Sketching Druid Hill Creek 7

The month of May has been considerably gentler (and less cruel) than April. May began with more warmth and sunshine as the honeysuckle undergrowth along the creek exploded into leaf. The first few days were fair and gentle and as the warm weather really took hold the trees and brush turned lush. My view of Druid Hill Creek from the studio is downstream and north but later this month my plan is move the sketching station outside and make a few sketches upstream too.

The first May sketch of the creek shows one of the river willows outside my studio. It came up voluntarily several years ago and I've left it there, watching as it gains size and height. Behind it, on the opposite bank, the honeysuckle and other undergrowth had gotten noticeably larger by early in the month. I laid this in with a mixture of raw umber and ivory black reserving white paper here and there. Over that the leaves and plants were indicated with various mixes of green and yellow. To finish the sketch I used a technical pen to outline and indicate branches and the trunk.

Although most of the time I haven't added the enormous cottonwoods and other old trees that line the upper banks of the creek because I was more interested in the creek and water. Sometimes I simply indicated the presence of these old behemoths, but mostly edited them out. On day early in the month, though, I sketched one of them, a fifty-foot monster cottonwood with giant branches. Using the same procedure I laid in the initial drawing lightly then painted over with a dark mix of umber and black. The tree was nearly leafed out as were the rest of its neighbors. Druid Hill Creek is a fairly mature area of triple canopy woods consisting of a high canopy, middle growth of smaller trees, undergrowth and then the banks. Since this was a quick morning sketch I concentrated on the trunk and closest canopy of leaves, merely indicated the other layers.

May progresses much faster than other months of Spring, owing to warmth and rain. By the end of the first week of this month, the view downstream from the studio looks very much like wilderness even though people have lived along the creek for more than 150 years. The morning that I did this watercolor and ink painting I had more time.

One of the great things about a project of this kind is the opportunity to concentrate on a single motif, but time and other work will probably limit these sketches for a while, especially with the newly glorious spring weather.

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Previously
Druid Hill Creek Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6