Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Exploring


This past weekend my family and I took a drive to explore the surrounding area and to get some sun and fresh air. We went to the hills around Paskenta, southwest of our home. Sadly, I have lived here for 18 years and don't recall ever visiting this area before. Paskenta is a small town on the edge of the Mendocino National Forest. This time of year the rolling hills are green with gorgeous purple, white and orange flowers sprinkled about and plenty of young calves and lambs in the fields. It was a perfect day to explore.
We continued our drive up the mountain to find a camp ground that was mentioned on a sign earlier. Always on the look out for a fun place to camp, we decided to visit it. We were able to get to within a mile of it before the road was completely blocked with snow! 70 degrees and sunny at our home less then 45 minutes away and cold and snow on the mountain. We couldn't pass it. We couldn't visit the camp ground. Guess we will try again later in the spring.
The sketch above is of an old country store in Paskenta. It was done with WC pencils and ink on my new Raffine Sketchbook. There will be many more sketches from our little adventure. Just goes to show that one doesn't have to visit exotic locations to find beauty and interesting sites.
Thanks for visiting!

9 comments:

Ann said...

This is very nice! I like your use of line and color, it has a great fresh feel. I can smell the spring air :)

Unknown said...

Great sketch of the store.It sounds like you all had an awesome time in the park

Donn said...

This is a very lovely sketch. Love the colors. Interesting sometimes you don't see what's so near to you. They make great sketches like this one!
Nice work.

FRANKYE said...

I haven't taken my Raffine sketch book out for plein aire yet, but it looks like it would be a good thing to do. I like the way you have used the pencils with the ink in your sketch I think that the composition tells us a lot about the place and your enjoyment of the time you spent there.

Margaret McCarthy Hunt said...

Very nice sketch of the store...great job

Lynn said...

I really like this drawing. It's fresh and clean and lovely.

suzanne cabrera said...

This drawing has such beautiful line quality! I especially like how you've conveyed the texture of the roof so well with so few strokes.

Anetka said...

I like the way you use your line in drawings!!
I love this sketch.

Mineke Reinders said...

What a delightful sketch, Susan. The lines are lovely, so fresh!