À la recherche du temps perdu

Mallards at the top and base of the dam. There's a small trickle of water flowing over the top. The rest is coated in algae and slime in which the ducks love to poke their beaks.
Sept. 28, 2014
ink, tusche

The fish ladder. I've only seen them trying to hurl themselves up the dam in the late Spring torrents.
Sept. 28, 2014
ink, tusche

I should name this swan. It's been here all summer. How about "Charles" after Charles Swann who has nothing better to do than look after his plumage and reminisce.
Sept. 28, 2014
ink, tusche

September Birds

31 August 2014
conté chalk, colored pencil

1 September 2014
ink

1 September 2014
ink

1 September 2014
ink

1 September 2014
ink

3 September 2014
ink

7 September 2014
charcoal

Low Water

charcoal
08-26-14

Lake Waban at Sunset

The setting sun shines on the far shore of the lake
5-14-14
charcoal, watercolor

In the growing darkness, two mallards are settling in for the night
5-14-14
pencil, ink

Christmas Day

Sacred Heart Church, Natick
…it's for sale!

Two ducks seen from a distance (grebes …or mergansers maybe)

Mallards and Herons and Sandpipers, Oh My!

Mallard on top of the dam
Aug. 22, 2013
conté pencil

Mallards and a heron below the dam
Aug. 25, 2013
colored pencil

The mallard ducks have returned. With the low water now, they are able to rest and dabble on the top of the dam. And below the dam. And all along the river. They are frequently joined by a Great Blue Heron and a charming but shy sandpiper. It's nice to have all the birds back!

Sandpiper
Aug. 22, 2013
colored pencil

Great Blue Heron
Aug. 28, 2013
conté pencil

Big Weather

In advance of the visit of Hurricane Sandy, the local wildfowl have come back to the dam. Since late summer, the ducks, geese and even the heron have been unpredictable neighbors. I hadn't realized how attached I had become to the ducks. I made many drawings from June to August in ink, pencil, charcoal and watercolor washes of the duck families that flourished from hatching to fledging. In August and September they moved on to other shores. I had to console myself with smaller birds and the prospect of only drawing the landscape.

I stopped in at the dam yesterday. I wondered if the animals might be about and maybe offer some clue to me that they too were on top of the weather forecast. I'll never know, but I do know that there was a small group of geese at the dam. I haven't seen this number since early summer. You can see my charcoal drawing below of the geese endlessly preening. They were joined by a pair of busy mallards.

10-28-12

Today, Monday, the winds are getting much stronger and mist and rain are coming down …sideways. But it wasn't too bad so I headed back down to the dam again to get an update on the coming spectacle. Big wind-driven cat's paw ripples raked the river's surface and foam was blowing up over the top of the dam. A romantic couple stood by the railing huddled and smiling. The woman was in a yellow slicker while her friend was without and looked quite romantically windblown and ruddy. The wind would take them both or not at all.

10-29-12

My attention was also fixed by three mallard couples (below) resplendent in new plumage feeding and fidgeting below the dam. Once again, I haven't seen congregations of mallards here since the young fledged back in August. I'd like to think that these pairs were part of summer's class.

A technical note: drawing in these conditions (wind and mist) is exciting because it alters how the charcoal goes down on the paper. Where there are drops of water on the paper, the dry media soaks up the water and makes a dark spot. So it's all scratchy. I like the effect.

10-29-12

Watercolor sketches

A sandpiper. He skitters along the top of the dam and the fish ladder and is in constant motion.

The dam rendered in colored pencil and a light gray ink wash

mallard in & out of the water

three mallards dabbling at a drier algae-encrusted spot on the face of the dam.

mallards and riffles

A duck's life: foraging and preening!

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!

The ups and downs of late Summer

the lily pool and fountain, Elm Bank

© Rob Dunlavey

About a week ago, on a very hot and still morning, I headed out a bit later than usual in the morning and made this sketch at the decrepit Cheney-Baltzell mansion at Elm Bank. My soft green pencil dented the soft paper of my sketchbook as I drew. The humidity made the paper even softer. Eventually, the darn scene got drawn. Why? Why??



I guess I get some weird pleasure in representing things, more or less, as they are before my gaze. It's also a way of possessing something that I see often but yet when I see it each time, it's like it's new and never before seen. Drawing helps the neurons line up a little more amourously when I see that familiar thing again. I think the test if this is true is when I turn my attention to the faces of the people I love. And when is that likely to happen?



Here are a few more monochromatic renderings of things seen around my neighborhood. It has been a fabulous pleasure returning to the river and all these familiar haunts over the summer. I've gotten acquainted with the animals, the water's flow and the light. If you like to draw, I can't recommend it enough.

looking downstream near the bridge, heron and mallards
(© Rob Dunlavey)

reflections at the top of the dam
(© Rob Dunlavey)

Low Flow

The flow in the river is very low now and only portions of the dam's face are covered with flowing water. This allows the hungry ducks to scramble up and down the exposed cement and glean the tasty green weeds and slime that grow there.
The low water also seems to attract children. While I drew this picture a bunch of them scrambled over an expanse of exposed rocks and gravel to the island (not included in this drawing) and explored. They startled a Little Green Heron and brought back memories of something wild …and maybe some poison ivy too :-(

A Walk Around the Lake at Sunset

I took at walk around a lake before dusk the other evening. Before setting out, I frittered away my time (at the computer no doubt) so that when I left the house, even though it was very light outside, I knew that I'd be returning in the dark --probably. I'm an optimist and it gets me into trouble. Of course, there was no trouble; there was just a lack of light and a nagging feeling that someone would worry a little about me.

I bumped into an old acquaintance along the way and we chatted halfway around the lake and through the college campus. By the time I got back to the shoreline it was apparent that I'd be walking back in the dark. My feet on the path would be my eyes. The sky was clear and I could see Venus glittering to the west in a sky in deepening shades of a Maxfield Parrish blue.

Then I saw where all the ducks and geese were hanging out. It was nearly 9:00 p.m. The sun was down and the stars were starting to twinkle. There was still a lot of light in the sky but any shadows were just a suggestion rather than cast by any distinct light source. Everything was reflected or hinted at.

But the birds were busy as ever: scouting this way and that, tipping up and dabbling at something below or bossing each other around. As I write this, two days later, it's 06h45 and I know they are all up and at it: feeding, squawking and reacting to the life of a duck or a goose in the waning days of summer 2010. It's seamless really, a bird's life. Sleep but an interlude between the waking, wandering and wondering until the big bell clangs and it's time to go.

I felt my way home and avoided looking into the sky or even over to the lake because my light-deprived eyes were so attuned to to varying degrees of gray and black. A looming dark shape could be a mass of bushes in the distance or a tree trunk about the collide with my forehead. My depth perception was not dependable so I used the sounds of my footsteps to tell me whether I was on the trail. The lights were on at the college and they reflected off the lake's surface. A pair of black silhouetted mallards whooshed overhead to join their friends in the cove.

I made it home fine. The lights were on. I had to squint in order to see.

colored pencil, ink