White oak leaf with acorns (quercus Alba)

White oak leaf with acorns (quercus Alba), a photo by Art by Cheryl on Flickr.

While on our annual trip to the cottage on Catawba Is. I found these acorns with leaf attached on a morning walk on the beach. I thought the green of the acorns was so striking and had to bring some along home with me. The color quickly changed even though I kept them in the fridge. Maybe it was too cold? But I am learning to take many photos and made some color notes and sketches. This is the result. A memory of our vacation by Lake Erie.

"Spring Visit to Marblehead"

The Ohio State Park art project continues........I have finished my second piece in this series. It is a graphite drawing of Marblehead light and keeper's house. My husband and I frequently travel up to my friend's cottage on Catawba Island in the springtime. On this trip in April of 2011, we took the short drive over to Marblehead to see the lighthouse. We had packed a picnic lunch and planned to eat it at one of the picnic tables overlooking Lake Erie. But the sky clouded over and weather turned cold and windy so we went back to the car and had our lunch there instead. After we finished we braved the elements (it really wasn't that bad ;) ) and hiked around on the rocks by the shore. We continued on the path that brought us behind the keeper's house, an area of the park we had not been before. And that's where I shot this photo. Imagine - a chilly wind, the sun trying to peek out from behind the clouds that were racing by, the buds just beginning to break on the trees....

This is the result of our "Spring Visit to Marblehead". 

 A Limited edition of 100 prints are available of this drawing.

Sunrises at the lake

("Catawba ~ early morning") 

5x7 pastel

In the summer of 2010 my husband and I vacationed at Catawba Is. on Lake Erie as we have been doing for the past several years. I like to take at least one morning during the week to go to the beach to watch the sunrise. On one of these early morning beach-walks the sky was just stunning. It seemed to get more beautiful with each passing minute. I was able to shoot many, many photos to use as references for the paintings I would do at a later time. 

This will be my project for the next couple months--learning and painting lake sunrises. This little piece is the first of that series.