Moon & Miscellaney

Supermoon…almost
08-07-14
watercolor, lithographic tusche

More inkiness: mallards & geese
08-09-14

Big trout
08-09-14

Dabbling mallards
08-11-14
charcoal

Dabbling mallards near rocks
08-11-14
charcoal

For Klaus

Here is a small compendium of drawings of geese (and a few other birds). I've drawn quite a few more over the years.

I hope you like them.

a sleeping swan

mallard and ducklings

charcoal

not ink (colored pencil)

sepia ink

geese and one swan

Inky Geese

Someone requested that I do more ink drawings of geese.

So I did: July 15th, 2014

Happy to oblige!

Bonne journée!

Book of Geese

An illustration student gave me a small sketchbook this Spring. I decided to dedicate it to several days of observations of geese.

Thanks to Julia Walters of the Art Institute of Boston-Lesley University. Julia got in touch with me several years ago after I'd shown my sketchbooks at the college. Over coffee I reviewed her portfolio which was full of heartfelt and astute designs and observations of Nature. She's currently exploring surface design and the cover of the sketchbook features a small silkscreen print of some flowers and leaves. I wish her the best as she embarks on her career!

July Geese

July 6, 2014
charcoal

July 6, 2014
charcoal

Ducks & Geese

Suddenly, the dam is swarming with fowl: mallards (and ducklings!), Canada geese all in a row, a peripatetic Great Blue Heron, sparrows that capture delicate flying bugs, grackles that stalk, herky-jerky in the mowed grass and swallows that soar above it all. It is glorious summer, canicule and all.
Be well!

there are seven ducklings in all. I saw them again this morning.

Here's Mother Mallard and her little ones.

The Canada Geese line up on top of the dam and perform an elaborate toilette. There appears to be a waiting list!

Geese

Canada Geese
colored pencil, crayon
June 27, 2014

The Goose God

I saw a pair of Canada Geese at the park above the river a few days ago; it's much diminished buffet. But each day the snow melts and reveals a bit more of this late winter's gruel: a mixture of thin, sere bluegrass and in the nearby water, a bit of appetizing algae floating by and free for the taking. There must be more variety available somewhere because the geese seem happy enough –not that I could tell one way or the other.

We have been discouraged from feeding the migratory waterfowl and I do support that management practice. But I also want to make the geese's lives a little easier. Maybe knit them some mittens for their feet or  accidently drop a few unwanted pieces of hardened bread, —like manna perhaps?

Oh, the human urge to play God! A god for geese even! Did I put food in my refrigerator yesterday or is it all manna? It's all a matter of your basic perspective isn't it?

Goodbye Blue Mondays

Some Geese, Charles River
blue chalk
14 Jan 2013

The Pleasant Street Bridge
blue chalk
14 Jan 2013

Some mornings I just need to get out of the house and go to the South Natick dam to think, or not-think: whatever is most needed. I always take my sketchbook of course and I frequently grab my pencil case that is full to bursting with a revolving cast of crayons, pencils, sticks of charcoal and pens. Sometimes I stuff a bottle of ink --of indeterminate parentage and a few paintbrushes into that pencil case.

They say it's good to have options. If the muse has a prior commitment as I stare down the subject at hand sometimes a new tool helps the work get started more congenially. Today, instead of the usual cornucopia, I only took two items: a stubby black litho pencil that stayed in my pocket, and a piece of blue chalk. Chalk: the kind used to draw on the sidewalk or on a blackboard. The muse brooded, showed her wares and I did her bidding without too much dithering or chit-chat. These two quick drawings are the result of this collaboration.

Variety IS the spice of life and I see now as I tidy up this blog post, that the sun has emerged.

Have a good and productive week friends!

Three Geese Day

Three Canada Geese
Dec. 31, 2012
conté pencil

 - - - - - - - - - - - - 

One day follows another ad infinitum

These artificial divisions help sort through the tapestry of space and time. Maybe yesterday was really called "Three Geese Day" rather than "Monday, Dec. 31st, 2012". And maybe today was called "No Geese Day: January 1st, 2013". Maybe another day was the day I last saw you …only I didn't know it. And still another day I carved our initials into a tree. Was it a real tree? Or only a tree in my mind?

There is some sort of peace in all this infinity (despite the mocking laughter of Memory). It is accompanied by a loud whooshing noise in the ears. A deafening sound of our desire for a clear static moment where love can rest while the river of time flows around it. Maybe that is the appeal of this river place: I stay still and the water does all the moving.

And then there is this. Bonne année and Peace to you.

Charles River, looking downstream
South Natick, MA
Jan. 1, 2013
colored pencil