Once More With Feeling

You must aim high, not in what you are going to do at some future date, but in what you are going to make yourself do today. Otherwise, working is just a waste of time.
                                                                                                              ~Edgar Degas

Laughing gulls watching the surf. Or are they waiting for a bus? 5" x 7" oil on canvas board.

I have two little paintings to share with you. I worked on this painting of two laughing gulls last week, but I'm not entirely happy with it. While I am pleased with how I captured the light, the painting's subject matter seems a little static. The gulls look like they're just standing around doing nothing, and that doesn't make for an interesting painting. Every time I look at it, it bugs me. Today I decided I needed to improve upon the theme.

This is MY beach. Go find your own. 7" x 5" oil on canvas board.

I'm much happier with this painting. I feel that the bird's pose is much more engaging than the previous painting. I'm also really pleased with the thicker paint application and more purposeful brush strokes (I've been trying to work on that). I just wish I'd made the bird a wee bit smaller, or had a wee bit more canvas at the bottom to give a little more room between the gull's feet and the end of the canvas. I was so focused on the painting process that I didn't pay attention to the placement of the bird. It's always something, isn't it?

Sketching From Life

"It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character."
                                                                                     ~ Camille Pissarro

5 minute sketches done with Pigma Micron brush pen

In the last six months or so, it seems like I've been suffering more from writer's block than artist's block. Occasionally inspiration will strike, but more often that not I sit down to blog and just stare at the screen wondering what to say. So this post is going to be made up of random thoughts about some sketching I've done recently.

Our local art center has a weekly live model session that I've been taking advantage of. I much prefer the quick sketches rather than the long poses. Having only a few minutes to draw helps to prioritize what to draw; I don't have time to become obsessive over picky little details.

5 minute and 20 minute sketches done with Pigma Micron brush pen

Watercolor sketches from the Tracy Aviary

I also love sketching at zoos, aquariums, and the like. It can be downright maddening when a place is crowded; people stepping in front of you or bumping into you, and the noise level can become distracting, but if you can find an area where you are mostly alone, it's great. I've also had some wonderful conversations with people who were brave enough to risk interrupting my work to talk to me. I especially enjoy talking to kids, hoping that my example will encourage them to do art. 

Watercolor sketches done at a coffee shop

There are plenty of opportunities for me to sketch in everyday situations, not just classes or special trips. Although I felt a little self-conscious at first, I've learned to really enjoy sketching at coffee shops. Easy access to sweet hot beverages + doing art = bliss. Bonus points if the coffee shop has interesting mugs or tea pots to draw, as the one above did. 

I hope you enjoyed this little tour of my sketchbooks while my writing muse is off doing something else for a while. Hopefully she'll return soon.

Hummingbirds

Dinner on the wing

I had promised you hummingbird pictures this summer, but I've discovered that ruby-throated hummingbirds, or at least the ones at my father-in-law's place, are very camera shy. The female hummingbird seems a little less concerned about my presence than the male, so I managed to get a few decent photos of her from a respectful distance. The male, however, is very nervous and will even scold me if I'm on the far end of his flightpath to the feeder. I only managed to get this one blurry shot of him through the kitchen window, but at least his gorget was brilliant. 

 

All that sugar makes for a very high-strung bird

There seems to be just one male and one female hummingbird here. There could be other individuals that I'm not able to differentiate from each other, but since I've never seen any battles between two males or two females, I'm guessing there's just one of each. If the male catches the female at the feeder, he will chase her away. I find this interesting because where we live, rufous hummingbird females will chase away the males. Male and female hummingbirds will only associate with each other to mate, otherwise they are very antagonistic towards each other.

Pen & ink drawing of some hummingbird nestlings

I found this old pen & ink drawing I did years ago of some nestling hummingbirds. Unfortunately I can't remember what species they were. My cousins had a cabin in northern Idaho and a hummingbird built a nest and raised two babies right outside their window. We were lucky enough to visit just a few days before the babies fledged. The tiny delicate nest made of lichens, moss, and spider webs was a marvel of engineering.

I'm being lazy today and not including a quote with this post. I hope you'll forgive me.

My Favorite Woodpecker

"Without birds, trees would be very lonely and men too!"
                                                        ~ Mehmet Murat ildan

I won't say that woodpeckers are my favorite birds since there are so many fascinating types of birds; pelicans with their built-in fishing nets, hawks with vision eight times better than ours, hummingbirds that hold their nests together with spider webs, but woodpeckers are up there on my list. However, I can unequivocally say that, from the first time I saw them featured on a nature show, the acorn woodpecker has been my favorite type of woodpecker.

My first sighting of an acorn woodpecker was outside of Portland, Oregon a few years ago. The single dejected specimen sitting motionless high up in a tree was a far cry from the lively and comical birds I expected. Maybe it had been a particularly gloomy winter in Portland that year. After fifteen minutes of observing this bird and seeing nothing more exciting than it turning its head once, I walked away hoping that my second sighting would be more in line with what I had heard about acorn woodpeckers.

 

It's taken a few years, but recently I was in California and finally had the good fortune to spot more acorn woodpeckers - this time a group of them checking out a power pole near our hotel. They were everything I'd hoped for: gregarious, vocal, colorful. They didn't seem to mind all the traffic speeding beneath them, either. The fifteen minutes that I spent observing this group before they flew off to a grove of palm trees more than made up for my first sighting.

One of the fascinating things about acorn woodpeckers is that they hoard acorns by drilling individual holes in trees or telephone poles (or wood siding) to store each of their hundreds of acorns in. I didn't get to observe this behavior, but this 3 minute video from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has some nice footage. I'm hoping that if I'm lucky enough to see acorn woodpeckers a third time, I'll get to see their acorn storage system in action.

New WIP - Eastern Kingbird

"The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky,
from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web."
                                                                                                                ~ Pablo Picasso

5"x7" work in progress of an Eastern kingbird.

Started a new little painting this weekend. I'm a big fan of limited palettes, and the blues, grays and whites of this scene really appeal to me, especially after all the bright colors in the flamingo painting I'm (still) working on. 

Detail showing sun on feet and barbed wire.

This piece is also turning out to be a great exercise in values and temperature. Of course I don't use any pure white (even though the camera makes it look like I did). Titanium white mixed with a little yellow ochre and/or cadmium yellow light gives a nice sunlit effect for my brightest, warmest whites. Ultramarine blue, burnt umber and Payne's gray make a great dark, without resorting to pure black (I don't even own a tube of black paint). Then the mid-tones are all sorts of purpley-grays and brownish-grays - mostly warm in temperature because of all the reflected light. You can see some of the purplish tones in the detail shot of the bird's underbelly.

My next task will be to get the values right on the clouds and the sky. I've never painted a piece where the sky was so dominant. In my mind, I see the sky as going on forever. I hope I can somehow capture that feeling in paint, without competing with the bird. I wanted to wait to hone the sky until I had the bird's values pretty well set.

I might be cheerfully babbling on about color and value, but my old companion Self-doubt has been keeping me company a lot lately. I was on such a roll before the holidays, and then what with travel and family and festivities, I ended up not painting for about a month. Ever since I got back into the studio in mid-January, I've been struggling. It's as if I took years off, rather than just 30 days.

Then we had Chinese take-out the other night and this appeared in my fortune cookie:

 Does this mean there's hope for me yet?

A Living Gem

"What is magic? In the deepest sense, magic is an experience. It's the experience of finding oneself alive within a world that is itself alive. It is the experience of contact and communication between oneself and something that is profoundly different from oneself: a swallow, a frog, a spider weaving its web..."
                                                                                                                        - David Abram

A tiny masterpiece of color and aerodynamics that eats mosquitoes! Can it get any better than that?

I can't say it much better than the David Abram quote above, but I often think about how much richer people's lives might be if they noticed things like the sun hitting the iridescent feathers on a violet-green swallow. There's magic all around us, if only we'd look.

My model was a photogenic violet-green swallow we chanced upon one day at Lake Como in the Bitterroot National Forest, when we still lived in Montana. (Yes, I miss Montana.)

Study of a violet-green swallow (6" x 6" acrylic on canvas board).

I finished this portrait of that swallow back in November, but didn't post it then as I wanted it to be a surprise Christmas present for dear friends.

What magic have you experienced lately?

Clark's Nutcracker Drawing

"Drawing is a frame of mind, a loving embrace if you will." 
                                                                      - Susan Avishai

I haven't posted many drawings lately. Too busy painting! But I do love to sketch and draw. One day in September, a very accommodating Clark's nutcracker posed for me and I took a series of reference photos which I then sketched and drew from. (It was too high up in the tree to be able to draw from life. Plus it moved around too fast.) 

 

Clark's nutcracker working the camera. Yeah Baby!

 

Nutcrackers are in the jay family and have the personality to match. They love to feast on pine cone seeds and are primarily found in pine forests and high elevations in and around western North America.

Penguins Finished

"Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow..."
                                                                                                           - Kurt Vonnegut

The point at which we left off on the last post.

When last I left you, the penguins were taking shape and the boulders were starting to look more like the boulders in South Africa, but the clock was still ticking away. The worst thing was the more and more I looked at the piece, the more that the lone penguin with his (her?) back turned was bothering me. Hmm.

The joy of acrylics - you can paint over what you don't like!

I decided to eliminate the lone penguin. Luckily it made a very interesting shadow in the rock instead. I continued to develop the boulders and remaining penguins. 

Spot the lone penguin now.

After nearly three days straight in the studio, I was feeling like I might just finish this painting in time to enter it in the show. I put it aside and went frame shopping. Our one and only local arts & crafts store just happened to have a bunch of wooden frames on clearance and I found the perfect one. But you'll have to wait until the painting is done to see it.

Done, right? Wrong!

At this point I was convinced the painting was complete. I loved the rock textures I had created and I felt the penguins looked good enough to pass inspection by an ornithologist. I framed the painting and entered it in the show on time and sat back and waited for the judges to do their thing. Turns out I didn't even merit an honorable mention.

After the show, I shared the painting with a couple of artist friends of mine with much more success under their belts than I. I knew I could trust them for an honest critique. What could I have done to improve the painting? Every single one of them said, "Darken the area behind to penguins."

I took the painting back into the studio and as I was clearing off my desk to get back to work on it, I found my original colored pencil value study. It had the area behind the penguins darkened.

The final FINAL painting.

I don't know if I had stayed true to my original value study if I would've won any prizes at the show, but certainly I would've entered a much stronger piece.

Round 'Em Up!

"Drawing makes you see things clearer, and clearer and clearer still, until your eyes ache."
                                                                                                                      - David Hockney

Male broad-tailed hummingbird glistens in the morning sun.

You may be familiar with the idea of a cattle roundup, but a hummingbird roundup might be a more unusual concept. Every spring a hearty group of volunteers captures and bands migrating hummers at a ranch tucked away in the mountains. For one day, they invite the public to come and observe, ask questions, and maybe even hold a hummingbird.

The beautiful setting for the Roundup

I have never seen so many hummingbirds buzzing about in one place. Four species are found in this one area; broad-tailed, black-chinned, rufous and calliope. In a typical roundup, the volunteers examine an average of 600 hummers.

Feeders are placed inside of cages to capture the hummers.

Trained volunteers measure and weight these tiny birds. 

If a hummer doesn't already have a leg band, they are given one.

After their physicals the hummers are marked with a spot of temporary paint so they aren't captured again,
then they are released. It often takes them a moment to get their bearings before zipping off.

A sketch from my notebook. 

By using binoculars and patience, I was able to sketch the activity at a hummingbird feeder. The hummers are so quick that I couldn't draw individuals. Each time a different hummer would visit the feeder in the same position as a previous one, I could add a little more to my drawing. I still have the  wrist brace, but despite it being cumbersome I didn't want to miss this opportunity to observe and sketch on this amazing day.

Four and Twenty Blackbirds

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure
as long as life lasts."
                                                                                                                     - Rachel Carson

Male yellow-headed blackbirds gorging themselves on insects.

We just had one of the best birding days EVER. The kind where you feel exhausted at the end of the day because of the sheer number of birds observed. Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge on the Great Salt Lake is an important fueling stop for migratory birds, many of which have traveled from South America and are still headed further north, some as far as the Arctic. Phalarope, white-faced ibis, avocet, coot, great blue heron, great egret, cattle egret, stilt, white pelican, grebe, ducks, swallows, raptors, curlew, whimbrel, western kingbird; our senses were on overload.

One of the most amazing things we saw were flocks of male yellow-headed blackbirds in a feeding frenzy. I'm not that knowledgeable about the types of midge-like insects that live in marshes but whatever they were, there were millions of them. From a distance, the swarms rising up into the sky looked like dark smoke. Everywhere we looked, there were yellow-headed blackbirds on the ground eating these insects. We'd never seen so many of these beautiful birds all in one place.

Swallows collecting mud for their nests.

Clark's grebe enjoying a morning swim.

An avocet taking a well-deserved break after its long journey.

Unfortunately my artistic endeavors have hit a bit of a snag. I've got tendonitis in my right wrist (in three places!) and have to wear a brace for a month. I still manage to sketch and paint a little but my hand cramps up pretty quick. Hopefully as I get used to the brace that will improve.

Brace or no brace, there are important things that must be attended to.

A Pair of Stilts

"Nature has been mastering itself for some time now, and it is an honor to be able to capture its beauty."

                                                                                                                        - Justin Beckett

 

Snoozing stilt

The black-necked stilt has a permanent spot on my Top 20 Favorite Birds list. So elegant and delicate-looking, yet aggressively territorial at times. I also find their in-flight habit of letting their legs trail out behind them rather endearing. When we're in the field, I usually hear them before I spot them - their piercing high-pitched repetitive call is unmistakable to me.

There's a nice YouTube video of stilts from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology here, with some wonderful footage of large groups of them feeding and erupting into flight. Enjoy!

Check out those legs!

Sketching a pair of stilts

In our area, reports are starting to come in that the swans are migrating back north again. In the last week or two, we have been seeing large flocks of ducks in flight. I am hopeful that this means that we can get back into some serious birding again soon. It's been a long winter!

Sketching Day

"Drawing is the discipline by which I constantly discover the world."

                - Frederick Franck, The Zen of Seeing

Not included in this sketch was the great horned owl's intended lunch - a skunk.

It was kind of a chilly day with snow in the air. I managed to get in a brisk walk ("brisk" both in the temperature and pace sense) along the river this morning but afterwards I sought out some warmer indoor activities.

There's a small natural history museum on our university campus so I packed up my pencils and sketchbook and headed there. It's been a while since I sketched and I've missed it. I know some artists hate drawing and sketching but I love it. I just don't do it enough.

Bird feet fascinate me.

This sketch doesn't do justice to the grebe's "ears" - a beautiful gold-blond spray of feathers just behind the eyes.

Pelican WIP Continues

American white pelican WIP. I haven't ruined it yet.

I crossed my fingers and toes and continued on with the pelican watercolor. So far so good. I tackled the eye, which to me is always the scariest part of a painting because if you mess up the eye, it tends to ruin the entire piece. There's still a bit more work I need to do to the eye, but it is getting there. 

One thing I discovered during this painting is that American white pelicans have pale blue eyes. I'd never noticed that before.

Old Blue Eyes?

Another interesting fact about the American white pelican is that unlike the brown pelican, it does not dive from the air into the water to catch its food but instead gracefully dips its bill into the water while swimming. When a group of them are feeding, it looks rather like a ballet.

I think I'm on the home stretch with this painting, so hopefully I'll have time to finish it up and post the final piece soon. I think this is the biggest watercolor painting I've worked on to date - nearly 13" x 11". I've really been enjoying the process!

Tracy Aviary

Front entrance to the Tracy Aviary

I've never been to Salt Lake City, Utah before except while being stuck at the airport between flights. On our last layover there, I was wandering the airport killing time and saw a tourist information sign all about SLC. Well, whaddya know - it turns out they've got an aviary! I tucked that little bit of information into a corner of my brain and continued on with our trip.

A little less than a year later, we had the chance to visit Salt Lake City and the Tracy Aviary was tops on my list of places I wanted to check out while we were there. As it turns out, I'm glad we did. It is an excellent aviary with a nice assortment of indoor and outdoor exhibits and a good variety of birds.

Many of the birds that stop over at the Great Salt Lake during migration fly all the way to Central and even South America. The Aviary has a number of exhibits that display the indigenous birds these migratory birds might see during their sojourn in the south, including Andean condors, Chilean flamingos, and toucans. One exhibit that really caught my attention was the common backyard birds of Argentina. Imagine getting guira cuckoos and southern lapwings in your yard!

Southern lapwings soaking up the northern sun. They are members of the Plover family.

Of course the Aviary had plenty of exhibits devoted to species of birds found in Utah, including hawks and owls, shorebirds, and waterfowl. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a lot of good blog-worthy photos because my camera couldn't focus past the mesh or fencing around many of the exhibits. This is one of the frustrating things I find at zoos and aviaries. Nevertheless, if I were to visit Salt Lake City again I would certainly return to the Tracy Aviary.

A golden eagle giving me the eye.

The incredibly beautiful iridescence on the white-faced ibis more than makes up for the lack of a white-face on this non-breeding individual.

Background Adventure

Experienced model available. Will work for worms and crickets.

I'm starting on another painting. This one is a 16" x 12", so fairly sizable for me. It will feature a long-billed curlew. It probably comes as no surprise that I'm doing another birding painting. I just can't help it. I mean, check out my model. He's just screaming to be painted. This dapper fellow lives at the Seattle Aquarium and has been my model for other pieces.

Very loose watercolor sketch of my idea for the painting.

Since I am a fan of the Pacific coast and long-billed curlews winter there, this seemed like a good subject to paint.

Background so far, painted in acrylic. Not exactly what I had originally envisioned, but...

I wanted to continue working on abstract backgrounds that just suggest a habitat, but this one got away from me a little. I was just having so much fun with the pallet knife and all the colors in the sand that I got detailed without even realizing it. I'm still on the fence about the sky color (among other things). I think it needs to be more gray, more wintery. We'll see how it all comes together.