Florida Sketches

We've just returned from a few days visiting family in central Florida. For those not familiar with spring weather patterns there, lets just say "rainy." The temperatures weren't bad--highs in the middle 80s--but the humidity was almost never below 90 percent and rain came daily and often. Showers, thundershowers, lightning, and dark skies were the general rule, punctuated by occasional sunny moments.

Bradenton, watercolor, 3x6

Outdoor sketching was difficult at best, despite the bordering conservation area that boasted all sorts of wildlife as well as flora that seemed very exotic to this midwesterner. Although in the week or so of our visit I managed a walk or two, there was little time for drawing. Nonetheless the view from what Floridians call the lanai and we would call a screened patio encompassed the jungle (you can't call it woods). And in fact it rewarded us with several sightings of various species. A small group of a half-dozen white-tail deer came out to browse one afternoon during a rain shower.

I had no chance to sketch the deer--too far away in the misty aftermath of the rain--but the jungle was an easy subject. Full of all sorts of palm varieties, low-growing and upper scaffolding of non-palms as well as infinite sheltering branches, vines, decaying vegetation and the like, the shades and tints of green seemed infinite and challenging. I did manage this small sketch, accentuated by ink.

Sand hill crane, watercolor, 3x5

More remarkably four nonchalant sand hill cranes, which are non-migratory there, once came walking across the open green space and passed slowly between houses, bound for a small lake across the street. These big birds (something like ten pounds each and over two feet tall) stalk around the heavily forested conservation area, hunting, but are completely unconcerned about humans. I sketched one adult on a different occasion as he or she stood silently near a small puddle, almost a statue, probably hunting. Their eyes have a yellow-gold color beneath their red foreheads. I added a very few light touches of ink with a fine-tipped technical pen.


In the end my sketching was confined to the screened patio and the occasional restaurant visit. Alas the outdoors had to wait for our return to Iowa.