In this series I sketched at my neighborhood pond daily in June 2018. The pond is a mile from our house in Austin, TX and it’s really just a water retention pond. At first glance it doesn’t seem all that exciting, but I’ve done over 50 sketches there and feel like I’ve barely made a ripple.
My goals for this project were to get to know this place close to home and to practice sketching outside — in wind and rain and weather. Temperatures soared up to the 100s and my brushstrokes dried as fast as I could paint! My other goal was to stay motivated to do my rehab after six knee surgeries for a torn ACL.
I recorded little notes on the back of the postcards and mailed them to myself. It was such a feeling of accomplishment to open the mailbox and find one there!
Here are a few of my favorite postcards (click on an image to see it larger):
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- The pond in my neighborhood in Austin, TX.
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- “my” cottonwood — I love standing under this tree and listening to the leaves.
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- Cottonwood and clouds.
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- A great blue heron, the pond in black and white, and a widow skimmer.
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- Ripples in the pond from the heron taking off.
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- Clouds, a peppervine, and more clouds.
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- Closeup of the peppervine. It started raining right after I took the photo.
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- Pile of postcards.
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- Spied a coyote at the pond // I was like wait, that’s not a dog.
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- The pond in (mostly) black and white.
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- Grapes // the paint was drying super fast this day.
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- I wrote little notes on the postcards and sent them to myself.
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- Late morning walk + 92 degrees = stand in the shade of a willow for your daily sketch!
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- Greenthread, Mexican hats and cattails.
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- Scarlet pea and mimosa // sketched from the shade.
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- Sketched under the shade of an oak.
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- Mr. Turtle
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- This guy let me get close enough to sketch him.
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- Evening at the pond.
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- My palette.
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- It’s a rare cloudy day here so I did 2 sketches on my walk for the #30x30directwatercolor2018 challenge. ☁️ Love cloudy days, who’s with me? ☁️ . Anyhow, here’s the first one of pink evening primroses that are still hanging on — they’re usually finished up by now. 🤠 . Also updated my @expeditionaryart pocket palette with some new colors for summer 🎨 #cbdrawaday #watercolor #postcardsfromthepond #sideoatssketches2018
Here’s a quick video of my sketch setup so that you can see my process and hear the redwing blackbirds singing: