David O'Hara

Polygonia comma

Often I sketch from the day’s occasional photos in my journal. Which means I have a lot of insect sketches in my journal.

Here is one such sketch from today.

I usually make my sketches as, well, sketches. That is, I don’t try to make them perfect. Rather, I try to make them quickly.

This one was done with a Pilot kaküno fountain pen and some colored pencils.

I keep a mix of colored pencils in my art bag, and I treat them much as I treat the flies in my fishing vest: while it is lovely to “match the hatch” and have the perfect tool, there’s something good about using what you have ready at hand, and not worrying about perfection.

On our kitchen wall we keep a phenology calendar.

In the springtime we pay attention to what is appearing: When did we see the first migratory birds? When did the daffodils bloom?

In the autumn we watch what is leaving: When did the hummingbirds last come to the garden? When did the last monarch fly through on its way south? When did the dragonflies stop flying?

Today I harvested what are probably the last beans from our garden. There are a few tomatoes down low, close to the ground where frost has not bitten them. The cucumbers are all done, and one orange pumpkin hangs from the cattle panel I used as a trellis.

Before lunch I went for a run at the state park. (Thursday is my writing-and-grading day this semester, and sometimes I also add an extra workout.) There, at Good Earth, I saw a garter snake. Surprising to see one so late in the season! But along those wooded riverine trails there are hibernacula for the red-bellied snakes, and I imagine that the garter snakes and fox snakes (saw my first western fox snake this year on May 4th, according to the calendar in the kitchen) go there, too, to huddle and cuddle their way through the long winter.

A few comma butterflies (nymphalidae) warmed themselves on the sunny gravel paths, where they probably also sipped salt from the stones.

A wooly bear caterpillar shuffled its slow way across the path.

Thousands of grasshoppers leapt up as we ran by.

And the golden, brown, red, and purple leaves made soft sounds as they let go of their summer perch and drifted to the ground.

Buckeye

On campus today. Winter has not yet arrived.

“[Polykrates] raided and plundered everyone without exception. In fact, he once said that he could better ingratiate a friend by returning what he had taken than by never taking it in the first place.” — Herodotus 3.39

My journals are full of bugs.

And other beautiful things I see in the world.

Yesterday in the warm sun I was checking out a few places where the coccinellidae gather, to see who was there. I was hoping to see some of the Hyperaspis species that I sometimes find there, rare little treasures that we easily overlook. But i was glad to see the big, bright, joyful colors of a few of rhe larger species of lady beetles.

And so I sketched them in my journal, just as I urge my students to do.

I’ve reached that point where it is hard for me to listen to a talk without taking some time to sketch the person talking.

I mean, I can listen either way, but why waste the opportunity to sketch and paint while listening? That way I get the benefit of the lecture AND extra art practice. What’s the downside?

The Carpenter

Downtown Sioux Falls, photo taken during an afternoon stroll.

Last butterflies of the season? Maybe. There’s beauty all around us. These two were in my garden this afternoon, despite the frost two nights ago.

Attention is an indicator of love.

Not attending to what merits our love is indifference.

Attending to what does not merit our love is idolatry.

When businesses work hard to commodify our attention, we should consider who and what actually deserves it.

Just spent the last two days hosting Robert P. George and Cornel West on my campus. Life-affirming. Love-affirming. My heart is full. I asked them if we could take this photo for my grandchildren. But it was of course also for me to remember this week.

Posting because @mjkaul asked and others have occasionally asked about my “artist EDC”. Here’s my go-to kit for sketching and painting on the go.

• A toned-tan sketchbook from Strathmore.
• A Fudenosuke pen from Tombow.
• A watercolor set from Art Toolkit.
• A water brush from Pentel.

And here’s a recent sketch I did from a photo while on the tarmac at O’Hare, waiting to fly home to Sioux Falls. A great way to deepen the memories of a fine visit.

Some quick sketches of Chicago on the plane home. These are not the highlights of Chicago, not the usual photos one sees in tourist brochures. They’re the invasive mussel shells I saw while thinking of the future of the place where my granddaughter lives. They’re a small steeple in a wooded street not far from hot urban streets with noisy elevated trains and no shade. They‘re memories of a weekend with people I love in a wonderful city.

Travel sketch. Walked down to Oak & Honey for brunch today, and came upon the Chicago Marathon on the way.

A beautiful day in Chicago with my family, portrayed in two watercolor sketches.

Lincoln Park, Chicago. Watercolor and gouache on tan paper, details with micron pen. Sometimes my nature journal becomes an urban sketchbook.

More time on planes after a short visit to Minneapolis.

The Twin Cities are beautiful. So much to please the eye in both the natural and the built environments. Minneapolis is a great place for walking and biking, and there are so many good places to find good food and to visit.

It’s hard to forget that Minneapolis has been through some hard times recently. I love this place, I love the people. And I hope for better days ahead.

What I do on planes.

I’m usually not interested in all the screens planes now have on the back of every seat. But here is my sketchbook, and here is a photo I took in the garden yesterday. Why not study the photo and do a little sketch?

Angelus

“In the ‘Voyage to Laputa,’ there is a description of a machine for evolving science automatically. ‘By this contrivance, the most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with little bodily labor, might write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study.’ The intention is to ridicule the Organon of Aristotle and the Organon of Bacon, by showing the absurdity of supposing that any ‘instrument’ can do the work of the mind. Yet the logical machines of Jevons and Marquand are mills into which the premises are fed and which turn out the conclusions by the revolution of a crank. The numerous mathematical engines that have been found practically useful, from Webb’s adder up to Babbage’s analytical engine (which was designed though never constructed), are also machines that perform reasoning of no simple kind. Precisely how much of the business of thinking a machine could possibly be made to perform, and what part of it must be left for the living mind, is a question not without conceivable practical importance; the study of it can at any rate not fail to throw needed light on the nature of the reasoning process. Though the instruments of Jevons and Marquand were designed chiefly to illustrate more elementary points, their utility lies mainly, as it seems to me, in the evidence they afford concerning this problem.”

– Charles S. Peirce. “Logical Machines,” in Writings of Charles Sanders Peirce, ed. N. Houser (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000) 6:65.

Today in my environmental philosophy class I was teaching the students about lycaenid butterflies. I haven’t seen one on campus for a long time. As soon as class ended and as the students were walking away across the grass, a little Melissa Blue the size of my fingernail flitted up and rested in the grass beside me. Now its memory is sketched in my journal.