Sketchbook Tour Spring 2022 – spring green, orchids, missing insects

It’s time for another sketchbook tour, this one will cover the sketches I completed in the spring of 2022.

One thing I’m noticing about my sketchbook work recently is that I’m drawing slowly and with more intent, and that I’m focusing more on each subject. From a naturalist standpoint, I welcome this, it means I learn more about what I draw and I’m more likely to identify a species when I see it again. I simply have a better point of reference. From an artistic standpoint, I also enjoy to spend more time on each sketch. The process feels less stressed, and I feel more comfortable with letting pencil drawings stand on their own. I don’t feel like I have to finish a whole page in one sitting. Maybe it also has to do with the long course on Sketching Fundamentals that I put together – this let me really focus on producing better drawings and understanding the drawing process (teaching is such a great way to revisit one’s habits and processes).

So I’m creating less pages but I like each individual page more. I like the challenge to make each page work from a design standpoint, and this slower pace allows me to unwind (and actually rediscover my sketchbook as a way to let go of stress).

Of course, this means I likely have a few less pages to share in each sketchbook tour. Let’s see what I put together in the last few months:

I really focused on botanical sketches this spring, and finding the right colors for the delicate spring violets and blues can be a challenge. I put together different violet spring flowers on the left page, and combined this with a slightly loose, bolder landscape sketch on the right. I added colored pencil on top of my washes to define the stones in the foreground. Also take a look at this vivid green of the bear garlic on the top, it is really this green, but it reminds me of all the convenience greens I threw out of my palette.

A collection of spring impressions – new beech and ash leaves, a bird’s nest in a tree hole, the first butterfly of the year, and spring plants like woodruff and cowslip. I’ve started to experiment with inked linework here.

More plants studies – liverwort and an interesting fern (maidenhair spleenwort) we found on the stone walls of a derelict castle. I already shared my painting of the apple blossom in a previous video, below you can see the landscape the tree belonged to.

A study page of goats (always endearing to watch) and peregrine falcon feet. I realized I need more practice with bird’s feet.

I’ve already shared a video about this particular page of orchid sketches, these are early purple orchids that were in their prime back at the beginning of May. Sketching this page also prompted my recent palette changes.

A more relaxed page of all the other plants and animals I encountered during my orchid hunt – snowdrop anemone, lorraine flax, a special kind of veronica and snails and lizards. I didn’t get round to really finish this page, so it looks a bit empty on the right. Maybe over time some notes will follow.

Another sketching outing in a nature reserve, this time no orchids at all, but other interesting plants like catsfoot and lots of beautiful grasses. It was a very hot day, so I ended up sketching a landscape in the shade, and took lots of photos so I could finish the rest at home.

There were few butterfly species in the same area, and I sketched some of them. I mostly worked from photographs, because it was a) too hot to sit in the meadow and sketch on that day, and b) there are hardly any butterflies left. The sketch below might look like a plentiful selection of species, but it is not. Meadows, especially in these calciferous grassland areas on sunny days, used to crawl and flutter with all kinds of insects a few years back, and it was no problem to just sit down and watch them. Now they’re almost all gone, even in protected areas (that are usually surrounded by land that is used for intensive farming and almost ecologically dead). Since insects are an important part of the food chain and life cycle for all kinds of other species, this is alarming.

This effect, as far as I can observe it and as many others have put it into a scientific view (read about the Krefeld study here or in more scientific detail here), has been going on for a few decades now, but it is still depressing every time to see it with your own eyes. It is a sign that we are indeed quickly destroying biodiversity together with a livable climate for ourselves. The loss of species and of habitats will become more painful and apparent in the coming years. This likely won’t get better, since our capitalist economy is based on exploiting nature as a “free resource” and maximizing profits means grabbing these resources, exploiting people and destroying nature along the way.
I’m now beginning to think that all I’m doing here is documenting the loss of biodiversity on a small scale. Even in the long run, you won’t really see or feel this loss, because no-one notices when species disappear from an area, and it doesn’t seem crucial or important enough. Yet biodiversity is one of the keys for keeping our ecosystems healthy and livable.

It is a defeating thought, but on the other hand I can’t stop to notice and study nature, even if it is disappearing and being destroyed by the awful system we’re living in. I usually only share the beautiful aspects of my journeys in nature, but I’m beginning to think maybe I need to change that too, in order to keep it in all our consciences what we are part of, and what will happen if we don’t put a stop to it.

Anyway. In June I started a new sketchbook, and I took it with me on the next orchid hunt adventure. Another day spent on the lookout for these rare beauties. I counted no less than six different orchid species:

• Common Twayblade/Großes Zweiblatt (Neottia ovata)
• Fly orchid/Fliegenragwurz (Ophrys insectifera)
• Flagrant orchid/Große Händelwurz (Gymnadenia conopsea)
• Greater Butterfly-orchid/Grünliche Waldhyazinthe (Platanthera chlorantha)
• Lady Orchid/Purpur-Knabenkraut (Orchis purpurea)
• Three-toothed orchid/Dreizähniges Knabenkraut (Neotinea tridentata)

Again, as in all other areas I’ve visited so far not many butterflies or other insects were present, but for a while I was in the company of two talkative ravens. I painted some of the orchids in the field and the rest at home due to the extreme heat.

I keep experimenting how I can bring my mixed-media approach to my field sketches without carrying too many tools. Right now, I bring two fountain pens (pink and green) to get clean outlines for the plants on top of my pencil sketch, since I kept misplacing colored pencils I will need to find a different solution for those. I’m constantly reorganizing my kit these days as I’m trying to keep it minimal yet also fitting to my way of sketching.

This is all for now, I have a few more pages I want to show you in detail, maybe as a video (I’m a bit burnt out from making videos right now, and I try to spend as much time as possible outside and not in front of a computer). As I said, right now I’m enjoying working in this slower pace, rediscovering my tools and drawing process, and I hope that the results are still of interest to you.

Thank you for following along! What are you sketching right now? How is the nature and the insect population doing where you live?