Why sketch when you can shoot?
As I work to consolidate posts from older iterations of this blog, I’m finding some posts that I want to bring forward. This one was written back in 2010 when I lived on four acres in the Colorado mountains. You don’t need to live in the Greater Yellowstone Region to start field journaling. Simply start where you and work with what you’ve got.
This post explains how even when you only have a half hour to wait, even the weeds can fill that time with something that might trigger your curiosity. I still think of that sketch when I see Curlycup Gumweed growing by the side of a road. While taking photos is helpful, there’s nothing like sketching to more permanently etch something into your memory.
A few weeks back, we went fishing on the South Platte River. The weather was perfect, but the mosquitoes were fierce to say the least. I had quite a few bites before getting insect repellant on, and they started to itch almost immediately.
But growing not far from the river was Curly Cup Gumweed – a plant I had sketched last year while waiting for my husband to finish a meeting he had. At that point, I didn’t know this plant, so I drew it, photographed it, and did the lookup on it when we got home – adding in those notes to the page. What I found was a potential resource in an emergency. One book said the extract of this plant is used in asthma medicines and that the Native Americans used it to treat skin rashes as well as asthma and bronchitis (though it didn’t say how).
While being eaten alive by the mosquitoes, I decided to use myself as a guinea pig. I broke off one of the ‘spent’ flowers that had the white sticky stuff on it, and spread it on one bite that was raising a red welt on my foot. The itching disappeared in about five minutes and the welt began to go down. The next day there wasn’t any sign of a bite there – but the rest would take a week to completely disappear. (disclaimer: it worked for me, but might not for you – use your own common sense).
I take tons of flower photos, but I’ve only really sketched a few of them. But when seeing that plant by the river, what came to my mind wasn’t the photos I took, but rather, this sketch. Photos help me learn and remember only to a point. But sketching forces you to put on paper the important details to recognize it. You know you’ve matched the right leaves to the right plant – in a photo, a flower sticking up in a variety of leaves just adds to confusion.