She and I were counting rings on an old Oak stump on a prairie plot in Northern Illinois. As the sunset below the Compass plant, we lost count at 200 and something.
When I woke up I wrote myself a note on this piece of plywood to help me remember.
My father and I share bird reports regularly, he’s been sharing sightings of sharp-shinned hawks diving for birds at his feeders and in the field next door in Illinois. That’s had me wanting to work one into a pen drawing for a while. The prairie piece was the perfect fit.
The compass Plant is finished too, I ran some numbers and there are roughly 10,000 lines in the large bloom alone. Drawing Illinois plants in a room 2,300 miles west.
He not busy being born is busy dying….
The pen brings clarity to the flower and I. My Compass Plant flower that grew under light of the drawing lamps. Across from it on a branch sits an American Kestrel. A small and swift raptor of the prairie and open woodlands.
There is a Kestrel that hangs out by where I like to ride my mountain bike. Last week one hovered just 20 feet from where I sat. It has helped me a lot with illustrating to be able to watch them in the wild. Raptors aren’t easy to observe in detail. This local Kestrel did me a service in getting close for me to notice its face markings. A blessed encounter.
American Kestrel
I put in two hours tonight, I’m sure there’s another half dozen to go. My sister tells me that the prairie plants back in Illinois have begun to push through the soil and make their way towards the sun to later make flower. At that rate, I’m ahead of schedule.
Working my way up the page.
Illinois out the basement window.
I was working in a prairie restoration project one day in the summer. 06 or 05, it was a typical humid July day and I don’t remember what seed I was after that day but in a stand of teasel I found a large (4″-6″) Praying Mantis. It looked at me with giant reddish eyes. Then before I had a chance to think it jumped at me and flew on wing inches over the top of my head. I fell over backwards startled and landed in a thistle patch. But I got a good look at her first and years later made this drawing.
Nobody told me those things can fly. They can.
Drawn from memory after looking through pictures of different deer, antelope, and bison skulls. Antelope make me think of grasslands. I spent a few good summers working on prairie restoration projects around Kane county, IL. There really is nothing like the grasslands, the soundtrack of millions of birds and insects. It really buries you especially when the grass grows 8 feet tall. No Antelopes on my Illinois prairies, but this drawing takes me there anyway.
