More Landscape - this time in Ink. Plus Photos from an Inky Dark Night

Continuing the belated Spring 2013 Fiber Arts Degree posts:

After the intro to Landscape drawing, we embarked on a larger landscape project.
Outside. In early April.
It was still pretty nice outside and a lovely way to spend our morning class time.

The instructor walked us over to the Library complex and asked us to draw a part of that building - particularly the windows - including the reflections and whatever we could see inside. He also introduced us to drawing leaves in sunshine and shade.

After our sketch was setup, we were to consider the levels of shade involved and we were to paint our drawing with Indian Ink.

Did you notice the per-drop ink gradation test I did on
the right side of the watercolor paper?

I worked on this in my Cat-Free "Studio" - our backyard porch.
(You are correct. There was NO Way I was going to have glasses of watery Indian Ink available to the cats for sniffing, pawing, splashing, paw-printing....{shudder}.)

Obviously, my grasp of sun and shadow and, well, drawing in general still has quite a ways to go.
However, I decided playing with watered down Indian Ink required a fair amount of patience, was very meticulous, and rather fun. If it weren't for the due date, I could have worked on that landscape for a  month.

But I didn't have a month so this is what was turned in:

In a more current timeline, last month I realized one of our Night Blooming Cereus plants had blooms on the cusp of opening:

 

 

I stayed up late and went to look at the open blossoms...but...they weren't quite open yet.

Days later I was up late again and went to go look at the Night Blooming Cereus and it was blooming. At the time, I didn't connect my collecting a flashlight and the camera with the pictures I'd seen on the Touch the Wind blog in July, but his lovely nighttime bloom photos most likely did make an impression on my brain and inspire some of my photographs.

I took over 50 pictures - generally holding the flashlight between my knees and, at one point, fending off a large Sphinx Moth that may have felt I had loitered over his flowers for too long. {wry grin}
Here's a few of the keepers:

Did you notice the other insect in this photo shoot?
{Bottom, just off center - on the petal...}