More Gardenview

Here are more sketches made at Gardenview.

Gardenview 2

Here are some photos of Henry Ross and the entrance of Gardenview, his English cottage garden sanctuary. It's located in Strongsville on Pearl Rd., one of the busiest strip mall filled roads around. Just across the street from him they cleared land for yet another little miserable strip mall with its own separate little miserable driveway. The traffic is (you guessed it) miserable. When cars pass Henry's place, they don't think twice about stopping in. All they care about is making the next light. Soon they'll be widening the road, so cars will be able to zip past Henry even faster. Somehow I don't think it was like that when Henry bought the place in 1949. Back then it was a blue clay swamp that he transformed through the miracle of drainage and horse dung into an oasis of calm. Lots of little walkways with perrenials and annuals situated just so, along with little benches and statues. Little "moments" that make perfect watercolor material. Farther back he has two large ponds, one with water lilies.

Following the photos are some sketches from my moleskine sketchbook. I'll be posting more moleskine sketches soon.

Gardenview

Near my home is one man's dream of a nature sanctuary. The man is Henry Ross and the sanctuary is called Gardenview. Early last winter, I snapped some pictures of the winter cabbage he had growing next to the side of the road. Here's a digital painting (just want to mix things up here a little) created in Painter, using the Wacom art pen and the palette knife tool.

I'll have more posts about Gardenview with some watercolor sketches soon.

Hot Pressed Paper

This is from a photo supplied to me by a friend. Once again it's on hot pressed paper. A little more pencil sketching than normal.

Ohio City

This was done on Arches 140 lb. hot pressed paper. There was a little more drawing than usual to start with, then at the end, more drawing to touch it up. The paper is super receptive to the pencil line, even after the washes have been laid down.