Last week was our local SketchCrawl. We are still holding them virtually – sketch where you are and post work to the group’s FB site.

Autumn in the Lowcountry is staring to bloom. I could get lost in the textures of the grasses and other plants that are changing. It’s a great time for wildflowers, too.  I managed to spare an hour or so for a plein air, direct watercolor sketch of roadside plants just outside of my neighborhood.

Most of the time was spent carefully drawing the danglepod with my waterbrush and different shades of greens.  A lot of folks dislike this ruderal plant. I love it as to me, it’s a great contender for a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Just a season off in timing, is all.

I wanted to add the names of the plants to the page along with a blurb about how the beauty of Lowcountry colors tug at my heart.  I knew about goldenrod and dogfennel, but had a devil of a time finding the name of the tree-like plant.  My friend and Ecologist a work came to the rescue. I love learning about plants!  Both the goldenrod and dogfennel are in the Asteraceae Family, the danglepod in the pea / Fabaceae Family.

When I have a lot of text to add to a page, and time to think about it, I love to explore possibilities.  I added a photo of the journal page into the app Procreate. I can then play with different ideas without making a mess of the original journal page.  Here is a short time lapse video of the process.

From here, I penciled in the copy on the journal page they went over it with a Faber Castell Pitt pen, making final tweaks as I went along.  The Procreate App is a fantastic tool to add to your art supplies!