Life continues to be fun and I’m always game for trying something new.
This weekend I got to help out with the American Chestnut foundation and that opportunity came about by a stroke of luck. It happened that late one evening while scrolling around on Facebook I noticed one of the news channels I follow had shared a post from the American Chestnut foundation who were looking for volunteers to help plant a hundred and fifty chestnut trees. That sure sounded like fun to me and I’ve been wanting to get affiliated with the ACF for the longest time so I signed up and showed up where they wanted me to be which was way off in the back boonies of Bedford County. I met up with a dozen other delightful volunteers, a mix of young adults and older retirees, all cloistered together on a rocky hillside that had recently been cleared and prepped for planting. Judging by the scope of the work we needed to do and the hands available to do it I was a tad skeptical that we were going to finish this before dark but they surprised me. We had all the trees planted and caged up for their protection by mid-afternoon. Fortunately the trees were all six month old sprouts and easy to handle but I was plum tuckered out after all the digging, planting, packing and setting cages to protect the trees from hungry deer and wildlife.
That was a good day by any measure and good memories were made. I even scored a free chestnut tree that they had left over! It wasn’t an American/Chinese hybrid either but 100% American that was grown from seed from an old surviving chestnut tree resistant to the chestnut blight. I’m going to try my luck at growing my chestnut and eventually attempt to train it as a bonsai if that is even doable. American chestnut is far from ideal bonsai material given the queen-sized leaves the species grows. The best stuff to grow for bonsai are those species with small(ish) leaves and tighter growth which makes for a more convincing bonsai. The leaves on my chestnut are almost a foot long! That’s pretty darn big by bonsai standards but I’m curious to see what happens. My first priority is keeping it alive and in good health because I sure don’t want to lose it. But if the bonsai experiment doesn’t pan out I will simply plant it down below the house and let it grow as big as it wants assuming the blight doesn’t get it.
I didn’t have time to do any sketching or painting that day while I was planting chestnuts all over creation. But I have been trying to make time to paint, with mixed results. Here are some of the sights I’ve seen lately that I managed to paint up. All these paintings were done in watercolor which is my usual medium of choice and convenient to use for an artist on the go.
This is a shot of the train tracks running through Bedford and the Bridge Street bridge in the background. There’s beauty everywhere if we just look for it. And when I do I always marvel at how even the most mundane of scenes can still create some very nice art after you paint it up. You may not end up with million dollar art but the composition still makes a nice piece all the same. Things came together quite nicely here and I kept things playful and spontaneous since I have a habit of getting bored when a painting takes too long and that can really jinx a painting when you’re getting tired and your mind starts to wander. And naturally I didn’t want to take my chances with a locomotive coming thru so I hustled along on this one. And it turned out rather well in spite of that.
Here’s another street scene of Bedford that I made recently of me walking down the sidewalk along Main Street. This one is still a little rough around the edges but I like the small town vibe that this portrays. It struck me as a nice view and it came out well even though trying to render the sunlight gave me a bit of a fit. I I tried not to leave anything behind such as the lamp post and the cars driving down the street. Having a pedestrian or two on the sidewalk would’ve added a nice touch but I had the walk to myself that day.
My final painting is this kitty I noticed looking thru the window. This was during our recent Centerfest which had this little kitty all entranced with the sights and action going on that day. Hard to tell from his demeanor whether he was impressed or not. Some people are impossible to please and cats too for that matter.