Progress!

Yes, today was a day of progress and a return of previously marked "Absent" brain cells!  I feel like myself, and that too is a relief.  

We did a lot of talking during the studio class, but amazingly enough, we still managed to get some work accomplished.  As I had decided to set aside the Country Store painting that will require more time than I can give it right now, I had to go through photographs and find something else to work on.  At first I just wanted to draw without thinking about the sketch as a study for a painting, but  . . .  Now that I've started the drawing, I find myself thinking about it in terms of the painting that might follow.  It started when my teacher said something about thinking about values for the watercolor.  I thought to myself, "Watercolor????????  No way, this is an oil painting!"  Funny how I am so sure of that.  Anyway, I decided that I should probably try a landscape of this type in watercolors and see what happens.  An oil painting could always come later.  

However, before I go any further, I will share with you the rough beginnings.  Today I experimented with pencils - H and B types of lead, square 2" pieces of four-sided graphite, special drawing pencils with very soft lead (Ebony is the name of them - wonderful things!), and other pencils with broad ½" wide lead.  That was a good lesson in itself.  

At the moment this title is "Raking the Hay", and there's a funny side to that.  This is a view from way up a mountain across the lake from the side where we now stay.  I've drawn from this particular spot before but never with a farmer in the scene.  As I was drawing, I just knew I would have to do some research because I was having difficulty with the machine on the back of the tractor.  I couldn't see it well enough in my photograph and didn't even understand what the farmer was doing.  

When Sharon told me not to worry because I didn't have to include it, I was amazed and told her the tractor and whatever what the reason for drawing this particular view (I really love machinery!).  She said okay, but I might have trouble with this part.  "Don't worry," I said, "D will know what it is and what the farmer is doing with it, and then I'll be able to find the machine on line."  

He did, and I did, and now the title pays tribute to the farmer who is using a "mechanized hay rake" to rake the hay into rows.  

D to my rescue once more!