Further Into Fall

The clocks are set back, the evenings dark, and the trees are almost stripped of leaves, excepting the green patch of undergrowth here and there along Druid Hill Creek. An earlier post mentioned that our spate of heavy rain might result in dimmer autumn foliage. As it happened, the trees and shrubbery along our stretch of Druid Hill has been brilliant and has lasted longer than expected. Some large trees may have suffered during the dry days of summer and those leaves fell early and in abundance. But other mature relatives along the street and the creek supplied brilliance and a lot of it.

Fall is an especially fun time for sketching, and the past couple of weeks have been particularly so. The burning bush shrubs in many gardens went bright crimson, sometimes unbelievably bright. And maples have given us a lot of reds, rusts, bright oranges and even yellows.

The watercolor and ink painting above was actually the second of this particular group, but hasn't been posted before. There was a kind of parade of changing leaves, punctuated by others fully-fledged and still-green. The scene is near the studio, sketched on the street. The light was filtering through the foliage, making their colors even more brilliant. A sapling like a yellow lollipop stood out. Northern grasses like ours stay green longer into the cool months, but even the grass had begun to go to a dormant yellow. I laid in a rough drawing then painted the colors in several layers, being careful to let each dry before proceeding carefully to the next. When I was satisfied with the colors and shapes and values I added ink here and there to provide dark details. This particular painting is about 10x5 in a pocket sketchbook.

The next of these watercolors is about the same size as the first above. There was a sapling along the drive that had begun to yellow just the slightest, while in the middle ground an exceptionally brilliant maple and a very large burning bush competed for attention. I drew the bare outlines in graphite, painted the background and reserved places for the middle and foreground, then drew masses of foliage with waterproof ink. Painting took a couple of steps to secure a three-dimensional appearance for the tree and shrub. This is also about 10x5.

Only a couple of days later the colors began to show even more. Down the street was this array rusty reds and orange, greens going yellow, and This was sketched and painted similarly to the one above, in the same sketchbook.

Sometimes it's fun to try to produce a sketch from memory. The yellowed tree and sapling in this sketch were inspired by a patch of woods across Druid Hill Creek, but this isn't an exact record. In the case of this one I spent a lot of time observing and memorizing the masses of leaves still on the tree. The topmost twigs and branches had begun losing leaves, making them lacy and less mass-y, so I wanted to make certain to include that tracery of twigs as well as the weighty look of the rest. The small sapling in the lower right was closer to the main tree, and angled away from it; the mental trick as to reverse it in memory. The yellows of the leaves were more buttery but I wanted to punch the chroma more. The drawing and painting process was very similar to the others above, but here I used much less ink, preferring to blur the background much more.

In the very few days since these last sketches, the cold winds of the north and blustery rain have arrived. These leaf patterns and colors no longer exist, except spread below in fading puddles. The last sketch here (L) was actually done the day before the yellow trees above, but exemplifies what the weather became--cold, wet and bitter--that stripped most of the trees.

Sketching the fall is not only fun, it can add to the mental library of a painter, too. Using quick and portable media like watercolor (or other watermedia) one can sketch as a way of notation for other work. The colors, shapes, and light of the times can be translated to studio works, even when you don't reproduce the sketch but only use it for guidance.