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Color is hard. I’m experimenting, seldom sure what’s working, enjoying.
One of the meanings of “osier” is the pliable twigs of trees that can be used to make baskets. This tree is well-named, because the twigs are bright red. The leaves are green until cold weather, but I just had to draw one in its fall colors.
I don’t want to stop spending time with this leaf, so I’ll continue tomorrow.
May 22: Here’s today’s progress. It’s pretty much done, but I want to get some distance–literally and figuratively–and tomorrow I’ll change any areas that show they need it.
I am drawing a gray oak leaf (Quercus grisea) and loving the white fuzz on it. Actually drawing it, on the other hand . . . I have to look at how people draw textures like this, because drawing in a zillion little dots is going to drive me around the bend. Of course, I could draw it white on black, e.g. with a scratchboard. That would be better suited, but still, why do I let myself in for this level of detail?
So, I’ll continue working on it, and post tomorrow, but in the meantime I’ll be searching for botanical drawings of fuzzy plants.
Trees don’t pay any mind to human boundaries, and this species of oak lives along either side of the border in Arizona and New Mexico, USA, and Sonora and Chihuahua, México.
Manzanita doesn’t grow on the East Coast, where I grew up. Now when I see it during a hike–which is more often than not–I am delighted. I love the dark red bark, whose traces you can see here in the pink stem of the leaf.
Arctostaphylos manzanita has two common names: “common manzanita” and “whiteleaf manzanita.” I have no idea where the latter one might come from, as the leaves are not at all white even on the underside.
Sermons in Stones 
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