Observations

There is still one family of ducks that has stayed near the island below the dam. I guess it's reasonable to assume that the small island offers enough protection from predators (Which: turtles? large fish?). The proof is in the pudding: this mother and her brood of nine ducklings continue to explore and dabble in the pools and riffles of the river. A few weeks ago I studied a family with a dozen young but I haven't seen them since they went downstream below the arched bridge.

This group surprised me actually. I had become engrossed in drawing a heron and was alone with my thoughts when the duck family splashed into view. If you just sit still for a while and mind your business, you never know what you might be privileged to see.

The heron was graceful and comical. Without any regard for me, it gingerly stalked from rock to rock, at times carefully feeling the bottom of the riverbed. It positioned itself before a little "chute" of moving water and was soon eying the flow for fishy morsels. In quick succession, two small fish were caught and swallowed whole. These, of course quickly followed by a drink of water to wash it down (I wonder how long the fish live as they slide down that long heron throat… at times like this I'm glad I'm not a fish!). Eventually, he caught a larger fish and I observed the eating process again. I'll spare you the details but it does seem more difficult than actually catching the fish!

Here's a larger view of my heron sketch.

Low water

It's late-July and the water is very low in the Charles River. Here's a drawing in purple colored pencil that I made late last week. Near the rocks in the upper right at the face of the dam is a family of ducks: a mother and nine ducklings.

I sketched these very rapidly with ball point pen. The ducklings are in constant movement dabbling in the gentle swirling water. The mother is vigilant but relaxed.

We had a bit of rain yesterday but it has been rather dry this summer so it should be safe to raise a family of ducks at this small dam. There has been another duck family settling in; they have a dozen babies!

That's all for now

Rhode Island ducks

sketches of boats (and more) at Beavertail State Park overlooking Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island

Last weekend, my wife and I visited a couple of Connecticut galleries that are showing my work. On the way home, we detoured through Rhode Island and enjoyed a hot breezy afternoon overlooking Narragansett Bay. We could see Newport in the distance and by sunset, we were wandering along the famous Cliff Walk, ogling the mansions and imagining the gilded age they symbolize. Most seemed deserted for the weekend although there was a softball game happening at one of the estates that was in our price range. Perhaps the other owners were looking for cooler weather like us. Ironically, next to one of the larger mansions was smaller house in some disrepair. The grass was un-mowed and various objects were casually strewn about the back yard. Several people relaxed in lawn chairs and drank beer while the bbq grill emitted lazy tendrils of charcoal smoke. A man relieved himself in the bushes; the party must have been going on for a while.

The spelling is incorrrect: It should be "Narragansett"

I love drawing animals but always feel inept. I think I made a reasonable sketch of this fellow. His eyes were better than mine and soon, he'd plucked a crab from the waves and seaweed. The crab wasn't too happy about it and made several successful escapes. The gull kept at it and soon landed him. How'd you like to eat things that were in the habit of pinching your face?!

Speaking of birds and water, I can't end this post without following up on the ducklings I drew a few weeks ago near my house.

July 4, 2010

July 17, 2010

All twelve are still safe and growing. I resisted giving them names but I was reminded of one of my favorite children's books.

Have a wonderful summer.

Fish for dinner

My wife and I witnessed this Great Blue Heron catching and attempting to eat a large fish the other evening after a strenuous canoe trip on the Charles River.
The heron eventually succeeded after several unsuccessful attempts. The fish was larger than the heron's head and consuming it seemed to be a very specialized art that required precise placement, a little body english and a careful use of gravity to get the dinner to slide (awkwardly) down the hatch. I wonder what a good wine would be to serve with that?
Bon appetit Monsieur Heron!

The view downstream

I'm always here at the park by the dam early in the day. And this day the sun was glaring off the water as it flowed among the rocks in the now-shallow river. What's happening? Just a few months ago the water was as high as the arches of the old bridge!

July 2, 2010: Canada geese (colored pencil)

I don't think that the geese mind the low water flow of summer. It makes it easier for them to stand on top of the dam and tend to their plumage that always seems to need a little fixing.

Every once in a while, you see some careless goose or duck absent-mindedly get too close to the edge and they suddenly have to scramble back up or get airborne as the water sweeps them over the edge. We use to feed them and purposefully try to lure them to the edge: just to see what would happen. There were usually hungry ducks stationed downstream who benefited from our silly experiments.

It's early July. It's the middle of summer. The sun has stood still and now the days start their march back to the winter solstice; the days are getting shorter and canicules will come and go and eventually, the truly sweet days of summer will be here. Those late August days with low sun and cool nights. Can the bittersweet glories of September and la rentrée be far off? Get your seatbelts ready but don't latch them yet! The living is easy and life seems forgiving and green.

Geese

Not much more to say except that geese are beautiful.

Art Criticism

Another view of the dam this morning. I sat right up close so the rushing water drowned out any other sounds. After a while, this flotilla of geese camped out on the top and had a busy little salon al fresco.

I drew this in green Prismacolor in my sketchbook. The paper is soft and shows the impressed lines from the previous pages:

So, I offer you this: a useless job of figuring out the connection between my doodles and an observation of the water and the geese. Art critics and historians do this all the time and assume they've had the final word. It's infuriating. If there is a connection, it should be obvious. If it's not obvious, then it's obvious that someone is riding on the back of the person who took the initial risk of actually making the art.
Ooooh! Ouch! Take that you art-challenged critics/historians/reviewers! Put down your pens and pick up a paintbrush!

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Getting Focused

There's a theme here, no?

Yes, here we are back at the dam on the Charles River a few minutes walk from my home. Two months ago, it was a raging torrent and me and my dear sketchbook would have been rudely swept out to Boston Harbor and the icy gray Atlantic Ocean beyond. But this day the water was well-behaved and it sparkled in the early morning sun.

Fisherman wade up and down here and catch things. Fathers and sons practice the ancient art. I used to fish with my daughter here and other nearby places. She was quite eager and ardent about it. Of course, I had the unenviable job of "preparing" the worms, impaling them on the hook and, if we got lucky, removing the hapless fish from the hook and tossing it back in (where it often jumped back on the hook!).

What I fish for is less problematic and messy:

Here are a few other pages from this sketchbook:

The thing with the bottle caps is my mbira. It was made by Newton Gwara in Zimbabwe and was given to me by my friend Solomon Murungu who is a very good mbira player. It makes beautiful music that seems to go with the rushing rippling river. Maybe I have an example somewhere for you: "Walk On By" [mp3 file]. This is my own lame little song; listen to Solomon's cd if you desire the real thing (and you should!)

I blogged about this heron previously. I like his style of fishing: slow and graceful, highly evolved and a bit comical. I've never  seen an overweight heron; have you? I guess they eat pretty well.

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The end of Philosophy

Philosophy 101: It's obvious that…

from this, you get this…

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Staying focused

So many delicious and disastrous distractions in life!  Amidst the swirl, I observed this turtle the other morning. This was just above the dam where that heron was hunting a few days before. I watched it for ten or fifteen minutes as I drew these yellow flag irises. Finally, it wriggled down into the slime and was gone from my sight.

It takes some doing but sometimes the ONLY way to get one foot to follow the other (and to not be stuck) is to draw what is exactly in front of you. In the process, you leave the labyrinth of the mind and its imaginings which get replaced by sensory input from the world. It's a vital fact of my artistic life that I am constantly searching for a growing edge while at the same time, I'm cultivating and enlarging the ground I've already claimed. It's good to take notes of things that are stimulating and beautiful.

Below is a view of nearby Lake Waban I did in my sketchbook a week or two ago. It's another early morning haunt: I walk Ellen to the school bus then head the other way toward Wellesley College and the lake. It takes about 15-20 minutes and then, presto! There's this beautiful lake with a walking path that goes around and a great place to get a cup of coffee about halfway around.

Lake Waban

 

farm animals

a view of the South Natick Dam

another view of Lake Waban: anchored sailboats and a fisherman's bobber stuck in a tree.

I need to get to work now. Enough of this "tripping through reality" as captured in my sketchbook!

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The Heron

The old Pleasant St. bridge over the Charles River in South Natick, Massachusetts.

My kids catch the school bus pretty early. My youngest is ready and waiting by 7:00 a.m. and I have the privilege to walk her down to her bus stop. After saying our "good bye's" yesterday morning, I kept going to a local café. I had my sketchbook and pencils, two books ("Nana" by Zola and "Breakfast With Socrates" by Robert Rowland Smith) and some correspondence I needed to work on. The weather was overcast and a barely perceptible mist (or was it drizzle?) was in the air. But on the way I detoured to a small park overlooking a small dam on the nearby Charles River.
Here's a picture of it on a sunny morning. It's lovely and the noise of the steady stream of suburban commuters is drowned out by the rush of the Charles River over the dam. It's a popular place for people to lunch or have their coffee. Fathers and children fish there. Wedding photos get taken and pensive romantics hang out alongside professionals getting a quick, sunny break from their office routines. But not yesterday.

The only one working was a Great Blue Heron fishing for his breakfast below the dam. I drew his portrait. He would stand there on his spindly legs and do slow avian tai chi as he looked for something slippery and silvery to stab and gulp down. Every now and then, he'd balance on one leg and start to stretch and rotate the other (no doubt, those years of ballet training had given each of his muscles a mind of their own). I think it was just a technique for finding reliable footing, Braille-like in his slow progress across the face of the dam and the eddies where the fish were hiding.

I used a conté pencil for this drawing. I liked how the droplets of mist made the chalk more intense and how I could smudge it with that little bit of water. When I was done, I washed my fingers off in a puddle and went to get my coffee.

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