Art in the Hill Country, Part Two: Sketching at Panola Mountain

Our Saturday outing in April was a trip to Panola Mountain State Park, and a rare opportunity to engage in field sketching and photography atop the monolith. The granite hill is off limits to visitors, except when accompanied by a park guide on the once-monthly hike or by special arrangement. I was thrilled to be there at this time in the spring, when so many flowers -- including the diamorpha, endemic to such outcrop environments -- were in bloom. I was also grateful to have my wife, Valerie Hayes, along as field sketching instructor.

After we parked the cars along rarely-used dirt access road (beside a lovely stone-edged lake), Valerie shared with the group a number of helpful books on keeping a field journal and doing natural history illustration. Then Brian, a naturalist who has worked at the park for a couple of years, led the six of us along a half-mile trail from an access road uphill to the "peak" (perhaps 200 feet of vertical ascent?). The morning rain had vanished as predicted, and it was a pleasant, mostly sunny day. We established two "base camps" for artwork. We spent perhaps an hour and a half at the first, and about forty-five minutes at the second. Below are photographs from the two locations:

At the first site, I completed a sketch of a cross-vine in flower, then wandered off, drawn by the rich textures and patterns of the landscape and all the flowers in bloom. I took a number of fairly conventional photographs, then Brian remarked to me that I might consider trying to take photographs through a hand lens. He commented that the idea had come to him just then as he saw me using the lens, and simultaneously recalled a photo he had taken through binoculars. The results turned out to be amazing for such a low-tech, slapdash approach. Soon Brian, too, had borrowed a second hand lens for me, and was photographing flowers and lichens. These photographs merit a separate part in this blog, to be continued.

Meanwhile, here are three photographs from the top of Panola. Everything is entrancing -- the juxtapositioning of colors and forms (there will be a separate blog part just on patterns, too), the Japanese-rock-garden-quality of close-up views, and the more distant prospects, whether of granite and pine, or the distant face of Stone Mountain.

Even as we were packing up to leave, I discovered an enormous bush full of white, feathery blooms, and had to dash off to photograph it. There is so much there to encounter -- it is quite simply one of the most spectacular places I have visited in Georgia. At last, though, we all reluctantly gathered our gear, and strode off down the mountain for home.