Guest Blogger and Hay-Making in the Sunshine

It was clear, dry, bright  but cool this afternoon.  Birds were chirping and the smell of honeysuckle and roses was on the soft breeze when Neenah and I headed out to the farm to finish up our week of drawing class.  I'm going to post my drawings from this afternoon first, and then some of Neenah's from this week.

This first drawing is just a mapping out of a future drawing.  I like the way the page looks though.

Our first long stop was at the chicken house in the garden, where some hens were pecking around in the straw in front of the house.  A little further along the trail we came to this lovely barn/shed building with what I think are some sort of aeration devices on the roof. 

My favorite scene of the day:  haying in the back field.  The little barn is a hay barn, and the hay rolls were in the field after being rolled by a machine and awaiting being rolled with white plastic.

 Here's Neenah's map of our downtown walk from yesterday.

 Here's the rest of the map, and I think I have it upside down.

Last night Neenah went to eat at the Ethiopian restaurant that we found yesterday at the end of our mapping excursion.  She noticed these words written in Ethiopian language on a wall in the restaurant and started drawing them.  The owner read and translated them for her.  She noticed some similarities between these letters and some in her language.

This is Neenah's sketch of the same field that I planned out.  It was a very detailed and complex drawing and we didn't want to spend too much of our limited time on it.  But there's enough information on it to finish it later.

Neenah's rendering of the chicken house and the low barn with the cupolas, not completely finished but with sufficient visual notes to complete them in a few minutes.  

The hay rows, the barn, and some hay rolls.  All done by Neenah, who told me she could not draw when we met on Monday!