Happy Spring!

Of Snow and Sea

Two snowstorms paid a visit last week, leaving everything in a blanket of the white stuff. It still feels too early for snow to me, but it's a La Nina year so I suspect I'd better get used to it. It's going to be a long winter.

I've mentioned the multitude of magpies on campus in previous posts. Their antics are wonderful, and now with snow on the ground I can see signs of their visits even if I miss seeing them.

After snooping around the birdfeeder, this magpie flew off,
leaving a beautiful pattern in the snow for me to discover.

I discovered this collection of tracks right outside our front door.
I wonder what they were doing.

While it is clearly winter outside, it is summer in my studio - at the beach no less! This painting is not finished yet; a few problems have slowed my progress a bit, but it's been enjoyable to loosen up and experiment.

Step 1

Step 4

I built up the sand and sea colors with layer after layer of thin acrylic glazes painted over the original background. I wanted to keep the textures but define the areas as beach and surf. I am very happy with the background, but I'm having trouble with the bird. As I develop the details even further than this photo shows, the bird image feels cut and pasted on, rather than belonging with that background. Looking at this photo now, I almost wish I had left the bird like this instead of adding more details. I'm going to let the painting sit for a few days and perhaps a solution will come to me.

Meanwhile, a very happy Thanksgiving to all of my US friends out there!

First Snow

When the clouds finally lifted over the weekend and revealed the first snowfall on the mountains, it lifted my heart as well. There's not much that is as beautiful as snow-capped mountains.

The Osprey Are Back!

Today would have been my dad's 74th birthday. He loved being outdoors; hiking, camping, fishing and taking photographs. I will always be grateful to him for instilling in me a love of nature. In fact I spent the morning scanning some of his old slides to use as reference material for upcoming drawings and paintings. But instead of starting on one of those drawings or paintings, it was such a beautiful day today that I decided to take a walk along the river. Partially because of my good old friend Procrastination and partially to convince myself that, although there's still snow even on the tops of the lower mountains, Spring really is here at last. Everyone else had the same idea, too. Lots of kids on bikes and happy dogs along the river trail.

At one point a merganser flew past so I ran over to the edge of the river to see if I could spot where it had landed and maybe sneak up and get a picture, but no luck. Instead I found this little guy out sunning himself amongst the rocks.

















Then the prize of the walk - an osprey! It was circling over the river in the distance. Suddenly it pulled in its wings and dove straight into the water. Even from far away I could clearly see the splash. And what luck; it flew right past me as it headed back upriver with the fish it had just caught!