Corn

The most wonderful corn I've ever eaten. At the farm drop, one of the guys said, "Eat it right off the cob, just like that!" I thought, you have got to be kidding me. Without cooking it first? Sure enough, the next morning, I ripped off the leaves and silk and sunk my teeth in. Yum. I haven't cooked an ear since. But I brought home so many last week, I'll have to learn how to freeze the kernels.

Eggplant

I belong to an organic farm out in Red Boiling Springs, Tennessee and pick up my share at a drop off location about five minutes from my house on Monday afternoons. Monday evenings I spend washing, preparing and storing my vegetables. I don't do much with eggplant, frankly, but thought these were worthy of a little sketch. Here I filled in the ink with watercolor pencils on rather unforgiving sketch paper. Every once in a while, I reach for colored or watercolor pencils and am always a bit dismayed with the results. I suppose that if I used them more frequently, I might be happier. But the pale color of the vegetables begged me to put in some color.

White Chiffon

Back to the present and a quick line drawing from my garden. This is a beautiful white blossom from a freshly planted Rose of Sharon hibiscus along the side of my studio. I bought five plants of three varieties on clearance a couple of weeks ago at a local garden shop. Two of these white chiffon, two more with violet blooms and one with a deep blue bloom. Originally $20, I paid $1.95 for each. (I love a bargain!) A local friend calls them weeds which gives me hope that they'll all thrive.

Tombstone Tree

This 1999 sketch is of a headstone in the Charleston Unitarian Church cemetery yard. The roots of the nearby tree have become one with the tomb of Ephraim Seabrook Mikell, "A favorite with all who knew him". Wouldn't that be a nice thing for someone to say about you after your death?

So ends my little series of lost (no more) 1999 sketches from Charleston.