Union Bay Natural Area, UW campus, WA 4/12

The Union Bay Natural Area is very similar to the Nisqually Refuge Center because it is very marshy and has expansive grassy fields with only clumps of trees, opposed to thick forests. For the class period we practiced sketching shapes of the landscape in both general descriptions and close details. By slowing down to really capture every small bend in one single branch on a tree made me notice different things about the tree then I would have seen then just looking at a photograph. I enjoyed the exercise a lot because it introduced me to a new way to observe the environment and helped narrow down a huge landscape of trees to just a snapshot of the trees.
I chose to draw a mallard swimming in the water close to the walking path and observed its behaviors for several minutes. It dove beneath the surface a couple of times a minute for about five-seven seconds before popping back above surface. The specific mallard I was observing was a male because of the dark, vibrant colors are a way for the males to impress females during mating. There were many waterfowl around the area and some of the same songbirds I had seen in Nisqually.
My favorite exercise was taking one small part of a branch and sketching it and then zooming out to a slightly bigger area, sketching it and repeating two times so the final result was four panels that were the same subject but held more and more detail with each addition to space covered.

Posted on May 1, 2012 03:21 PM by karavanslyck