Spring Birds

Yellow warbler (detail)

Yellow warbler (details)

Yellow warbler studies
May 29, 2014

Swifts and Swallows studies
May 28, 2014

 Down by the dam yesterday morning briefly: the air was laced with barn swallows and swifts zooming this way and that way catching insects. Every now and then they would leave a circular ripple on the river's surface. Today, briefly once again, a Yellow Warbler, a male, declares his ownership of a few trees in the emergent wetlands. The brilliant sun sets fire to his bright yellow breast.

Looking for Spring

This is the winter with no end. But there are tantalizing glimpses here and there of warmer weather. I've seen flocks of robins for weeks. Last week I saw my first red-wing blackbirds and grackles. Great Blue Herons are fishing wherever they can find open water. Crocuses, tulips and day lilies are elbowing their way up into the sunshine. The sap is flowing!

It was sunny and Spring-like last Sunday so I gathered my sketchbook, put some pencils in my pocket and biked a few miles to Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary. I had "spring fever." It looked like Spring but it felt like Winter: I wish I'd brought gloves! By the end of the excursion my fingers were stiff and had to be pried off the bike's handlebars. I made two drawings (how to choose from a the myriad of motifs??). The first one (below) is of an old beech tree grove. I added a bit of color to it the following morning. 

Beech Grove, Broadmoor March 23, 2014
crayon, watercolor

The added watercolor on the right helps the forms emerge from the confusion of the drawing

Stream with beaver dam, Broadmoor 3/23/2014
charcoal, watercolor

original drawing on left. I added some watercolor washes the following day (on right) 

This drawing (above) was done where a stream flows out of a pond that a beaver dam have created. I love moving water! It's hard to draw however. I need a system I suppose. Paradoxically, my ineptness pleases me and forces me to observe and take note of what's in front of me and also what inside of me is resisting the active process of really Seeing. It's a problem I live with. Fortunately, a little touch of watercolor can help clarify the tangle of lines and smudges.

Verdure

The Island
May 16, 2013
charcoal

There is an artificial island below the dam. I've watched it all winter get covered with water or snow and ice. Occasionally, taking shelter, mallards would curl up on the ice that formed around it. But now with summer so near, the island is a lush green oasis amid the rushing current. Grackles, starlings, robins and sparrows perch in the undergrowth and up in the branches.

The green color this time of year is stunning. "Verdure" and "verdant" are words that begin to capture this quality of bright rampant botany. All the leaves are new. Grasses grow 3-4 inches every few days and some trees are just getting their perfect, tender leaves. I suppose, when the temperature rises and the world gets used to summer, this green manic rush will slow down. Already, I can hear the caterpillars chewing and the lawnmowers growling. I sat under the trees this morning, drawing the dam and there was a steady sound of inchworm frass hitting my sketchbook paper. Eat and be eaten; the world is one big feast.

The Dam
May 18, 2013
colored pencil

The Return

03-27-12
colored pencil

A pair of mallards paddle upstream below the dam. Later, I saw them on top of the dam looking for good things to eat and preening themselves. The locals slowly return to their old haunts.

I'm lonely for the ducks and the herons. But there's some nameless comfort in it all. A bracing reminder of childhood that never grows old. Like the feel of your toes sinking into the squishy sand as the sparkling ocean waves recede. A feeling of stability and still an off-kilter giddiness. For some reason, I'm reminded of that tonight when I think of the time passing and the animals returning.
Bonne nuit!

Exploring & Nesting

Pink lady slipper (Cypripedium acaule)

It's daunting in the Spring to sketch what is in front of me in Nature. There's newness everywhere and I want to posses it all. It's a weird desire; however, this is a fact of the artist's life. If I drew a tenth of it, I would be forever rooted in one spot! On this morning's walk I found familiar lovely things that stayed still so I could draw them.

Pink lady slipper orchids are just starting to emerge and bloom. Twenty years ago, I hid an engagement ring beneath this flower's broad scoop-shaped leaves for my then-girlfriend to find. Prior to this signal moment, I found lady slippers in wilderness areas in the Midwest and Canada during unforgettable botanical excursions.

Where to begin? There is something interesting and beautiful EVERYWHERE I look.
Here, sketches of pine branches and barberry

Finally, as I emerged from the forest paths I looked up and my eyes instantly fell on this delightful scene below: a robin sitting in a cramped little nest in a small tree. She stayed still and let me draw her portrait. I'll be back tomorrow to see how she's getting along.

See how she's stuffed into this nest? Bright yellow beak and tail up in the air. Kind of funny.

Little things

A painted turtle

Herbarium I

Herbarium II

Before I go to work

a foggy morning at Elm Bank

Before I go to work (today, the Library to have some uncluttered time and space to develop several children's book proposals) I take a walk and draw a few things. Just me in the fog, flexing my imagination and fingers; trying to capture something. Grist for the omnivorous mill that is an artist's lot in life. I try to do this everyday.

There's so much happening in the Spring. I did slow myself down for a few minutes to draw the "Camperdown Oak" at the Cheney-Baltzell mansion at Elm Bank.

a cell phone pic of the oak. The myth is that after a  gardener grafted tree roots on top of the trunk, the roots were forced to function like branches. There's no doubt a life lesson in this fable of adaptation.

art and nature

reflections of trees

Crassula sp.? "Hens and chicks"

maple flowers and fog jewels

this might be "Butter and Eggs" a member of the Scrophulareacea or "Snapdragon" family.