Inktober Day 12: More fall leaves (Aquilegia canadensis)

My participation in Inktober is primarily a way to encourage myself around drawing (and art).  It's really been a good process for that, first last year and again this year.

But it needs to be largely enjoyable as a form of daily practice, especially in these times.  I'm looking for things that are positive encouragement, not difficult and demanding subjects.  

Casting around this afternoon, I thought again about the Aconitum (Monkshood) flowers in the back woodland and brought in a small cluster of flowers.  I had thought about them before, but rejected them as too difficult.  Well, it didn't take me long to back off again after a brief sketching attempt.  The shape of the flowers is way beyond my current ability to extract even an essence of them and it would have just made me frustrated, I think.

So I opted for a cluster of colorful fall leaves of our native Eastern columbine, Aquilegia canadensis.  They turn a wonderful maroon in the fall, the change just beginning now.  Often droughty falls bring on color earlier, but not this year.

 

My drawing is more vivid than the real thing, but pleasing to me in its interpretation, despite some accidental pencil application resulting in the unusual depth of color!

 

subject and drawing