Sketching in Parks

A couple dozen sharpened Prisma Color pencils, Tara Rosa, my favorite. Two Utrecht sketchbooks with a plywood board to rest on the steering wheel serve as my drawing board. A Diet Coke in the cup holder and a 25 lb bag of peanuts in the shell to feed the squirrels and ducks that came to my van begging. 8 AM was my starting time. Getting a good parking spot is most important. I like the shady spots where I can get a view of the bike path and the climbing tree (a tree that grows sideways). Kids are always giving their climbing skills a test with the tree, even a few adults occasionally give it a go. 

First to arrive at the park on Mondays is the golfer in his old land yacht of a car. He always backs his yacht of a car into a parking space at the far end of the lot. With a basket of golf balls he sets about driving them over the trees into the river. I want to ask him where he got all his golf balls from, but sketching him was good enough. A rough sketch of the golfer is my warm up. Driving off, he glanced my way.  I stay in my van dropping peanuts out the window, waiting for my next subject. Ducks waddle up from the river, racing to get the peanuts. A favorite squirrel fills his cheeks with nuts and scampers up the tree in front of me. 

Joggers fill a few pages and a failed attempt at a bicyclist, a couple more pages. Ten o'clock and a track team comes charging across the footbridge. All bare chested, all lean as can be, too fast for sketching but I try anyway. Good gesture sketches. Following behind the track team comes a lady jogger struggling along, giving me a bit more time to draw her. Two tan Mercedes show up, one a family car, the other a sporty type. A young, shapely blond gets out of the sporty one and joins the elderly man in the other one. Serious hugs take place there. Always something keeping me interested. When a friend's sister shows up with a mailman, and he isn't her husband, its time for me to move… 

A new spot offers new subjects. A couple old friends sharing stories while keeping an eye on the grandchildren. I switch to a half sheet of watercolor paper when a young girl catches me drawing her and takes to walking on a fallen telephone pole , walking it over and over. She knows I am drawing her and so I switch to watercolor paper with the idea I will fill in the color back in the studio. Sketching in the parks is how I begin my days, filling sketchbooks with possible ideas for future paintings. 

Tomorrow's Canvas

An orange sunset reflected in a weathered, white framed window of an old brick farmhouse. I raise my camera and snap a reference to nourish the poem forming in my head. Fleeting, is the image before me. The dark interior adds mystery to my poem as I let shadows swallow the scene that holds me. Polished glass is the stage for the setting sun and the dancing leaves of the cottonwoods. Frozen in space, I wait for the curtain to fall. Walking to the car I glance back in hopes of a second act or an encore, I open my car door with an air of melancholy.

A deer darts past me adding to the day of wonder.  His white tail flies over the lush greens of the gooseberry bushes and disappears into the growing black shadows across the road. My trophy from my morning efforts greets me with a smile from the passenger seat, fending off the oncoming darkness. Leaving the stand of cottonwoods, the road takes me to a vista view. The kind the Midwest is known for.  Crunching gravel beneath the tires sounds as the car slows to a stop. In the distant black, angus graze below a rich, blue ever deepening sky. Stars take to the new stage before me as a choir of grass creatures harmonize, pulling me from the car. Birds looking for a cozy place to take in the night performance, dart about. Two poems fight for tomorrow's canvas as new colors replace the reds and oranges of the window poem.  

With cold, spicy chili, sitting on the back porch I review the day, making notes in color and with words I plan out my studio time.