The Merganser

Hooded Merganser (male)
Lophodytes cucullatus
crayon, tusche
12-17-2014
about

These shy but active ducks stay near the dam in the winter. There's currently a group of two males and one female. As soon as I approach, they swim to the other side of the pool above the dam. They are often busy, diving below the surface hunting for small fish or crustaceans to eat. I like the idea that an animal can be described as "busy". This somehow cheers me up. What animal cheers you up?

Bonne journée!

Wires

"Wires"
charcoal
12/16/2014

Our glittering and magical "devices" (a catch-all term for tablets, computers and smartphones) fail to acknowledge the airborne and underground wires and cables that are the bones of the Information Superhighway. So here, la voilà, is said Superhighway. It's lovely in a way.

And then there are the electrical power plants digesting and burning coal, the sun, even atoms to power these hand-held delights. Top this with the holes in the earth where the precious and rare metals came from. One device is the tip of a spear of environmental and economic interdependence. It's sobering, having the entire world at your doorstep: the great unwashed who toil and soil themselves for our pleasure, the Kardashians and lolcats too. 

Some Trees

stone wall, trees, ground cover
ink, charcoal
11-9-14

Tree by a river
conté pencil
11-11-14

morning sun through the trees
ink, charcoal
10-12-14

A Tale of Two Steeples

Two steeples, two churches. One has a clock and a weather vane. The other is very tall and thrusts a golden cross into the sky. One is the home to perching pigeons. The steeple with the weather vane provides a resting place for starlings and robins. One church is dark, shut up and for sale. The other has been in existence in one form or another for over 300 years.

Sacred Heart, the for-sale church was caught up in legal settlements in the slow-motion tsunami of the Catholic clergy sex-abuse scandals. The doors were padlocked on Christmas Eve in 2004. Statues of Mary and Jesus were removed early one morning and the church was "de-sacralized" so it could be sold.

Sacred Heart Church steeple
04-20-14
charcoal

I often think about these steeples as I walk over to the river to sketch.  Since Sacred Heart has fallen into disrepair I always picture in my mind the church imploded from rot, the steeple crashed in on itself and daylight flooding the sanctuary where we can see a congregation of mice, sparrows and raccoons and a tall white pine growing before the dusty altar.

The Eliot Church's steeple had developed a list over the years and had to be straightened out. I wonder how they paid for such an enormous repair?  For years, as I approached the building from Union St. I would wonder just which element in my field of view was askew. Or maybe it was I who was off kilter.

The Eliot Church steeple
04-20-14
charcoal

I'm partial to the message of a steeple that is engaged with the local's need for accurate weather data and the clock. There's a firm foundation of faith in those observations. Sacred Heart church has the more emotional and compelling story though. It's a story of greed, anguish and a golden cross dangling in the sky… to what end? Sacred Heart is the drama queen pulling us all in some direction but it seems to be in search of a compass or a rudder. Eliot Church shaggily soldiers on with prayer flags, forsythia wreaths and a Prius parked to front, engaged but perhaps it has a more realistic entry point into the human story.

Catching Up

Carved Bird from a Looking Glass
06-15-13
I saw this creature at the Museum of Fine Arts while preparing my notes for a tour about early American furniture designs.

Silver Coffeepots (Philadelphia Boston, circa 1780)

The Charles River floods in South Natick
06-16-13

The Pleasant Street Bridge
06-19-13
The arches are covered halfway by the river.

The Charles River: the island below the dam
06-19-13
The island is completely submerged.

The South Natick Dam
The squiggly thing is a log which I drew in more detail below.
06-21-13

Canada Geese on a large log above the dam
This log was dislodged during the latest storms and is moving very slowly to the top edge of the dam. The geese don't seem to mind.
06-21-13

The river is still very full and flooded.
06-24-13

Looking up toward the dam
06-24-13
I drew this yesterday. For many days this stone retaining wall has been underwater. Its surface is now scoured and whitewashed with silt.

The ocean at Reid State Park in Bath, Maine
06-23-13
After driving our daughter to Camp Arcadia, we spent a few days with in-laws in southern Maine. Summer has officially started.

Two Birds

May 21, 2013
charcoal

It's Memorial Day here in the USA. Get outside OK? And say "Thank you!"

I'll be at the parade cheering on the best marching band in Natick and my favorite flutist!

Bonne journée!

Novelty

I'm working in a smaller sketchbook right now. It's about 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches tall (rather than the larger black books). It's okay but it requires an adjustment; I tend to jot a bit more in it instead of making "compositions". For artists, scale is everything and sometimes it takes an effort to get the same creative flow at different sizes. Why is this?

It's because Art is made by fingers which are attached to hands which are attached to arms that are part of a human body. Each link in the chain and change in the kinesthetic causes different kinds of marks. The body becomes another medium and another tool. Did you know that?

It's good to try different approaches. I do this not just to keep loose but also because I like the surprises that a new method of working fosters. Some of my best brushes cannot be bought in store: they are old and decrepit and missing many bristles. My best paper is in an ever growing pile of castoffs and things saved from the garbage man. Paints come from yard sales and people too tired and uninspired to paint anymore. The downside of all this rag picking is that once I use some orphaned thing up, I can't replace it because its provenance is lost in the intertwined destinies of strangers, their attendant objects and my magpie self.

So there you have it: today's little quick sermon on what it's like for this artist trying to sort things out. And below are some mallards and things from the river that flows near my house. All done in that small sketchbook.

sketch of mallard and a heron

two mallards near a cascade

one lone mallard duck

Canada Goose standing on top of the dam, preening

an arch of the Pleasant Street Bridge

A hard-to-see example of my fanciful work.
See more on my posterus.com blog

The Hungry Heron

This Great Blue Heron was feeding just below the dam. Imagine, his ears are filled with the white noise of the cascade and it has to tip its head this way and that to see the fish in the river. While one eye peers into the swirling water the other is glaring skyward --here he's saw a few people just above at the railing at the top of the retaining wall and has craned his neck to get a better look.

Sometimes he gets spooked and swoops over to the small island in the middle of the river below the dam. But this time he was agitated and returned quickly to hunting. Soon he had a small bluegill in his beak. This fish was a manageable size that was soon on its way, still wiggling, down his long throat. Then it was time to retreat to the island for digestion and drying out.

On the island, the Great Blue Heron flares out its wings to dry and warm up and imitates a statue of a heron. 

several studies of the heron
(graphite, conté pencil)

quick studies of the heron
(graphite, conté pencil)

Great Blue Heron, South Natick, MA May 23, 2012
(charcoal, conté pencil)

Here's a quick sketch of the Great Blue Heron using the water

and the natural buoyancy of the fish to position it in his mouth.

I came to the dam today and the heron was back at work. Maybe this will be his summer hunting ground.

When I approached, he flew over to the safety of the island but was soon prowling the currents in the middle of the river. A mother and her young child observed from the railing. After they left to look for frogs and turtles, the heron caught a truly large fish; a bass or trout that must have been 12-14 inches long. Somehow, it managed to position the fish just so and in one long protracted gulp, swallowed it. It looked a little stunned as gravity allowed breakfast to slide down to the harsh chemical factory that is a heron's stomach.

Because of some driftwood lodged at the top of the dam this Spring, an eddy has formed at the base of the dam. Fish congregate here before attempting to scale the dam. If the heron doesn't eat them all, a few will discover the fish ladder (in the background) and spawn further upstream.

(charcoal, conté pencil)

One Fish, Two Fish

Spawning Bass, Leach Brook, Natick, MA
04-29-12
charcoal

detail

I own waterfront property! Well, I do when there's water flowing and this year, there has been enough flow lately can accommodates several spawning Large Mouth Bass (I'm not positive that's what kind of fish these are). I have to do a bit more research to determine the species but they are big and brown and very conspicuous in the shallow water where Leach Brook flows under the lane. The fish are a mottled brown color and are approximately 12-18 inches long. They thrash around in the shallow stream and then rest sometimes side by side with another fish.

The local kids are fascinated by them. The small bridge over the brook is kid-magnet and all the cars have to slow down as the children muck around or drop sticks on one side of the road and race over to see them emerge from the culvert on the other side. And then, voilà! there's this big prehistoric blimp of a fish lumbering along. It's all very exciting.

The fishermen are out by the South Natick Dam and Pleasant Street too. It's a real pecking order: there will be a hatch of some flying gnats, then the purist fly fishermen emerge like baseball players from an Iowa cornfield. Then the bait casters come down to the park early on their way to work or on a Sunday afternoon. Their families picnic while the anglers ply the waters. After all this there are the inevitable styrofoam bait containers, used tissues, malt liquor cans and the occasional young brown trout that wasn't released from the hook soon enough. Sad.

Brown Trout, South Natick Dam, MA
04-18-12
graphite

Up & Down

Here are two recent drawings of the Charles River. The top view looks downstream at a place near my home in South Natick. The other is from just below the dam.

Soon enough, the weather will warm up and we'll be off to the races: the trees will get their leaves and have a little fashion show and the orioles will set up housekeeping and construct their intricate and precarious nests.

Herons will fish below the dam again and maybe I'll have the privilege of drawing sleeping baby ducks in the shadowy and perfumed tangles on the river's fringes. And the winter that wasn't will become a memory.

I do think it was the serious lack of snow this winter that kept me away from my outdoor muse. Weird!

A view of the Charles River at the canoe launch at Elm Bank. A light breeze riffles the surface.
© 2012 Rob Dunlavey

A view of the dam and the fish ladder.  I rarely draw those houses. I should draw it all shouldn't I? I know that!
© 2012 Rob Dunlavey

Thinking about Ducks

A few mallards at Broadmoor Audubon Sanctuary
brown pencil
© 2011 Rob Dunlavey

detail

At last! Ducks!! They've been scared away from the South Natick Dam and all its rushing and unpredictable water. At Broadmoor, a wildlife sanctuary a few miles from my house, the water level in the marsh is at seasonal (lower) level and the wetlands are populated with dabbling mallards and crazy, easily-frightened Wood Ducks. Wood Ducks are really beautiful birds. If they weren't so skittish, I'd be able to show you a drawing. I did hear them a lot this morning at the far end of the marsh making their plaintive "Let's get outta here!" cries.

In order to get a good look at Wood Ducks, I think you just have to sit still and be very patient. Then they probably will put on quite a show. Early in the Spring. I was down at one of the vernal pools drawing maple blossoms and trying to keep warm when, lo and behold, a pair of Wood Ducks started going for a little walk: up in the trees (that's one reason they're called Wood Ducks). They nest in trees and this pair was, perhaps, looking for a good spot to get started making more Wood Ducks (for my benefit no doubt).

Now here's the honest-to-God truth: Two years ago, I was present at the moment when a brood of Wood Duck ducklings left their nest (in a tree cavity twenty feet above the ground and a 30-40 foot waddle to the river). One by one they flapped/plopped to the soft leaf litter below, collected their wits and were quickly hustled over to the bank. Mom and gravity did the rest of the work getting them out onto the relative safety of the water and on with life. I saw it with my own four eyes. I did!

White noise

Low water and a heron at the base of the dam
conté pencil 8/8/11

Yesterday morning I sat above the dam on the opposite side near the fish ladder. The sound of the water pouring over the dam canceled out most of the other sounds. The high-pitched bird songs got through but the growls of the commuters and trucks were subsumed in the white noise. I often wonder what the heron's experience is like fishing up close to the torrent. Does the white noise help it focus on the fleeting fish as they dart and dance before him?

Looking downstream toward the bridge. There was so much happening with the light and reflections! I fail every time to draw it.

A Meeting

Three geese confer about the day ahead (7/21/11, carbon pencil)

Great Blue Heron

A truly magnificent Great Blue Heron hunting at the face of the dam

I saw this beautiful bird at the dam yesterday after biking home from Needham. The world was very shiny. The sun was glorious. There were Constable clouds gliding this way and that in the sky. A few families were having picnics in the park. The water was rushing over the dam and creating a wonderful soothing din. And there was this pristine, well-coifed heron standing up to the torrent seeking its lunch.  Just gorgeous like a stately supermodel. The brilliant noonday sun casting his oval shadow on the rushing foam below.

Try to get outside people. It's officially Summer this week!

The Speed of Spring

I drew these little purple flowers (Glechoma hederacea) yesterday during a brief stop at the park below the South Natick dam.  It's common name is "Creeping Charlie" or "Gill-Over-The Ground" (I rather like Creeping Charlie). You can tell it's in the Mint Family (Lamiaceae) of plants because of the square stems and the labiate inflorescence. Creeping Charlie is a successful weed; this plant was springing from a crevice in the stone retaining wall. The river rushes by just a few feet below. You can see the foam and bubbles.

I'm still adjusting to the speed at which this season progresses. I've seen new families of geese and robins on their nests. The birds are very busy. My cat brought home a few reluctant bunnies and the mosquitoes are hungry at all hours.
Let's just call it Summer and get it over with!
Pretty soon it'll all look like the jungle plants I sketches at the greenhouse last weekend!
Have a peaceful Memorial Day weekend everybody and… Don't forget to say a prayer for the safe return of our soldiers.

"Bird of Paradise"

Empty Nest

I'd had a bad day. A couple of family arguments had left a sour taste so, to clear my head, I walked over to the park to see if the robin was still on its nest. It was after dinner sometime and the sun was starting to set.

I was disappointed to discover Saturday evening that the nest was empty. I sketched it anyway in conté pencil which I later touched up with watercolor. Two days before, I had stumbled across it and was fortunate to have my sketchbook with me.

conté, colored pencil and wax crayon
Friday, May 19, 2011

a quick sketch in the rain.
Monday, May 23, 2011

It was raining again this morning but I made a detour to see if the robin was back on the nest. Sure enough! Quiet as can be, she just sat there with just her head poking up.
Imagine sitting for hours and hours with a few short breaks for a snack and maybe a little socializing. Then, back to work!

I'll be back tomorrow.

The View Downriver

pencil, 5/8/2011

On Sunday mornings, Pleasant Street is very quiet. This allows me to draw from the bridge. This view shows the Charles as it makes its way to Boston and the Atlantic Ocean.

Keeping Turtles

two painted turtles

I had a lot of wild animals as pets when I was a boy. Turtles came from the pet store though. They were Eastern Red Eared Sliders and were often about the size of a quarter. Their shells were about as flexible as a fingernail. They ate different things that were usually slimy: worms, meal worms, lettuce, and scraps of bologna.

I don't know how my parents put up with it. It was our responsibility to keep the aquariums clean but like most children, this was accomplished only with some duress. But the love of unconventional pets persisted up through college. My twin brother and I kept other types of turtles, a gopher tortoise who loved strawberries, two boa constrictors (and a colony of mice and rats to keep them happy). We also had gerbils and ground squirrels. I've raised injured birds and orphaned raccoons.

One winter, my stepmother returned from a Florida vacation with two small iguanas. Why? Simply because we had asked and she wanted us to be happy. Now there's a lesson in that act of giving that I carry with me to this day: childhood is a greedy little train and it has to be fed and stoked so it can get over the mountains to where the child will make eventually his place in the world as an adult. We are always growing and at some point one of those seeds planted in the heart of a child bears a unique, marvelous and wild fruit.

We weren't the best zookeepers but our hearts were in it and we were curious about all living things. This fascination transformed into an appreciation for the places where animals lived and, by natural extension, the whole of Creation --as far as we could imagine it. My pets today are more conventional (two cats) but I still never tire of imagining the emotional life of animals as I watch them. Animals and Nature are never very far away from me and my Art now.

After the Royal Wedding

Emergent fiddleheads (4/29/11)

Broadmoor Sanctuary 4/29/11

After Prince William and Kate Middleton's beautiful ceremony this morning, I went to Broadmoor Audubon Sanctuary to see what natural spectacle might be in the offing. The weather was fabulous: clear skies, early morning raking sunlight, not hot and just a hint of cool.

Ferns are emerging in the forest now and the fiddle heads grow very quickly. I captured several clumps of them in the drawing above. While drawing this (about 45 minutes) I saw a water snake glide past and a small turtle sunning on an exposed "tuffet" out in the water. Grackles had a spiraling aerial combat overhead and geese filled the air with their cacophony. The snake returned and retraced its route back to the other corner of the shore.

I did a second drawing at the end of the boardwalk (in purple pencil). I liked the reflections and the new plants, pencil-thin, arrowing up out of the still water. Geese zoomed overhead in both directions where nuptial parties were happening in the marsh. At one point I was surprised by a Merganser rocketing low over the water from one end and over the bridge where I was stationed.

Slowly, the process gets underway: The process of getting to know this place.