Thursday, May 22, 2008

Spring Hiking and Sketching

Hiking local parks and trails is one of the joys of living in the Northwest. Last weekend, the sun shone and we explored Lacamas Lake Park. The park is located north of Camas, WA.
On the other side of the dam, the river plunges down hill. With all of the melted snow, it flows fast and cold.

The wild iris and roses bloom- two of my favorite flowers.
Tuesday, it rained in the morning and we sketched at Abundant Yarn in Sellwood. Inside the Busy Bee Cafe is the perfect place for knitters and sketchers to gather and share their creativity. The sketch below starts my newly made sketchbook.
My sketchbooks are made with old books from the Goodwill or Salvation Army. I remove the signature block, recover the book board with decorative papers, fabric and ribbon. New watercolor paper signatures are sewn into the spine and decorative buttons tie off the waxed linen thread ends. Make one and fill it with your daily discoveries, impressions and ideas.


3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Paula,
I love your idea about taking an old book and replacing the original pages with watercolor paper. I have been spiral binding old cereal boxes with wc paper in between but an old book binding would be cool. I just saw you will be teaching an A & S in Oct. thats great. I look forward to seeing you there, Barbara Roth

Jan Harris Smith said...

Hi Paula - you and i were both hiking at Lacamas lake around the same time - weren't the flowers just gorgeous this time of year - looking forward to seeing you at Menucha, Jan

femminismo said...

Stumbled upon your blogspot through 1001 journals. Enjoyed your hike very much with the beautiful flowers. My blog has some of the natural beauty, but, alas, we have no wild iris. Maybe I will find some to transplant. I enjoyed your art explorations. The flower prints look like fun. Thanks for the look-see at your travels through our Pacific Northwest. - Jeanne