The King and his fine crown

The King's Crown

This wee fella finally received his crown as the finishing touch to this painting. He's a Ruby-crowned Kinglet. A gorgeous little bird that is only about 4 inches. I have to admit that credit is due to Gerald who graciously took the Kinglets photo with my camera. Last fall we were out and about I was in way too much pain from a headache to even hold the camera up, let alone focus in. So I told Gerald to shoot and shoot he did. He captured one wonderful shot that shows the tiny wee red crown just peeking through. As soon as I saw the image I knew I would paint it. It was fall, the birds were migrating south and the foliage was tinged orange so to keep that autumnal feel I boldly washed the background. Initially I was going to paint in foliage but have now decided I like the simplicity of the bold colorfield. It is after all a portrait of a king; need I say more.

A new one started with a bright bold yellow as a ground. Yesterday I was back playing in the paint and started the suggestions of shrubbery. I not to sure yet which direction it will take, either detailed or abstracted. This is basically how my acrylic paintings start, rough and loose. I continue to refine and detail as each layer progresses. There are many layers to my paintings whether I paint with acrylic or watercolor so it is a lengthy process. I also roughed in a Raven on canvas last night as well; looks like I am back into the swing of wielding the paint brush.

Doing the little sketches yesterday while I relaxed with my coffee was quite enjoyable so today I decided  to start the day with bird studies. Once again using watercolor pencils, I only have a small set, not enough to note accurate color, but enough to give a cheerfulness to my roughs. I like the process of washing the water over the pencil strokes after the drawing is done. It reminds me of those magic paint books you can get that are pre-colored so that when a wash of water is painted over the page the color springs to life. Fun, relaxing, dare I say almost meditative.

sketch book

Decided to post a few of my sketchbook pages. I tend to fill the pages with roughs for the most part, yet every once in a while a more finished sketch is presented.

These are what I refer to as "roughs" which are ideas and images that stimulate imagery for paintings. Some roughs work up as paintings, some don't. Yet they do seep into my sub-conscience as I can look back at roughs from years back and realize that certain themes and ideas repeat till they formulate into a conceivable work. I definitely never have the problem of lack of visual imagery. There is so much that I still would like to play with, the biggest problem is deciding which to work on first.

This is a rough up for a potential watercolor painting. When working with watercolor I find it necessary to initially work out the design before committing to the 300 lb paper. Whereas when I paint with acrylic I usually have a general idea, yet plunge right in with paint to sketch in the birds right on the canvas. Acrylic is much more forgiving to making alterations than watercolor is. In other words when it comes to acrylics I can push paint around, play with the imagery, overpaint and alter.

I was perusing a book on poetry while relaxing in my recliner today with my cup of morning coffee when I came upon a wonderful reproduction of a Odilon Redon painting. The colors were juicy enticing so I scribbled this little sketch with watercolor pencils. I always put a note as to the artists name if I copy or even if I do my own version of another artists work. For me this is practice in seeing how other artists see and depict an image; so of course I am not a slave to the reproduction and I don't worry about the sketch being accurate in color. Its all about learning not copying per se.

This was a bouquet that I sketched last year? I never date my sketches nor do I fill the pages in order. Sketches end up drawn randomly anywhere the page opens. Sometimes a sketch book gets half filled, put aside, then years later picked up and drawn in once again.

Walking the Ravine

I have been slowly working on a 18 x 36 inch acrylic painting. It seems my new years is off to a mellow start. I tend to push myself like crazy, collapse after the frenzy, rest, lots of rest, then slowly start off again. The frenzies come when I have a showing booked, then I am usually painting right up to the deadline. But to be honest I have been designing a quilt. I have a grandchild coming into the world this year and am so excited that I've gotten busy with fabrics.
Though not much paint has gotten splashed around lately I tend to spend many hours researching and gathering reference material. I continually view the world through my camera lens searching for reference material. Yesterday Gerald and I went walking the snow filled ravine. At the top of the hill where people have put out seeds I captured these pretty birds. They make such a wonderful sound; to me its like tiny tinkling bells in the trees.

Female redpoll above, male below. Notice that the male has a reddish collar bib whereas the female doesn't. I have been trying all this month to get good shots of these birds out in the countryside, well yesterday was my day for them. It would have been nice to have gotten the male in the trees rather than on a fence, yet seeing as I only use my photos as reference for my paintings it really doesn't matter as I can paint them into any setting I so choose. Ah Creation is such an adventure.

As the river was frozen over and a path had been cleared along it we ventured out on the waterway for a different perspective. At the beaver dam air hole where the water is kept liquid I saw spots of blood on the snow amid many paw prints. I wonder if a coyote caught one of the beavers off guard. The chickadees and redpolls were quite active chuckling above in the tree tops as they continuously flitted from tree to tree searching out delicacies that hide in the tree bark and lichens. The day was gray and about -4 which was pretty nice overall but was biting cold when the wind blew down through the ravine. It was a good day for viewing birds. Aside from the many chickadees and redpolls we saw pine siskins, two sets of downy woodpeckers whom I could no way get a decent shot of as they were happily chasing each other from tree to tree with hardly a pause. Two crows flew over head cawing and one bluejay squawked by a few times; how such a beautiful bird got such a raspy voice is a wonder.

These are shots of the river bank, I love the striations of the various mixes of clays soil and rock that lies under our feet. There were a few small coal seams but that shot was too blurry, I think at that point I was getting too tired and it was time to head back for a cup of coca to warm up.

The serpent and the wren

I was riffling through my album and came across this photo that I took last summer while we were taking a break from driving and had stopped in Fort MacLoed. We parked across the street from the museum and decided to walk the path behind the Fort to stretch our legs. To my delight there was a small ravine that borders the pathway, so of course what was to be a quick pit stop ended up being more like an hour as I had spotted yellow warblers and marsh wrens feeding their young. When I got home and downloaded my images I was surprised to discover a garter snake to the right of the wren. Well I have since read that wrens will aggressively defend their territory against snakes looking for an easy meal of their young, so I am sure the wren fared well, the snake, maybe not so well, he was probably chased away hungry. (click on the photo to enlarge image for a closer view)

The unexpected

Here we are well into January and I find myself deep into learning camera and computer programs. Its a slow process for me as I never cared to learn technical stuff when I was younger so now I am finding frustration and fascination to be the mainstay of the day as I attempt to decipher the language in order to interpret the instruction manuals; sheesh, its a lot of brain wrapping thats for sure.

Gerald took me out looking for snowy owls again this past weekend, and once again no luck in finding them but we did spot this bird out in the field behind a snowdrift. Is is a grouse or maybe a pheasant; not sure, so off I go to investigate.

So... here I am knee deep in powder snow, sneaking around the snow blind, I am in a fantastic position for the ultimate best ever fantastic photograph. Bird does not sense me; good. So I switch to manuel focus, after all I want a great shot, when just as I get the camera up to my eye and am focusing in... when wouldn't you know it, a dog and its servant come romping across the field from the opposite way. Damn. Well at least I got an identifiable shot of the birds. They are Gray Partridge which is an introduced species from Europe. I don't know who introduced them, but they sure are pretty. There were a covey of about eight birds. This is my first sighting of Partridge, kinda fitting for this time of year, except we are missing the pear tree. To cold for pears here.

In The Pink

This acrylic on canvas painting, "In The Pink; Willet In Flight" was completed last month. I had difficulty photographing this one as well as "And The Thunder Was Heard". It seems mu SLR camera has trouble capturing the subtleties in shades of reds and hot pinks to my liking. It took many days of re-shooting to get images that I was happy with. Also I found that sunny days rather than overcast ones generate truer reds. I am not a techie but I figure it must have to do with how light travels through the atmosphere. Anyhow its a good thing to know when shooting the warm spectrum of color. But with it being winter here, its difficult to get the sun when I need it for photography as I only have a time window of one half to up to one hour (if I am lucky) when the light is just right, If I don't get it then I have to wait for the next sunny day. In the summer time I take my paintings outdoors to photograph in the shade out of direct light and that works wonderfully, but here the winter, like today it's -21, I'm staying indoors thank you. I don't bother anymore with setting up lights to photograph my work as I have found through my experience that lights alter the colors that bounce back, and as I paint in natural light I feel its best to photograph in natural light.

In the Pink; Willet In Flight

I have hung this one in my studio to brighten up my winter. It is for sale and will most likely be placed in my next exhibition. 

The Wildbird General Store

This photo taken Dec 09 at the The Wildbird General Store in Edmonton. the exhibition is up till the end of January 2010.

 

Ahh, the crazy bird lady amid her birds. A woman of many talents, one of which is effectively bribing her chauffeur with picnic lunches so that he will escort her out into the country side to gather photo reference of birds which become the inspiration for future paintings.