Last October, my parents and I went to Pawley's Island in South Carolina with my grandparents. We stayed at a house on the beach there for about a week, and it was wonderful. Even though I still had school to do while we were there, I was much more motivated to get up early when I knew I would wake up to the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean. We went on several walks along the beach, my dad and I played in the waves since it was still warm enough, and I collected way too many seashells.
Several of the shells I found at Pawley's Island had holes in them, which I thought was pretty cool, so of course I wanted to hold one up to my eye and look through it. My mom took a picture, and I used that photo to draw most of this pastel drawing. Then a few months later, we were visiting the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, and one of my friends took a beautiful picture of the sunset there. I placed that scene, instead of just my eye, inside the hole of the shell.
One side of the house faced the beach, and the other side faced the marsh. It was neat how the direction the river flowed would change with the tide. There was also a deck that stuck out into the marsh that we could fish from.
I had done a quick sketch of this scene in pen a few months ago, and I really liked how it turned out besides the sky, which was hard to get a nice smooth gradation on with pen. Recently I've been meaning to try out watercolors though, so I decided to combine the pen for texture and detail with watercolors for the color and a smooth sky.
In the evenings, after sunset, we would sit on the deck facing the ocean and watch the moon-rise. A few nights, when it was still right on the horizon, the moon was actually red! It was so neat to watch, and the stars were so beautiful. Being in a relatively dark area, we could see so many, and it looked almost like glitter poured across the sky. One of the nights, my grandpa brought out his telescope, and we found two of the planets, which was just incredible.
One of the nights, I was sitting on the deck watching the moon and listening to the waves, and my dad took a picture of me. I completely forgot about that photo for several months until I saw it again this spring and really loved it. So then I decided to draw it using pastels. I really love how bright the moon is and how it reflects off the waves.
While we were there, my parents and I got to take a day-trip to Charleston. I had been before, but I was young and didn't remember it. I'm really glad we got to go again, and I loved it. We went down to the Battery and got to see Fort Sumter across the water. When we walked through the markets, I loved seeing the sweet-grass baskets and how they were being made. All the old buildings were so beautiful, and there was a lot of wrought iron in so many different designs on fences and gates.
One of the buildings we saw looked really neat from its corner with the palm tree framing it and the flag waving from the balcony. Then one of my art projects this spring was creating something on found paper (such as a newspaper, a book or magazine page, etc.). So I decided to draw this on the map I had of Charleston.
Another one of the days at Pawley's Island, we got to go visit Brookgreen Gardens, which is a huge sculpture garden with works by so many different artists. The sculptures together with all the trees, flowers, and other plants, along with the fountains, were so beautiful.
The same month we went on this trip, I was doing the Inktober challenge. The prompt "wild" reminded me of one of the sculptures I saw at Brookgreen Gardens. I had taken a picture of it while we were there, so I was able to use that to draw this after we got back home.
One portion of the gardens had a butterfly house, and it was amazing being right up close to so many beautiful butterflies.
This butterfly actually wasn't in the butterfly gardens, but just on a cluster of purple flowers in another part of Brookgreen Gardens. Somehow I was able to get a really clear photo of it (I'm surprised it stayed still long enough!), and I really wanted to draw it. I decided to use colored pencils since it would give it the vibrant colors and also the sharp tips I would need for all the details.
All in all, the trip to Pawley's Island and Charleston was an incredible, beautiful week, and I really enjoyed it.
Some photos from the trip:
