Day 289 – The Walker Sisters Corn Crib

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I thought this was the barn. Turns out it is the corn crib.  I had been wondering how it protected the mules and the pigs when it got snowed and iced. Evidently there was a barn but the park tore it down or moved it. 

 

The Walker Sisters Corn Crib the old Cedar was there during the sisters lifetime. 

 These structures were sometimes called “plunder sheds,” as farmers used them to store miscellaneous items such as barbed wire, brooms, firewood, and tools. From Wikipedia The Walker Sisters Cabin. You can read more about it here. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walker_Sisters_Place

Painting the picture 

Drawn sitting on the sisters old log bench in the drizzly rain in my Stillman and Birn Zeta with a Noodler Conrad flex nib pen loaded with Noodler lexington grey ink. 

I started with a wash of Sky aka cerulean and trees – spring green and viridian. I let that dry and added the trees in the background with Indigo and raw Sienna in different strengths. 

The corn crib was painted with the same colors. Some burnt umber washed over the greys of the building. Also vermilion mixed with indigo. 

The dogwood was painted with white gouache. I get to impatient to wait for the masking to dry but I really need to use it. I think for the lacy looking dogwoods it would look better. 

The grass really was that bright from all the rain. It was made with spring green or sap green and viridian mixed with some negative painting.   
The interior of the cabin. That fireplace    had to let out a lot of heat!! I can’t imagine timbering the trees and chopping the wood to keep this fireplace roaring in the cold wintry weather. 

  
Star Chickweed growing on the side of the mountain. 

 

Crested Dwarf Iris  a small plant. The photo was take. With the iPhone be 6 resting on the ground. 

 

Another crested dwarf iris. It was a rainy drizzly day. Everything was set including us. 

  

Wild Geranium by the old roadside to the cabin. 

 

Greenbriar School above Metcalf Bottoms. The old school desks and black board are still in it. The cemetery is where the Walker family are buried. The sisters would have walked 2 miles from their cove to attend school or church here. There was a clapboard church built after this school where church was held until the park bought the land and tore down the church.    The sisters lived here almost another 40 years with their family and community gone  their 120 odd acres of land sold to the park for $4000. They were happy because they still had each other and could stay on their farm. Tough independent ladies. 

Thanks for looking. 

 Day 288 -The Walker Sisters Cabin

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about 2 miles up a mountain and across a stream sits the Walker Sisters Cabin along with several out buildings. The five sisters held a lifetime lease and lived in this two room cabin till their deaths.  Their father built the cabin when Abe Lincoln was still practicing law. 

 The hike up there is lovely with wildflowers on the side of the road but I can’t imagine what it would be like to live so far from civilization. I guess they didn’t go to the store very often! 

 Four of the five Walker Sisters. From a 1946 Saturday Evening Post article http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-content/uploads/satevepost/time-stood-still-in-the-smokies-SEP.pdf

 Painting the picture 

Done in my Stillman and Birn Zeta. Drawn with A Noodler Conrad pen and lexington grey ink in the rainy drizzle. 

I started with a wash of Sky aka cerulean and trees – spring green and viridian. I let that dry and added the trees in the background with indigo and a grey made by adding burnt sienna to the indigo. Different strengths  of these two colors make the trees recede into the woods. 

The cabin was painted with the same colors. Yellow ochre was added on the chimney burnt umber washed over the greys of the cabin. 

The dogwood was painted with white gouache. Next time I think I will use some masking on a sponge to do this. I like the look better. 

 My son crossing the log bridge to the Walker Sisters Cabin 
(Painting the picture continued)

 The grass was added with the same spring green and viridian as the background just not as diluted.  Some negative painting with the darker green was done to make the grass spikes. 

 
A red salamander that was on the foundation rocks of the cabin. 

  A fern on the path to the cabin. Both of these pictures were taken by setting the end of the iPhone6 down on ground level and clicking away.  

  

Wild orchis
  
A trillium 
  

Day 287 – Mingus Mill 

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just before the Oconaluftee Visitors Center in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park .  

This statement is wrong : I thought it still was a working mill but the wheel seems to be missing.  Did some reading on the Mingus Mill on Wikipedia. There was never a waterwheel but it has some kind of small metal turbine wheel that drives the mill stones. It is still a working mill. It underwent a second restoration in 1968. 

 You can buy ground corn meal and a t shirt.  The money all goes to support the park. It is the only park that doesn’t charge admission so it needs additional funding to help with such programs as fighting the woolie aedelgid which is decimating the Eastern Hemlock. Dead hemlocks parade thru the Appalachians killed by this bug and the park service is engaged in a deadly battle with them treating 5000 infested hemlocks this year alone. 

  

Watercolor in my Stillman and Birn Zeta.  

But back to Mingus Mill, a very interesting old building that sits back in the woods. It was restored in 1937. The steps are old mill wheels. The mill race is still gushing with water. 

  
You have to cross a small stream to visit the mill. Very picturesque setting. 

  Bishops Cap

There are some lovely wildflowers there. 

  
Canadian violets with a wild orchis or orchid near the mill. 

The mill painting is painted with the same colors as yesterday’s painting.
Paint the background first. Sky and leaves.  Streak in the background trees with soft greys and Blues after it dries. The foreground tree limbs are darker to make the background recede. 

Thanks for looking. 

Day 286 – The Tree on the Oconaluftee River 

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My 101st post on my new blog. Loving WordPress. But I digress. 

Back to that tree. 

  I actually let friends in FB and IG vote if I should color this sketch or not. All the votes but one were to color so I did. 

This is an old tree on the banks of the Oconaluftee River that runs by the visitors center in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It was drawn with brown  de Artrementis Document ink and one of my Noodlers. Love that flex nib. In my Stillman and Birn Zeta. 

 
So here it is done. I started with the background first washing but with cerulean and dabs of spring green and viridian. The trees are all combos of indigo and burnt umber or raw Sienna.   I used some leftover greens on the big tree trunk. 
Trees in the background are streaks of greys. 

The rhododendrons are spring green and ultramarine with indigo for the darks.  I used a scraper to regain some of the lost reflections. 

Dirt burnt umber and splots of indigo. 

The river. Well like the rhododendrons that was a trial too. Splotchy blues and greens. Starting with light blue and darkening it down with darker blue. “Rocks” are indigos and greys. Usually you paint water lighter the farther away you get but I was trying to get down of it foamy hence the lighter areas of color. 

  Ps white gouache fixed an odd squared off angle on the right side of the legs tree trunk. What was I thinking!? 

Thanks for looking. 

Day 286 Another Accordion Book 

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 Sennelier USK journal book. 

  Kuretake brush pen till it ran out. Then my Pentel brush pen. It was colored with Tombow markers and watercolor and flesh Winsor newton gouache.

  TIP: The flesh gouache makes painting skin tones easy! No mixing so no fuss. 

This one has been completed since earlier this week.  I was saving it for the weekend to post. 

 

  

Most of it was drawn at the local walking track or dog park. 

  

  

The stroller was amazingly easy to draw with a brush pen. A few stokes zip zip and done. 

The last half was drawn while patting in my car in the Earthfare parking lot starting with the lady in the black and white dress. 

  

 

Earthfare 

  

Earthfare

 

 Earthfare

  

  The entire strip. About 36″ long. Nice heavy paper. You could draw on the back but you would not have a lot of paper length which is part of what makes these books fun. 

Thanks for looking!! 

Day 285 – headin home. 

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Hallelujah. I am ready to sleep in my bed.  

 

The park the old cabins the wildlife were charming but it’s zoe time!!! 

I have at least ten pages of sketches done however no pics.

 

  

  

 So here’s a few of the inner bean. I will be there soon. 

Day 284 – powers out!! 

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   Out riding thru the Cataloochee Valley. Lots of animals. Barns old houses. 

 

  

Beautiful scenery. 

  

 

 Methodist church  Oconoluftee

 

 Preacher man Beau 

 Chasing elk geese chickens and a turkey or two!

 

  Oconoluftee

Oconoluftee 

 

    Oconoluftee 

Oconoluftee 

The chimneys 

Turkey near Sugarlands.  

Day 283 – Cataract Falls Part 2

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These waterfalls are hard to paint. The water doesn’t roar over the black rocks but it trickles. Today with all the rain we have had I bet it’s more than a trickle. All the creeks are roaring filled with water. 

   

This is what it looked like when I left the falls.  I did draw it on site. I think there was too much ink on the water to let the white show thru. 

  

This is what it looked like after I added some white gouache. I think it was too thick. So I started to scratch it off. 

 

And this is what it looks like for now.  I think I would rather draw the people at the falls than that darn waterfall. But it is a gorgeous spot with an easy walk from the Sugarlands Visitor center.  

Schminke gouache Noodler Creeper Ahab caran d’ache in my Stillman and Birn Zeta. 

Thanks for looking. 

Day 282 – Cataract Falls

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Took a nice walk behind the Sugarlands Visitor Center to Cataract Falls. 

The waterfalls are difficult to draw with water threading over dark black rock. I am going to add some white gouache to the water to see if it perks it up a little. It was drawn with my Noodler Ahab in my S&B Zeta with caran d’ache. 

I could not resist drawing the lady who was there taking pics of it. She had such an intersting stance I could not resist. Then she started talking to me. Scary!! What if she wanted to look?! 

 

 We even photographed a white trillium together. 

 

 There were yellow trillium everywhere along the trail. 

 

 The trail was loaded with flowers and  

  

a small black snake. 

 

 It  wound along by Fighting Creek. 

A lovely easy trail.  

Thanks for looking. 

Day 282 – Running out of ink!

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 and some more food sketching. 

 Brownie and chocolate chip ice cream desert  at the Wild Plum Tea Room.  I think I might be obsessed with food but it was delicious served on a sweet pink and white rose china plate including a doily.  

I used my kuretake brush pen  and a pitt pen plus caran d’ache. 

Need to add something to the title. Maybe a plum because I didn’t space the lettering out enough. 

 

 A warning about the kuretake brush pen.  I love it. I got a converter for it too but it runs out very quickly when doing a large sketch like this one with all the black line work. I think I refilled it three times in the process. My Pentel brush pen which I left back at home would still be full of ink. I guess it’s a small price to pay for being able to use  platinum carbon black ink in a brush pen but it’s annoying to refill so frequently.  

 The other day I went out sketching and ran out of ink. It was especially great for sketching trees but I ran out before I could finish. 

Now I have to drive back up the mountain and finish this. To make the scenario perfect I left my Pentel brush pen at home 234 miles away. Not fun to refill the pen with a bottle of ink in the car. Sigh! 

Thanks for looking!!