"Catchfly" or The Joys of Sketchbooks and Retreats

by Kathy Garvey

Two years ago I went on a great, but way too short, one week retreat in a cabin at WildAcres in North Carolina. I had a beautiful fully furnished cabin, three glorious meals a day and all day long to wander the woodlands…all while being entertained by the Kumandi Drummers who were also on retreat that week.  And, I had a new sketchbook that could handle wet media! (Click any image to enlarge it.)

While there I photographed and sketched plants and critters (like marmarated stinkbugs) we don't see in Florida. When I got back, I started painting from them.

The great thing about a sketchbook is you can revisit it whenever you want. And this week, while packing my Stillman and Birns sketchbook for another retreat, I did just that. I remembered loving the shape of these beautiful little flowers that I had trouble identifying. Then I discovered it's common name was "Catchfly"...Yuck! I started working with one of my little ideas for them.

(I totally forgot that I had already done just that. Below are my images from 2017. And I called them Evening Lychnis because it sounds so much prettier than Bladder Campion or Catchfly!)

I was really surprised after remembering the first versions above to see the difference two years has made in my depiction of the same little sketch. Below is the mixed media version I just started and finished this week.

And here it is after a round of playing with the same painting in Photoshop.

I'm really looking forward to my upcoming retreat at the beautiful Furnace Mountain Zen Retreat Center in Kentucky! What wonders will I find scouring the Kentucky woods? 

You can visit the websites for both marvelous places.

http://www.furnacemountainzen.org/

http://www.wildacres.org/

For information about Artists Residencies at Wildacres, visit
http://www.wildacres.org/workshops/residency.html