Title : Portrait of a park in paint markers
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Portrait of a park in paint markers
[By Marcia Milner-Brage in Cedar Falls, Iowa, USA]
Before the summer heat and high humidity sets in, before the resulting swarms of mosquitoes hatch, there is an ideal time to do plein-air sketching. For a string of days in early June, with my new set of paint markers and a small, black paper sketchbook, I went to the closest green space, only a few blocks from my house, Washington Park. A paved path–used by walkers, runners, and bikers–curves around the perimeter. For years, the park had been a 9-hole golf course.
Washington Park is by the Cedar River. The River flows from the northwest, carrying runoff from rich aquifer farmland, and eventually joins the Mississippi River in the southeast corner of the State. The Cedar River, with its many small tributaries and vast floodplain, periodically floods. The Washington Park Golf Course was destroyed by the “Hundred Year” flood of 2008. After that, it was converted into the multi-use city park it is today. There are covered, open picnic shelters scattered throughout the park.
The city’s sewage treatment plant is also on the River. It is protected from flooding by a grassy, earthen dike. The circular structures of the treatment plant and the dike can be seen from the park. Some of what used to be mowed and manicured fairways are left to grow into wind-ruffled, wild grass, wildflower fields. So lovely!
There are beautiful, mature trees. The City of Cedar Falls–known for its tree-lined streets and parks – used to have an arborist who lived in a small house on the edge of the golf course. These grand cottonwood trees are testament to his tenure. Baltimore orioles nest in the trees beyond.
There are two ponds in the park. The one above is a small, vernal pool. In May, chorus frogs or Spring peepers, supply their eerie, mating soundtrack. Tall grasses grow along the edge. Migratory ducks and Canada geese stopover. Redwing blackbirds, heron, and dragonflies frequent. As temperatures warm, mustard-colored algae covers the surface. By July, the pond dries up.
Mullen Pond is the larger of the ponds. Occasionally people fish there. As I drew this from one of the picnic shelters, I saw a Canada goose and her goslings. I saw a woodchuck (a kind of marmot that makes its burrow in the pond embankment). Grey clouds foretold of a rain.
The entrance to Washington Park is across the railroad tracks. These tracks lead to the coal-burning, power plant, with its landmark chimney. Train cars are often stored here. I drew this looking out from the park's parking lot.
Near the park entrance is one of my favorite trees in all of Cedar Falls: this mottled white and grey barked sycamore. Sycamores are the last deciduous tree to get their leaves. All the better to appreciate its graceful limbs and trunk against the fully leafed out maple; and the shadows cast by its branches on the blue metal roof of the public toilet.
The playground is strangely empty on this weekday morning. It comes alive on weekends and in the late afternoon when parents bring their children after work.
This is the first drawing I did in this portrait of Washington Park (before I knew I was going to do a series). It was my first attempt at using my newly acquired paint markers. They were fun! And with their limited colors and flat opaqueness, they were a challenge.
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