Sketchbook snapshot: Botanical garden highlights

When the opportunity arises (waiting in line, waiting for someone at a coffee shop, having an impromptu picnic), I sketch. 

Some weeks, I wind up with far more sketches than we can fit into the column. Here are two from last week that didn't make the cut.

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This little chipmunk kept dashing past me, distracting me from the flowers in the botanical garden. I can't recall the local French name for a chipmunk, but it's a wonderful-sounding word that sounds like how a chipmunk bounds and dashes about. 


*You'll have to forgive any anatomical errors - this creature isn't the type to pose for a sketch. In fact, most of these sketches were made by rapidly drawing a portion of the animal each time it reappeared in front of me. In order to finalize a sketch, I would wait patiently until the chipmunk paused again in the same position. It should be clear by the sketches that some poses were more common than others.
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The water garden (jardin d'eau) at the garden's entrance is absolutely cloaked in blooming waterlilies. Sketching there was a lesson in looking deeply, for an extended period of time.

I must have spent nearly an hour engrossed in the sound of running water and the subtle shadows on the white flower petals before I spotted one blossom resplendent in magenta and neon green. As I lifted my gaze from that flower, a damselfly paused for a fleeting moment on the edge of a nearby lily pad - just long enough for me to notice it had a blueish hue.

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NITTY GRITTY

Both sketches are from the Université Laval's botanical garden, which is featured in this week's column. 

They were made with a combo of graphite (quick base drawings), watercolors, and a permanent fine-line Sharpie marker. That marker accounts for the particularly bold and dark lines in these sketches, and also helps ensure the watercolors don't blur the ink into a muddy mess.