Lots of twigs and trees

This practice is interesting!  I find I'm liking it more each day and actually drawing more each day.  I make no promises about how long this burst of enthusiasm will last but am taking it a day at a time.  I carry my journal with me even when I go walking, but I haven't made any real plans to draw other than that.  First thing this morning I went outside to check up on my Meyer lemon tree that has been hanging on for a few years and finally has three baby lemons.  Drawing the babies was a nice way to start the day.  I even drew the scale that has been plaguing the tree but that Safer soap seems to be eradicating finally.  A little later I was in my studio getting ready to start a new woodcut that is going to involve a topiary-filled cemetery that I saw in France.  I sketched a tree from a photograph I found on line on somebody's blog about the cemetery just to get a feel for the shape again after drawing it a bunch of times when I was actually standing in the cemetery.

I met a friend for lunch, and drew her cup of coffee while she took a phone call;  later I went to pick up my grandson and his friend from a movie, and I quickly sketched a man with an astonishing earring.  I saw him while waiting in the car for the boys.  Then in late afternoon my husband and I went for a walk in the woods near our house.  I was collecting twigs to use as a door- closing device for the box I made over the weekend.  We collected many twigs, and I drew them all when we got home.  Twig collecting reminded me of a nature study class I took as an undergraduate: I spent an entire winter collecting twigs in order to construct a tree identification key based on bud scars.

   I tried them out, and the sassafras twig fit perfectly and was easy to slide in and out, so it's the winner.  I counted each of the twigs as a separate "thing," thereby upping my total considerably.