Just had to share some good news, today I sold one of my bird paintings! I have just recently decided to release this one, I painted it in 1985 and never really wanted to part with it. I met Shirley and she told me it really caught her eye and though I’ve had people desire to buy it before, I just never felt ready to let it go. Well, it’ll have a good home I think, both her and her husband love nature and art. I think she came to the right place then at my gallery as those are two things very important to me!
Shirley with her new painting!
The painting is done with soft pastels for the background and oil pastels for the bird. I was difficult to do the details in oil pastels but I chiseled off the tip of the crayon to make small marks. A light hand and building layers of color is important. Shirley asked about how it feels to part with a painting and commented on how hard it must be. I think an artist has to decide, some of their art they can keep forever or pass down to their loved ones, but it feels good to share what others see as a treasure and beautiful. I love sharing my love of my subjects, birds, horses, trees, nature and people.
Proud owner of a new painting
To see more bird paintings visit my gallery, I have four different sections in the bird gallery- birds of prey, owls, water birds and perching birds. Click here to visit. I also have interesting paintings with birds in my Fantasy Gallery and my Goddesses Gallery.
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I have just updated a few pages of my website. I have separated my Links page into two extensive pages, Nature Links and Art Links. Both feature links from all over the world and I am open to suggestions for more links please! I put them up for your convenience as a nature lover or artist; but also because they are favorites of mine and now I know it’ll be easy to find them!
The NEWS page is where you can find my current news, but it also has two pages to click at the top: Art Exhibits and News Articles. The Art Exhibits page will show you any upcoming shows I’m in and my past shows; as I update that page, many of the shows will be links to pictures and articles about that opening. The News Articles are links to news-clippings etc.
My LESSONS and PRESENTATIONS page has new pages linked to it also, Art and Nature Books is where you’ll find a list of books I use for Nature or Art study. When the page is finished there will be links for every section to pictures of the books for your convenience, though I seriously doubt I can fit every book on my shelves! The other new page there is My Art Supplies and Equipment, I will put pictures or blog posts about each listed area, painting, drawing, photography, books and some misc. pictures from around my studio or of me using the equipment in the field.
If you have any links to suggest then please pass them my way, and if you’d like to link to my website please do and let me know.
Have you ever gone for a walk on a beautiful day, listening to all the wonderful birds singing around you, and there’s one that seems to be singing right in front of you, but won’t show itself? Sigh. That’s what happened today at the midpoint of my hike, standing quietly listening intently, trying to ‘see’ this mystery bird. So, I think I found a new species, we’ll call it “Invisible Warbler” , perhaps with a Latin name of Invisibulus? Haha, anyone else seen signs of this bird? Well enjoy reading my pages below and the added photos, I’ll add a few notes here and there to explain.
This page from my sketchbook shows a quick watercolor sketch where I was standing. It’s a very wet area filled with these swamp type grasses or sedges and surprisingly I wasn’t bothered by mosquitoes here! As I stood painting, Ginger flushed two Woodcocks at separate times, I guess they like wet areas as they use their long beaks to probe the soil (mud) for worms. My dad said that’s why Woodcocks don’t taste good and I can attest to that! When he used to hunt we had some for dinner…very strong tasting meat. I remember he said they were also very challenging to hunt as they are a hard target; when I see one explode from the brush I can’t imagine how you could actually shoot one! ( I never would anyways!!)
Yellow Throat (2)
Now here’s one of my favorite warblers, a Yellow Throat. I still remember the first time I saw one down in Pennsylvania at Lake Sheridan.
Yellow Throat
He was so difficult to see in the brush, I’m just happy I got these two pictures though they are blurry! I really need to paint this warbler.
Burr
Did you know, the guy who invented “Velcro” got the idea from this little plant? Next time you see some prickly headed Burrs, take a closer look at it. You’ll notice the prickles have little hooked ends on them, not so nice when you go hiking and they stick all over your socks!
Hairy Woodpecker ?
I saw him on “Memory Lane”, heard his tapping before I saw him.
Flycatcher
I’m not very good at identifying Flycatchers, though I got a lot of great photos of this one if anyone wants to help me. Is it just a Phoebe? I found him by my pond.
Eyed Brown
I’m so excited about finding TWO new butterflies, for me that is! The first is this “Eyed Brown Butterfly”, a very simple and plain looking creature. Sometimes it’s looking closer at the ‘plain janes’ that you can appreciate their subtle colors and patterns. I like the combination of light brown with the dark brown spots and the rings with dots. If I was teaching children to notice this, it’d be fun to draw these dots and rings. Also notice the repeated lines of the veins on the wings, a nice pattern.
Eyed Brown (2)
Rose Breasted Grosbeak (fem. or juvenile)
This was a great capture! I was standing quietly on “Oak Lane” and saw him up on a branch at the edge of the woods adjoining a field. It looks like a gigantic sparrow if you were to compare it to something familiar, but notice the heavy beak. This is either a young Rose Breasted Grosbeak or a female, I’m not sure. I’d guess a young one because it looks so ruffled.
Rufus Sided Towhee (m)
Another favorite of mine, the Rufus Sided Towhee. I still remember the first time I saw one of these too, also at Lake Sheridan in Pa. So many great birding memories from Pennsylvania when I was a teenager! My family is originally from the Scranton area…I spent lots of time at Lake Wallenpaupak too…anyone familiar with these lakes?
Rufus Sided Towhee 2 (m)
Wasp
To get this picture, I was a lot farther away then it may seem! I used the zoom on my tiny Olympus camera to capture this one, I just love the pose…looks very elegant actually!
Common Wood Nymph (mating pair)
This is the second new butterfly discovery of the day for me, the “Wood Nymph”. This is a pair mating, I don’t know if the male of female is the larger one, but one was definitely larger and more pronounced markings. On closer look (in real life) the wings looking rather plain here were actually slightly irridescent and rather pretty.
Common Wood Nymph (mating pair) 2
Well I did not find that invisible warbler, let me know if you ever find one, maybe I can figure out a way to get a picture of him?? haha….
Please leave me your comments and if you may know any of the things I asked about…lets hear your thoughts!
This morning while eating my oatmeal and sipping my coffee, I heard a strange rustling sound behind the curtain of my sliding door. Hmmm…..dare I look? Could it be a mouse? Err…um…ok, I’m not squeemish about mice so I pulled the curtain aside and a large brown moth came flying out! He was looking for a way out and followed the light, no pun intended. I had no idea what kind it was and in the “old days” I would have said, “yuch a moth!” But now I find it’s much more interesting to take a closer look and study things, understand them. I went to the barn to retrieve my butterfly net, despite the very wet grass and chilly fog.
Once I caught the little guy I put it carefully under my “Britta Waterfilter Jug”, probably first it’s been used in a long time! haha. It’s nice and clear. I grabbed my sketchbook and did some basic outline sketches, and looked at it with the magnifying glass and identified it as a “Large Yellow Underwing”. Then I took pictures with my tiny Olympus camera because it has a nice closeup feature. I started some of the basic patterns while looking at him, but really was able to add the real detail after printing out some pictures. By the way, at first I thought it was a “False Underwing”, as you can see from my crossed out note, but looking closer at his underwing you can see the extra orangy yellow band at the bottom, or in Butterfly wing language “the Margin”. It was interesting to study his legs as they had slender needle like ‘thorns’ on them.
He was at first a dull brown looking moth, but as you can see here, so beautiful when you study the patterns on his wings. After I had some pictures I let him go outside right away, don’t want to stress him. He flew around in my screen porch a bit and that’s when I got the best pictures, no plastic between us!
I’m adding this little sketch that I did yesterday. While looking over my parsley plants, checking for signs of Black Swallowtails, I noticed a tiny Damselfly flying around. It was only one inch long and though it was orangy colored, it was hard to notice at first. I tried to study its color, pattern and size and when I went back inside drew a small pencil sketch. Damselflies hold thier wings together and Dragonflies hold them out, so I knew it was a Damselfly. As soon as I opened my bug field guide to the Damselflies, there it was! A “Rambur’s Forktail”, the adults are a pale blue color. Here’s a link for photos: http://bugguide.net/index.php?q=search&keys=Rambur%27s+Forktail&search=Search
Today I went for another walk on Long Lane Farm with my 4 legged companion Ginger. Below I have a page from my sketchbook journal where I show a fun technique of using a frame as a design element. If you keep a few ‘frame’ templates in your field kit you can have some fun tracing them. Some template ideas could be a post it note, an index card, maybe the lens cap from your camera (I thought of this one while sitting and drawing today) and what I used here was a simple refrigerator magnet that has the center that pops out. I think if you take more time to play with this you can really do some nice designs!
field-study-flowers
Clockwise from the top left you can see a Daisey in the grass, then the male Oriole popping his head through the oak leaves at the top of a VERY high old oak. Above that a yellow wildflower that I think is ‘King Devil’ a type of Hawkweed, then ‘Fleabane’, the little pink flower underneath the Oriole. The bottom right is a very pretty wildflower that I found in the Maze..anyone help me with this one? (I have photos of these wildflowers coming up.) In the frame are ‘Common’ or ‘Tall Buttercups’ and around the frame I listed the names of birds I saw or heard today.
field-study-grasses
On the second page I just used the micron permanent pen and drew some grasses. On the right are ‘Soft Rushes’, their pliable stems are what would be used to weave mats or baskets and next to it some type of sedge. The rushes are more closely related to lilies than grasses, my field guide says and I know the stem is round. It’s neat to follow the stem to the top with your fingers and feel how absolutely perfect a point it comes to. The sketch next to it is of some type of sedge, honestly I can’t find it in my guide. They had a most interesting design in their growth, three leaves jutting out from the top in different directions and the clustered seed pods looking like spikey critters! It had a triangular stem which reminds me of the saying…”Sedges have edges”.
tree-swallow-youngster
I snapped this shot as I was leaving the yard, just after his mom or dad had visited the hole. What a face! haha!
fleabane
And here’s the pretty pink ‘Daisy Fleabane’, people used to hang it in their houses to keep away the fleas…not sure if it worked! I have a big clump of these sprouted up in my front flower bed and they are really pretty. Many people would have yanked it thinking ‘weed’, but well, it has lots of company with all the other weeds!
white-flower
This is the mystery flower, can anyone help me identify it? I love the fine fuzz on it, as I look at a close up picture, it catches the sun. They were growing together in a patch in the middle of the Maze.
King Devil-Hawkweed
I think this is called King Devil a type of Hawkweed; I found it growing at ‘Aspen Hall’ a shady area along the lane just before the Maze. It has fine bristly hairs all over it and the flowers were all confined to just the top of one long stem. I had to move grasses to find the leaves, which were tucked low at ground level.
white-moth
This white moth was interesting to study. I spotted him when Ginger and I were returning along ‘Oak Lane’, it was flitting eratically along the path, as butterflies do. I kept following it to try and get a picture and I’m sure it knew it was being followed. I thought about how strange it is for a WHITE butterfly to be amonst so much green! It stands out like a sore thumb, well I have a feeling this photo will teach you something. When it landed instead of staying on top of the leaf and closing it’s wings, it very quickly flipped under the leaf and laid it’s wings out. Now you’d think oh I’ll still see the white, but no, the green leaf reflected on it’s wings and it now looked green! How cool is that? If you ask questions as you stand and watch the bugs and critters around you, you’ll start to notice details you never thought of before.
oriole-male
Here is the gloriously beautiful male Baltimore Oriole! I love seeing them, such an intense orange and yellow breast set off by deep black like velvet! He’s way up in an oak tree looking down at me, can you tell? I love this picture of him. This was along Oak Lane and I ended up standing still here for quite a long time. I kept hearing several different birds give their warning chirp like they had babies near.
oriole-nest
I’m glad I stood as long as I did, I caught sight of what I guessed was a female Oriole and studied where she disappeared to. Aha! They have a nest way up in the oak tree, hanging out over the path! It’s amazing that birds can actually weave a basket nest like this in the tree and it supports the eggs and adult, later all growing into heavier fledglings. If you look close you can just see the female through the leaves, leaning down into the nest to feed the babies.
green-bug
I think this little green guy who came to visit me while I was eating and painting was really neat! I haven’t found him yet in my field guide, I think I need another bug guide to cross reference.
black-beetle
And last we have a very black, very shiney beetle…no I don’t think it’s this beetle but I’d love to hear some suggestions? Closest I’ve come is either a ‘Ground Beetle’, or ‘Red Legged Ham Beetle’ or a ‘Blue Milkweed Beetle’.
I hope you enjoyed the walk with me today, so much was seen and discovered in what looks just like an ordinary field and woodland edge. Take time to stand or sit still and just watch what the creatures around you do. And you’ll see so much more if you look a bit closer at the ground, grasses or flowers as there is always something living there.
Please post a comment if you like and if you may know what my bugs or flowers are, please lets have a stab at it!
Here’s the books I referenced after my hike today:
Reader's Digest Wildflowers Guide
Nat.Wildlife Fed. Field Guide to Insects and Spiders of N. America
The day was gorgeous, it was flying by too quickly while I worked inside, longing looks out over my field. Finally I grabbed my cameras, sun hat and rubber mud boots and said “That’s it! Let’s go for a walk Ginger!” Ginger goes nuts of course at the word ‘walk’; I feel relief already and a whole new energy coming in as we leave the yard behind. Sometimes it’s good to not plan, I’m an over planner. Having a field sketching kit ready to grab at a moments notice or your camera and extra battery ready is all you need.
Here I have my new favorite camera slung across my body, I find if you let the strap out all the way carrying it this way is less stress on your neck. I usually walk with the lens cover off, tucked into my back pocket. It’s ready to slip on if I go through brush or kneel down to investigate something where tall ‘stuff’ can scratch the lens. The camera is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28; I have an adapter on it so I can use that big Teleconversion Lens. Everything I shoot is hand-held so when I get clear shots I’m so happy, I just can’t set up a tripod while birding, bugging etc. but all the years of birdwatching comes in handy as I find it easy to spot and zoom on just the right area. The other little camera you see on my belt loop I find to be such a help and compliment to using the big lens, it’s an olympus FE 230 and I love it to peices! It’s great at taking super up close pictures and little movie clips. The movie clips on this blog are all mostly taken with it. (If you want to see all posts with clips, go to my Catagories list and click “Video Clips”) I took this pic by balancing the Olympus camera on a fence and used the timer…it’s a blast to take pics of yourself while out hiking. You are there in your element, why shouldn’t you remember that great big smile on your face?
Song Sparrow Male Watching Me
The first exciting thing was spotting this male Song Sparrow, he was constantly perched about the tops of these small bushes in the middle of my field, around 40 feet away. I took snap after snap of one of my favorite little sparrows, I can’t wait to do a painting of him.
Male Song Sparrow-warning call
I point out here, he was not singing but constantly giving that little “CHIP” call they do when disturbed. Being that I was nowhere near him, I thought maybe he had a nest over there. BUT…..
Song Sparrow Fledgling
Look what I saw as I turned to go…just down in the bushes right near me was a fledgling song sparrow! He was hot out of the nest I presume and sitting still as a statue. NOW I knew why the male Song Sparrow was calling. I carefully took slow steps all around the baby and took pictures, I had to move back a few steps in fact because of that long zoom lens I had. I also whipped out my little Olympus and took some snaps then after I was sure I had captured his mug for posterity from all angles, (picture me creeping around him step by step through heavy brush) I shot a short video clip of him (find it at the end of this post!).
Red Winged Black Bird Male
Moving on. A male Red Winged Blackbird was scolding from way up high in a seed laden tree as Ginger wandered beneath him, not noticing. Then I turned my attention to what was below in the grasses and shrubs. I didn’t need to go far today to find a myriad of wonders. When you go into a field next, just stand still and start to count the number of things you notice; bend down and move some grasses and see what bugs you surprise.
12 Spotted Skimmer Dragonfly
I love Dragonflies, did you know they’ve been around since the time of the dinosaurs? This is a female 12 Spotted Skimmer, each of it’s four wings has three spots, do the math and you get twelve! That’d be great for a math lesson…3×4=12. The female has yellow lines on her sides and black spots on the wings, the male has black and white spots and a pale blue abdomen. If I hadn’t caught a photo of her, I’d never have identified what it kind it was later. It was difficult to catch her though, she flew, landed and disappeared each time; I had to point at where I ‘thought’ she went and zoom in hoping to find her…well you can see I did.
Butterfly on a Daisey
I still need to identify this butterfly I think it’s a ….. What a perfect shot to show how the butterflies coloring and pattern help to protect it. He’s poised on a daisey to feed, notice the color of his back wings (‘hind wings’) match the color of the flower center. Then in his forwings you see little marks of white that make a stripey pattern, just like the petals! If you start to question why something behaves the way it does, or looks the way it does, you’ll find nature around you to be immensely more interesting! And if your and artist, studying these details even if you don’t paint them, helps in understanding your subject.
Moth
Here’s a what’s either a Yellow-collared Scape Moth or a Grapeleaf Skeletonizer. I’ve seen these around the yard over the years and never paid much attention to them. Now I look closer at everything since I’ve started Nature Sketching. I would never have known this was a moth, as I went back to study him further I found two species that look similar. Time to call in reinforcements on this ID!
Spittle Bug
Next we have the unromantic Spittlebug! I have to further investigate further to see if it’s a ‘Two Lined’ or a ‘Meadow’ Spittlebug. I learned this one when I was in girl scouts, away back when. Funny thing is, in England I found out they call it “Cukoo Spit” because it appears around the time the Cukoos come back in Spring! At the center of this mass of ‘spit’ bubbles is a larvae that surrounds itself like this while feeding. The adult feeds on the sap of grains and grasses.
Grasshopper
I never would have seen this little guy if I wasn’t poking around in the grasses looking at Spittlebugs! For a grasshopper he’s handsome and trim..haha..if one can describe a grasshopper that way. If anyone knows what kind it is I’d love to know, I am not versed in grasshopper! I had a good look through my “Feild Guide to Insects and Spiders of North America” (National Wildlife Fed.) and couldn’t find one just like it. Notice the leaf next to him to the right, it’s dying off and looks as though there may be eggs laid underneath? Interesting to note the color, it changed to a Cadmium Yellow to a rosy pink (Alizarin Crimson would work nice here). There is new fresh life and at the same time decay supporting more life all around us. It’s just nature’s natural cycle.
Birdsfoot Trefoil - from above
Birdsfoot Trefoil - underside
I now turn my attention to the beautiful wildflowers in the grasses. This is Bird’s Foot Trefoil, leaves in threes (‘tre’) and named Bird’s Foot because the flowers form a cluster of five at the top, when they turn to seed pods it looks like a birds toes.
Daisy Fleabane
This is Daisy Fleabane, my “Readers Digest Guide to Wildflowers” says that it was once hung in houses to help rid them of fleas! Most people would look at these popping up in thier gardens as weeds, but there are really pretty. They grow with the blossoms in clusters at the top of a delicate stem. As I took this photo I was returning from my hike with Ginger down “Pasture Lane”, the grass is very long and it’s shady and right next to a ditch of water, a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes! They came up in clouds around me but I still nabbed this photo with my tiny Olympus camera…taking some bites on my arms! OUCH! One insect I don’t enjoy studying!
Young Growth in Deep Woods
And we end here, looking into the deep woods. This scene is the type that inspired my paintings like “Mystic Woods”, “Secret Woods”, and “Raven Sphere”, see them in my Fantasy Gallery.
I promised a video clip…it was too big to upload, I’ll learn how to resize it then add it here! Sorry, it’ll come!
Below are the field guides I referred to, both are great!
My finished miniature watercolor painting of a Great Grey Owl, measuring a mere 2″x2″! Be sure to check it out in my Owl Gallery too. It’s an owl named “Aspen” that I photographed at the Keilder Water Bird of Prey Centre in Northumberland England. I’ll show you the stages of painting and talk about how I did it below.
"Great Grey Owl" -first washes
This shows the first stages of painting, the beginning washes to lay down the values, color hue and expression of the painting. I first started with a light sketch in pencil, lifting it as much as I could with a kneaded rubber eraser before painting. Then I painted the washes and sprinkled salt on wet areas to see how it would ‘pull’ the color and create interesting patterns. It is at this stage of the painting that you can get a feel for how the painting will go, will you be loose and expressive? Will you go for more details? Sometimes I think we have to let our intuition guide us, or perhaps our mood.
First wash set up
This picture shows you my set up for the first washes, I always start flat on the table so the color doesn’t run. Many times on larger paintings I stand up and work loosely with my brush. (check out this short Utube video of me working on the “Screech Owl” painting, it shows how I paint loosely when standing). This set up shows my photo reference to the left, the salt above that, then my field palette to the right because I’m right handed, the water bowl above that. I keep a white paper towel folded nearby for wiping off excess water and it allows me to see if there’s paint left on my brush. You see my magnifying lamp which I find good because the light is cool and matches daylight; but I don’t use the magnifier on it as I find it clumsy to use my brushes under it and I bump into all the time when I lean in super close! Sometimes I use a hand held magnifying glass or you’ll see pictures later of my glasses.
Great Grey Owl -stage 3
Now here in stage 3 you see I’ve jumped ahead with lots of details and color. As you work, squint your eyes at the photo and your painting to catch large areas of value that need to be developed and notice color hues. At one point I felt my owl was too brown so I washed a very watered down blue grey over areas, but only on very dry areas. In areas you need to lighten you can either lift color with a damp brush and blot with a paper towel, or you can add it using white watercolor or gauche mixed with your paint colors.
Now on purpose I’m going to point out some things that I found to be unsatisfactory in my painting and I changed. At stage 3 here, I felt like I did a pretty nice painting! I was feeling like it was done, ah….no such luck. If you let it sit a day or two and return to it, or if you show it with the photo reference to a friend with a sharp eye, they’ll be sure to catch something ‘off’ with it. If you’re a conscientious artist, you’ll be bothered by it until you fix it and you probably already knew it was wrong to begin with but wanted to ignore it! Well lets just say my boyfriend has a good eye, sigh, well now he ‘did’ pick me didn’t he? We both agreed the beak wasn’t right, I pointed it out to him then when he agreed it was back to the easel with it. I can’t believe how much I was able to amend the beak being that this is watercolor after all. People are afraid of watercolor because they think it’s unforgiving, wait until you see the changes I made.
Great Grey Owl -stage 4
Stage 4 shows the beak changed, I totally moved the angle of it and lengthened it! (see the enlargements below of these final stages too) If you take a damp brush and gently re-wet an area, and only the area you want to fix, you can then repeatedly rub it gently with a damp brush tip, blot it with a clean paper towel (I prefer Viva!) then clean your brush, wipe it off and repeat. Do this over and over, you’ll be amazed at how much you can lift. When I repainted the beak I thought like an oil painter, I laid down a more opaque yellow layer to clean and brighten the beak, then I kept putting washes over this dry layer to affect the color. It ended up with an unusual translucent look like a real beak would have.
As I did this, of course I started to notice other areas I wanted to improve upon. Sigh…such is the plight of an artist with a picky eye! Notice the area of light tan below his beak, I needed to bring out the lightness of it so I added white watercolor to some cad.yellow, and browns to create a tint for an underlayer. Another note about this painting, next time I will pick a much smoother paper, working with this much detail you need to keep your paper super smooth with no distracting texture.
Great Grey Owl -stage 5
Stage 5 shows how I painted detail on top of the tan area under the beak and the beak has more details added. The owl has an overall lighter look, this is because I kept stroking on little feathers with a tint of whitish blue grey to add detail. Now I thought I was done here, but remember that boyfriend of mine with the good eye? Well he helped me notice I had painted out the nostril! SIGH….yes, when I was adding the little hairs by the beak I must have done that so back to the easel. The picture at the beginning of the post is the final stage, fixed and finished!
Working with my magnifying glasses
This is me working with my reading glasses on and a little set of clip on magnifier lenses. In the photo I have the magnifying lenses lifted up so I can look at the paints in front of me, if they were down I’d need to get much closer to see what I was doing. So I would lift the lenses up when I would sit back a bit and take a look at the ‘whole’ painting and the photo, looking for areas that need attention. Then I’d flip them back down and get close for the detail painting. I wouldn’t use them for the initial stages of painting, you don’t want to focus on details at that point.
Also you notice here my setup is different than before, I have another pan of watercolors and have them set up on some jars so they are closer to my painting. Working with a tiny brush ( 10/0 liner) it dries out super fast and keeping my pallet nearer seemed to help. The nice thing about working on a miniature painting was being able to mix small amounts of color right in the pan lid. (the brush in the picture is not my liner brush)
The pictures below are so you can look at one section close up to see the changes I made to the beak and area around it.
Great Grey Owl close up detail stage 3
Great Grey Owl close up detail stage 4
Great Grey Owl close up detail stage 5
Great Grey Owl -close up detail finished
I hope you’ve enjoyed my post about my painting. I looked forward to showing you my mistakes and how I fixed things as I painted because this is how it goes, it’s a process and doesn’t always go as easy as it looks. I like to encourage my students and others to keep looking at their paintings for more detail but most of all a good beginning drawing is crucial. As you can see here, I missed the beak angle and had to fix it later, but the more you paint and draw the better you’ll be at catching these things in your work. That’s my two cents! Please leave me some comments and if you are interested in note card or prints please let me know.
For the fun of it, here’s some Utube links with owls!
Today was gorgeous so I set out for a nice long trek on my farm property. There is a lane that runs the length of my property called “Long Lane” and halfway along it is “The Maze”, an area that I cut circular paths on with a brush hog, that intersect and create a sort of ‘maze’. My boys liked to use it years ago for paint ball games, but I find that it’s a great place to see certain birds. The “Maze” is surrounded by relatively new bush growth and two tree lines, one containing old growth oaks. I have found the Rose Breasted Grosbeaks like it, and every Spring I can find the Rufus Sided Towhee singing there. Just along the “Oak Lane” bordering the “Maze” I hear the wonderful melodies of the Wood Thrush and sometimes a Veery.
Long Lane Farm Hike pg2 5-22-09
I’ve been searching for that elusive Wood Thrush to catch his picture, but it’s much easier to hear him than see him. Today I saw and or heard 26 different birds! I have them all listed on my sketch page, I use a dot showing I’ve heard it, a check mark for those I’ve actually seen.
Long Lane Farm Hike pg3 5-22-09
I do have photos I took while sitting at the Maze; the great thing about sketching or painting in nature is as you sit quietly birds can surprise you out of nowhere. Here are a variety of photos from my hike though some may be a bit blurry, I was so excited to be able to zoom in so close with my camera, but hand holding a big lens when zooming is tough. But I have found that when I look at them on my computer I can see so much more than in the field, and they’re great to use for painting references. Enjoy!
Dandilion
Eastern Kingbird
Field Sparrow
Field Sparrow 2
Song Sparrow
The Eastern Kingbird was sooo far up in a huge oak tree that I wasn’t sure what it was at first…so beautiful to watch; he’d fly right up into the sky from the tree top and do some acrobatics to catch his bug dinner, then back to the tree top. The Field Sparrow has such a pretty song, a song to me that means summer. The Song Sparrow just sat on the branch for a bit, all fluffed up, then he settled down even more and puffed like a fat little plumpkin!
Hawthorn in Bloom
Ginger Resting at the Maze
Yellow Warbler 1
Yellow Warbler 2
After our time at the Maze we walked out to the “Enchanted Forest”, sometimes called “The Emerald Forest”; the trees there are so mystical almost, it’s so green and beautiful. It’s there that I saw the Veery, wow! , I caught sight of it on the tree not far from me, and I think it was trying to hide by not moving. It didn’t sing, but moved around a bit, I can’t tell you how lucky I was to snap a few pictures!
Enchanted Forest
Veery
I hope you enjoyed this beautiful walk with me today! Please leave me comments and don’t forget to visit my shop to see my paintings, sketches and photographs on note cards, mugs, t-shirts…many gift items!
I like to keep my field kit ready at hand to grab and it was a good thing today. I had a doctor’s appointment that I knew would be a long wait and lucky I had my kit. I threw a handful of 4×5 owl photos from my trip to England, into my bag; this will give me a chance to sketch some ideas for larger paintings. Here is the sketch of a young Spectacled Owl sitting on my gloved hand at the Kielder Water Bird of Prey Centre in Northumberland.
“Spectacled Owl Sketch”
I’ll be working on this some more and then post it, not sure if it’ll be watercolor or not. You can see a picture of me holding him on my “About Me“ page.
I thought I’d start out this post by letting my sketch page tell you what’s happening. You can read about the awful mosquitoes and tiny flies that bite and try constantly to get into your eyes, oh what a bother they were. I also started a list of birds as I heard or saw them. I did a fast sketch of a yellow wildflower that I still havd to look up, fast I say because of the bugs. Sometimes this can be good training, working quickly and just going for overall shapes of things. I gesture sketched the placement of the ‘ball’ shaped flower clusters, and drew one in detail, then later sitting at my kitchen table added details and colored it. Here’s a photo of the flower:
yellow-wildflower
So Ginger (my dog and hiking companion) and I pushed onward…away from the bugs! As we made our way to the Maze (I’ll have to post a map of my land so you can follow where all these places are!) I took some photos of more birds.
yellow-warbler
yellow-warbler-4
Above you can see two pictures of a Yellow Warbler, what a beautiful bird with the reddish streaks on his breast. I found him at the Maze and my next blog post you’ll see even nicer pictures of him. After I caught him on film (ahem…digital) I turned and did a sketch of the “Sister Trees” along side Long Lane in the Maze. First I drew a simple rectangle and then sketched the part of the trees I wanted into the box. Later I doodled around and added the frame look, see it below. It is not a drawing of the trees in the photo below it.
sketch-page-2-5-16-09
And then there’s my wonderful old oak trees; one growing along my property line in the field, the other is part of a long line of oaks along the other property line with a path called Oak Lane. Oak Lane is my favorite part of my property besides the Enchanted Forest. We call it that and at times it’s the Emerald Forest. Yes, it’s a magical place!
oak-trees
old-oak
You can see in this photo the sky was getting grey, and the air got cooler, a rain storm was coming. Ginger and I hurried our pace down Oak Lane then up Memory Lane…We made it home just in time to run across the yard in a downpour, my camera tucked under my fleece jacket. I don’t mind getting wet but NOT my camera!
Before we left for our hike, I took a few bird pictures around the yard and barn.
song-sparrow
One of my favorites the Song Sparrow, he loves this one particular post to sit upon.
tree-swallow-on-branch
And here’s Mr. Swallow in the tree above his nest box home, he sat there preening for a bit.
tree-swallow-in-box
And here’s the happy home, a Blue Bird nest box that the swallows are very happy to use. This is the third year at least they’ve nested here. If you walk near they will fly circles around you and come quiet close depending on how close you are to their box. Last year I assisted them in chasing away a pair of very pushy (and not very nice) House Sparrows that were aggressively trying to take the box.
house-sparrow-male
Here’s Mr. House sparrow, he and the misses decided to nest in a metal pole left from an old satellite dish. At least this year all the birds seem to be getting along, within feet of each other there’s a Starling nest in the wall of the barn, the House Sparrows next to that, then Starlings in one of my blue bird houses and the Tree Swallows in that other. I have two nest boxes out in my field, one has Tree Swallows and the other I think the Blue Birds were able to get. Pictures of them coming up soon! Hope you enjoyed the photos, soon I’ll start some small paintings of the birds.
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