[By Marcia Milner-Brage on Little Saint Simons Island, Georgia, USA]
When on this private island, an eco-resort, off the southern coast of Georgia, my joy is to bask in the purity of a wild place. My passion is to bike and draw, usually by myself. Alone, except for when I join my husband and the other 10-30 guests for meals around the communal table, the solitude rejuvenates me. Over the past 17 years, my husband and I have visited 14 times. For the past seven, I’ve done drawings.
On the Beach Road from the lodge to the seven-mile, pristine, white-sand beach, I came out of the maritime forest and pedaled along the salt marsh. The predominant cordgrass was aglow. This lowland, delta region is appropriately called the Golden Isles. An egret positioned itself perfectly within my view for the drawing at the top.
My husband John had told me before we arrived for this five day visit that he felt this would be our last trip to Little Saint Simons Island. Why? An intuition, he said. After living with him for 40 years, I knew to trust his instinct that it was time to move on.
Presuming that this would be my last visit, I sought to draw elements of the island that I had not previously pictured.
In the woods along Mosquito Creek near the lodge, surounded by palmettos, is this cottage. My guess it was built in the 1930s or 1940s. Now empty, this is where Casey, the head boat captain who pilots the skiff that brings guests from and to the adjoining island, lived until recently.
Sometimes, I do a lead-up, pencil sketch before launching into a larger, color drawing.
Lately, I’ve been wondering if I need to invest myself in the two hours to do the larger, color drawing, especially if the pencil drawing does a reasonably satisfying job of capturing the scene. I do enjoy coloring with my wax pastels, although the older I get, the more exhausted I am at times by the effort.
Airline Road is a rutted path through the maritime forest. The path ends when it meets the marsh. Standing in these woods is perilous–the mosquitoes, even in these somewhat cooler months, are outrageous. Slathering myself with bug repellent offered negligible protection. There was no way that I was going to prolong my time there to do a color drawing. Paradise has its downside.
In the years that we have visited the island, there have been wonderful improvements. This recently built boardwalk leads to Norm’s Pond. Norm is the largest (of many) American alligators that are native to the island. Before, the path to visit Norm’s realm was a brambly slog. It’s a wonderful place to peek in on the egrets that nest there in the springtime.
To pin down my composition for the subsequent wax pastel, I started with my go-to 5B pencil in pocket-size Moleskin. Again, was it worth it to do the two-hour color drawing when the black and white sketch conveyed a lot already about the place?
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| Main Beach from the spit at low tide |
Maybe I would have been better off pedaling on to Main Beach and doing some more quickie watercolors there. What do you think?
I’ve done two previous posts about Little Saint Simons Island: Fully Alive on a Wild Island and Return to a wild island.
