Southeast Alaska Sketchbook

View from the Mountain

Went up Mount Roberts today--the view is gorgeous though a little surreal: because I went up on the tram I didn't have that feeling of pain-earned and endorphin-fueled accomplishment one usually gets from climbing 1000 feet up that steep trail.

I had sketchbook and a variety of supplies; I wanted to do a very fast watercolor sketch (10 min) of the view down Gastineau Channel. Decided to play with the metallic watercolors, which I hadn't done in a while. I like the earthiness of them.

When it came time to add the human elements in the lower left (bridge, harbor, town), I totally lost interest...Ah well.

Oystercatcher Morning

Spent a pleasant couple of hours yesterday morning on a small island in Auke Bay, observing a pair of black oystercatchers (Haematopus bachmani) at their nest site. I especially enjoyed watching the different behaviors of the female and the male. The female was very vocal, stood and walked tall when in motion, moved around a great deal. The male crept among the rocks, keeping his head low, and sat still for many minutes at a time. The female was the one to settle on the nest, though.

The scrape nest held three eggs, just at the edge of the ryegrass zone, green with black speckles and very hard to see. It was an eloquent case for being very careful when exploring the shore this time of year--and perhaps just avoiding this type of habitat altogether and staying below the tideline...

 

UPDATE: I have just learned that the tagged bird is actually a male, so the above-described behaviors should be role-reversed... This male was banded and satellite-tagged about four years ago. He has been returning to the same nesting area ever since. 

Unalakleet visit, part 5

Here's another sketch page from Unalakleet. I could see these hills from my window, and wanted to try to capture their smooth rhythm, and the way the trees and brush huddle in the ravines. That took care of the top of the page... then I went for a walk on the road out of town and spotted the eagle/raven dynamic. Finally, the last morning I was teaching, there was an inversion layer that caused phenomenal optical illusions, including this view of Besboro Island across Norton Sound.

Shoreline spruce afternoon

Unexpected weekend sunshine sent us on a road trip north of Juneau to a little beach near Sunshine Cove. We sat several hours on a rocky outcrop, watching and listening to the abundance of the wakening northern world. I took the opportunity to practice drawing the textures of foliage on the little salt-battered shoreline spruce. 

Pu'uhonua o Honaunau

Just got back from a vacation on the island of Hawaii (Big Island). Being ocean people, we spent most of it in the water or directly adjacent. One of the loveliest places we visited was Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park, south of Kealakekua Bay on the west coast. Spent the morning alternately snorkeling and sketching, looking across the lava shelf to the serene palms of the park.

Otter-bahn

 Here's a page of sketches from my recent stay in Seldovia, where I spent a couple of wonderful weeks as artist-in-residence. The school is very small (50 kids K-12) so I got to work with every student, every day.Great kids, great teachers, great staff, nice community... thanks, Seldovia!

One evening, I walked out the "Otterbahn" trail (constructed by a group of high school students in the 1990s, I think) to a small beach. As I settled down to sun and sketch, I heard harlequin ducks making agitated noises. The ducks huffed and squeaked, then finally took off just as a big otter rounded the point. He climbed ashore, shook himself off, and proceeded to entertain me for about twenty minutes, as this page attests.

Chile, Part 1

We just returned from a 3-week trip to Chile, so I'll post the results here over the next couple of days. The first is a page from Playa Blanca, a little resort beach south of La Serena. It was a lovely spot, great for lazing around, exploring desert and coast, and sketching. Our condo unit was just above the boulder beach in the foreground here, so we were soothed by the roar of the surf day and night. At dawn, whimbrels and oystercatchers piped their calls into the wind.

Soft Sky Day

We've had quite a bit of snow lately, most of it falling in long, relentless storms of tiny flakes: the kind of snowstorm that softens the edges of not only the physical world but also the world of sound, and, somehow, the province of emotion.

For some reason, ravens seem to be exceptions to that blankness; their silhouettes nearly as sharp as on a clear day, their calls and the rattle of their wings as carrying, their characters as substantial. It's as if they are drawing all the world's crispness into themselves as a joke, leaving the rest of us to drift around, muffled and half-present while they chuckle.

Tundra Morning

  Big gap in postings because I have been in Western Alaska, doing sketching classes with students of the Lower Kuskokwim School District. I didn't have time to do much sketching in my own book (most of my drawings were big ones, done as examples for the classes). But I did get out one morning for a walk on the tundra. The landscape is so flat, and there is so much water: tundra pools and sloughs, ponds, lakes, and the big Kuskokwim River and its side-channels. Dry land is a thin layer of grass and willow brush, pressed from above and below by sky and water. While I was there, freeze-up began...leaves of ice creeping almost visibly fast across the ponds...

Sea and Sky in Hoonah

Spent yesterday in Hoonah at what used to be Cannery Point; now a tour destination with restored cannery buildings housing cafes, exhibits, and souvenir shops. It was warm for September, with cloud-chased sunshine and occasional stutters of rain. Port Frederick was so calm, so quiet that we could easily hear the breath of a lone humpback whale in the distance...and, every so often, the thrilling calls of the sandhill cranes skeining overhead.