Sketchbook: Camp Sketches

I first took out the sketchbook on day one, sitting at the picnic table in our campsite waiting for the staff to finish checking us in. These were two sunken bolts and a knot in the weathered table top.

Still waiting to be checked in, I picked up a twig my middle son had whittled. It had some neat facets on it, but it was quite small. I ended up expanding from the twig to include my fingers, my moleskin, and the table.

On the first full day of camp, I picked up this pine cone in the Handicraft area and sat down at an empty table. Part way through my sketch, the scouts needed to migrate to that table to start the next stage of their craft, so this sketch is very unfinished.

After I had to interrupt my pine cone sketch, I picked up a chunk of white pine bark that had a ton of texture and character, including a cut from a chainsaw.

I set up this little still life on a picnic table at the Whittling Chip station, where the scouts were supposed to be learning proper care and use of pocket knives (those that didn’t already go through the program, at least). I lost interest in this set up and moved on.

Okay, so, there’s a fun story behind this page. The top sketch was the beginning of a knot in the picnic table in the Whittling Chip area. My youngest son had just been handed a pocket knife and found a stick and plopped himself down on the ground near me. I looked up to tell him he was supposed to be with the rest of the group getting instructions from the staff just in time to see him holding the knife in his non-dominant hand and slicing downward through one of his fingers, right on the joint. I saw the blood squirt and jumped up immediately, flinging pens and sketch book everywhere, to administer some basic first aid, get him to the nurse, and then to the emergency room. Fortunately it was a sharp knife (much easier wound to deal with). The little rock on the table was a sketch done at the water front picnic table later that afternoon when we were finally back at camp.

I picked this torn red oak leaf up at the water front. I planned on pushing this sketch a little bit further, perhaps to the point of needing to use one of my white pens, but I ran out of time.

This was a beautiful, thick-trunked oak tree between the rock throwing and water slide areas (camp is pretty awesome). The morning sun was creating some nice shadows and making some of the bark textures pop. Just as I was really starting to get lost in this one, the activity ended and we had to shepherd the boys to the next station (mini golf, by the way). I would have liked a little more time with this one.

At the entrance to the Native American Village at camp there is a perfect example of paper beating rock. I love trees and rocks, but I especially love the interesting ways they often interact. It’s really fun to think on the life and struggle of a tree such as this, how it finds purchase in a less-than ideal location and over time establishes itself. Yet, eventually, this tree will die and rot, leaving very little trace of it’s triumph over this mighty and immoveable boulder. Perhaps it will work some of it’s roots deep into some of the rock’s crevasses and over time split the rock before it loses it’s purchase and becomes soil once more, leaving behind some clue to it’s existence that it won a battle but ultimately lost the war.

There are a plethora of great boulders to draw at camp. This one sits just outside the S.T.E.M area. I screwed up the proportions a bit. This was my first attempt at sketching across both pages of the moleskin. It is bound in such a way to make this feasible, and it really opens up some sketching possibilities.

Between the marbles and Webelos Woods areas, there is a nice, natural, rock garden of sorts. Just a few handfuls of lovely stones poking through the leaves and pine needles. Really nice juxtaposition of textures that I didn’t quite have time to sink my teeth into.

My older of the two sons at camp made a hand dipped candle that had some really interesting features. I plunked it down at the water front picnic table for a quick sketch.

This was my last camp sketch, done in quickly fading light on the last evening. Most of the rest of the campers had gone home, but a few of us got to stay for one more night with our boys who will by Boy Scouts next year for a special transition program. This sketch makes me a little misty eyed because I can’t separate it from where I was and what was going on. I’ve taken my middle son to camp for the last three years and watched him grow so much in that setting. Next year is going to be very different and a little sad for me. I only got to take my oldest to this camp once before he became a Boy Scout, but my youngest will have gone 4 years with me by the time he crosses over. THAT one is going to make me REALLY choked up.