Pencil Sketch by N. C. Wyeth

How I did enjoy a little study I did of a group of haystacks! I loved them before I got through and I have an affection for the picture too! It is not a remarkable picture in any way, but it is truthful, it is not "faked"; there are no horses running, kicking and snorting all over hell in it, there are not scenic mountain passes, raging torrents, soaring eagles or boiling clouds in it, just three or four silent haystacks . . .

N. C. Wyeth, letter to his brother Nat, October 19, 1908

Stealing a moment from my university preparations early this morning, I opened my volume of N. C. Wyeth letters (man, could that artist write!) to feel the passion of his day-to-day life as an illustrator. Earlier in this same letter, he expressed the depression he was fighting off at the moment. How heart-warming to read of the joy that filled him as he worked on a simple nature study.

I am posting this because the letter recalled for me much of the same things I thought last month as I worked on a plein air watercolor sketch of a single boulder resting beside the stream below the cabin we always rent when staying in Colorado.

This is the second time in a decade that I've attempted to watercolor this boulder, and as I worked on it this time, I thought many of the same things Wyeth wrote in the letter above--just a solitary boulder, no trout jumping out of the stream behind, no fly-fisherman in the water, no romantic evergreens towering overhead, no mountains (though they were in view behind this subject), no sky. Just a quiet, solitary boulder constantly changing color below a bright sky filled with clouds that continually threw their shadows across the landscape. And all the while I painted, the air was filled with sound--the babbling stream below, the singing birds above, and the constant rustle of chipmunks scurrying about. I still take out this sketchbook just to look upon this single piece. And now this morning, N. C. has induced me to take it out yet again.

Today we head back to Palestine, Texas. I have a watercolor lesson to give this afternoon, our Gallery at Redlands has Art Talk Friday at 7 p.m., and Saturday's Art Walk from 10-3:00 will involve twenty businesses participating downtown, Sandi in the Gallery to greet everyone, and I in the L&L shoestore doing a watercolor demonstration alongside a small sampling of my work on display and sale.

Thanks for reading.

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