I’m back from my long luxurious weekend in The Sea Ranch, California on the north coast. It was very relaxing, we moved very slowly—waking up late, walking along the bluff trail, eating a lot, and we even picked wild blackberries, which allowed us to eat blackberry pie a la mode almost every day. I brought along a little sketchbook and finally took the time to sketch some plants I like that grow along the bluff.

Here are two of my sketches:

These plants grow rampantly along with tall grass and poison oak, on the grassy bluffs above the ocean. I love the repetitive lines and the natural brown and black colors. They’re like incredibly spare flowers, or skeletons of flowers—they always seem to be dried out. They remind me a little of spent dandelions, although these are large and sturdy plants. Does anyone know what they’re called? I think the two sketches are actually of two slightly different plants.

It’s interesting how some things just catch your eye. People walking by on the trail probably thought I was a little nuts. One guy joked, “What, are you collecting poison oak?” But I didn’t mind, it was a beautiful day by the ocean, smelling of salt and dried grass, and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend the morning than drawing.

This post has been a long time in coming. I’ve been working little by little to finish my project “The Edge of California.” What started out as one piece grew into three. I am having fun figuring out how to use words visually. To give you an idea of the scale, all three pieces hung together form a square of about 2.5 feet or 70 cm. I love the color blue, so this was also an exercise in mixing different shades of that color- especially in the third piece (the sea, sea, sea piece). Here they are: