Sketching En Plein Air in the Texas Hill Country

Working on the land immediately around our home in the Texas hill country has become a passion for me. Wearing hiking shoes, a long-sleeved tunic, loose denim pants, a straw hat, and short or long gloves depending on where the work is happening, time and the rest of the world ceases to exist. It occurred to me to try to document with sketches the life of these native trees and other aspects of our small piece of the Hill Country. So, I began with the purchase of an inexpensive, well designed fountain pen.

The pen came with a tiny velvet drawstring pouch which could be hung from a piece of ribbon from my stock of odds and ends.  Perfect, it hangs ready to take with me into the garden and out to the wild.

There are probably many types of ink to fill a fountain pen, but the Chestnut Brown yama-guri ink produced by Pilot comes in an oval shaped bottle with a protrusion in the bottom where a drop of the ink rests. Irresistible!

It’s fascinating to trace the path of our ideas; mine began with an online photo of an engraving of people working in a formal garden. The engraving was made in 1570 by Pieter van der Heyden after Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The catalogue from an exhibit of the graphic works, Bruegel:Complete Graphic Works was available from Thames and Hudson publisher. My favorites of all are the scenes which represent the four seasons.

These are two drypoint etchings created by James McNeill Whistler, an American artist who spent most of his life in London. Among his most famous paintings are ‘Portrait of the Artist’s Mother’ and ‘Symphony in White Number 2’.

In 2014 the Freer/Sackler Smithsonian Museum of Asian Art held an exhibit of an extensive collection of Whistler’s works, many of their own, others from around the globe. We were in Washington at the time and visited the gallery. Being interested in printmaking myself, the most fascinating aspect of the collection was the etchings Whistler made on the River Thames at night, part of his Nocturne series. As I remember it, the etchings hung in a semi-darkened room. The description labels included a statement about Whistler preparing his plates beforehand and then rowing out onto the river and executing the drypoint en plein air or out of doors.

These are photos of Claude Monet, the Impressionist painter, first with his beloved water lily garden in Giverny and second, also in Giverny, painting en plein air. This book was a gift to remind me of a visit to Giverny and Monet’s house and gardens.

I will always remember touching the handle on the umbrella in the stand at the front door and wondering if his hand had touched the same place. as mine. After our tour, a misting rain began to fall and we stopped for lunch at a countryside inn. It seemed we ate for hours; so many delectable courses, beginning with duck pate and ending with an assortment of cheeses made on the premise.

Continuing to track the development of the idea…Inside Suzanne Kasler’s book, Timeless Style is this photo of a collection of gold framed intaglios. As she writes, the intaglios, “…framed in a grid, proves the power of repetition…almost like an architectural element…a focal point in the hallway…”

We have a point in need of focus at the top of the staircase.  The repetition of a small object inside a larger frame is appealing. We have a plenitude of frames propped against the wall waiting to be refurbished or filled and hung. There are 6 of the same type!

First, to make a support for sketching. Arches BFK Rives Grey paper torn into 2 inch squares and mounted on a heavy cardboard sheet from a pad of newsprint using archival mounting tape.  This will be easy to transport across the uneven, steep, rocky surface of the land.

We have a basket of pillows made especially for wandering or hiking outside and sitting on rocks and tree stumps! The pillow covers were made before we moved to the Texas Hill Country. They are made of a painter’s drop cloth without plastic backing. The buttons are metal drapery weights and the leather strips are removable for washing the pillow covers. My thinking was we could sling the pillow over one shoulder like a back pack, take a walk, and sit down wherever we wanted.

These will be perfect for sketching en plein air!

Trying it out!

Here is a finished sketch of two Monterrey Oak trees we planted last year. The scientific name is Quercus polymorpha so I refer to them as Quercus and Poly. At this point they have a distinct, irregular growth pattern which will fill in the years to come.

This is a completed sketch of an Escarpment Cherry (Rosaceae prunus serotina) native to the Texas Hill Country. We have several and this particular tree is emerging out of the trunk of a dead tree, clinging to the side of the arroyo.

This is one half of “the arch” a favorite of many who walk the land with me. The arch is on a precipice between two distinct levels of land. Underneath is a small grotto. When we saw one tree was dead and one opposite it was alive, we tied the two together and new growth is creeping onto the dead branches, creating a green arch.

Here are some of the sketches framed. Each sketch is backed by another piece of paper cut slightly larger and painted gold. The sketch is mounted on Arches White fine art paper. Our focal point is now realized!

What fun! Pull out a pen and see what you might document from your world.