Another Sketch Day

I meant to get out with the paints this weekend but my schedule and the weather wouldn't cooperate with each other.  I traveled to another town on Saturday meaning to do some sketching but even by 10:00 am it was incredibly hot.  So after making a round at the car show I just went exploring by car and with camera in a rural area.  Today, Sunday I intended to take the paints out first thing in the morning to avoid the heat, but the sky was gray and cloudy, not very motivating.  The weather seemed to have improved in the afternoon and having only a couple hours I decided to take the sketching materials instead of the paints, besides I didn't know how hot it was, acrylics don't handle well above 80*F let alone above 90*. I decided to head out to a pond that's near where I often sketch and paint at the Jordan River Parkway but I never knew was there until I discovered it while exploring the area on Google Maps.  I started by doing this sketch of a willow tree in the middle of a little peninsula;

I altered the scene a bit.  The peninsula was actually bigger and had no reeds, also the background was houses.  I was interrupted by a bit of a rain storm, I swear I don't remember seeing rain in the forecast. There were a lot of geese by the pond so I decided to take advantage and fill a page with quick pen goose gesture studies;

Then I headed over to the Parkway which is essentially just across the street from the park this pond is in to seek out another tree to sketch and found this one;

I took some liberties with this scene as well.  The fence that was actually there was made from lumber and was much more straight.  The background field is actually a road and a house beyond that.  One thing I learned while doing this sketch is that this tree, being dome shaped got lighter as you got closer to the top, that's not true of all trees since most of them still have portions that are largely vertical even near the top.  Just as I finished this sketch the rain clouds made another appearance, I just escaped getting soaked again.  I think both of these tree sketches have potential as paintings.

I used to often share photos in this blog and realized that I haven't done that in a while so here are some photos I took today of some of our fair feathered friends..

A goose strutting proudly next to the pond;

A mother duck and her ducklings;

A quail trying to stay out of sight;