And in fact, a kid-friendly hike in the redwoods is just the thing to break up back-to-back beach days. The change of pace is refreshing, and some time out of the sun is good for this fair-skinned mama.
It is difficult to get super-sharp phone photos without a tripod when under the redwood canopy. Besides the temperature being 10-20 degrees lower, which is a great relief mid-summer, it's also much dimmer, and I usually have a wiggly one in arms or grabbing at my skirt. ;)
But I include these anyway so you can see some of the most common plants that live alongside the redwoods here and how otherworldly this unique ecosystem can be. It's like nothing else!
The ground is always and everywhere covered in redwood sorrel. Miner's lettuce, wild ginger, and sword ferns pop up here and there as well.
Just then the sorrel flowers were coming in season, so blooms were peeking out amid the leaves.
No matter how many times we visit the redwoods, their size is always striking.
They grow alongside several other tree varieties, like spruces, firs, and laurels, but they always steal the show!
I found a few pinecones to paint back at the house.
The one on the far left is the redwood cone: so tiny! On the right is the Douglass-Fir (which is actually not a fir at all, so I learned). The pamphlet we picked up at the park mentioned that the distinctive extended bracts look like little mice bottoms scurrying into the cone. I will never look at one of those cones the same way again!
Celeste - what resource would you recommend for learning dry brush techniques? Your artwork is amazing!
ReplyDeleteLucy--I meant that comment below to be in response to your question but didn't click "reply." ;)
DeleteHi Lucy! Thank you so much. :) Before I suggest anything to you, I will just point out one difference between how I like to do things and the CM approach: I prefer to do my sketching in pencil and then ultra-fine tip marker before dry brushing the object, whereas CM had her students do their preliminary sketching in watercolor as well. I didn't use any particular resources to get going--I really just learned by trial and error, keeping in mind a couple basic principles, like using water just to activate the paints and mix my colors and then working from a dry brush as much as possible after that. Since then I've seen a few posts that might be helpful to you:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.charlottemasoninstitute.org/a-dry-brush-tutorial-or-who-is-afraid-of-a-little-paint-by-jeannette-tulis/
https://educatingmother.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/and-the-mother-who-learns-to-dry-brush-a-guest-post/
https://childlightusa.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/nature-study-demonstration-lily-by-deborah-dobbins/
And Eve Anderson has a DVD on nature study that I haven't personally seen but have heard good things about:
https://www.perimeter.org/ls/bookstore/eve-andersons-teacher-training-tools-set-of-3-dvds/dp/2337
Hope that helps!
Awesome! When my oldest was a baby and we lived (briefly) in Oregon, we made a trip down to northern California to see the redwoods, and it's something I'll always remember. I wish I had known about nature journals then, but at least we still have the pictures... developed, on film ;-).
ReplyDeleteI grow miner's lettuce in my garden, by the way. It's very hardy through our winters here and is a nice addition to winter salads, very high in vitamin C.
How fun! We have lots of miner's lettuce at our local county park. My kids love how their cups fill with dew. They are one of our first bloomers of late winter wildflowers and we always look forward to them. I haven't shared with the kids yet that they're edible... ;)
DeleteFerns are so enchanting! :) Love the paintings at the end!!! :) Hope to see the Pacific and the Redwoods one day. :)
ReplyDeleteIf you make it out this way at some point, I'd like you see you! And I love ferns--their leafiness always seems very faerie to me. :)
DeleteFerns are so enchanting! :) Love the paintings at the end!!! :) Hope to see the Pacific and the Redwoods one day. :)
ReplyDelete