a new mutation:
Like a barber pole, a tower slender
Needs a taxonomic appellation
Perhaps I could tender a contender?

I rummage in my cluttered lexicon
My monkey mind, a whistling dwarf
Wielding his pickaxe, mines chthonic axons
Brings back a diamond: “Skeu-ecto-morph!”

Is there a point to this epiphany?
A private triumph over entropy.

Hartsbrook Farm

This is a scene I never tire of sketching. The geometry of all those metal roofs and the ever-changing light are always rewarding.

Watercolor, 4" x 6"