BIRD STUDIES IN GRAPHITE

 

I'm not sure if I posted these drawings before so here are two larger ones I did. I have always liked the look of Snowy Owls especially the younger more heavily marked females like the one shown here. I have managed a few paintings of them over the years but nothing that large. Most have been watercolors but I really want to do justice to this bird so will have to work up something more serious.

Another one of my favorite birds is the Gyrfalcon and I am happy to say I have seen both these and Snowy Owls in the wild. The two studies shown in this drawing are of the same bird as it sat at rest in front of my when I visited a raptor breeding center many years ago. Such impressive birds and another species I can't get enough of. I have a large painting or two planned for these birds too so will have to get busy! Both are graphite on Arches paper, size 22 x 15 in (56 x 38 cm).

THE ANGRY SEA II

 

This is the second in what will be a series of sea and wave paintings. I'm still using a vertical format here but as I do more, I'm sure this will change. As with the first one, the subject is a rough and turbulent sea with a foamy middle and foreground. I worked on these two areas quite a lot trying to make them interesting and suggesting moving water without taking away from the breaking wave at the top. I was also thinking of adding a gull flying fast in the offshore wind but couldn't find a place for it - perhaps in the next one. Size is 10 x 8 inches, oil on canvas.

MORNING SKY STUDY

 

It has become something of a ritual these past few years for me to rise before dawn in the hope of observing any interesting cloud formations. In a book that I am recently reading, it appears that Turner did the same thing - his luminous skies are something to behold! Anyway, on this morning, there was almost total cloud cover except for a soft line just above the horizon where the sun created orangish-red lines across the sky. This I felt I had to capture if only because it was something different from what I usually see when looking out. My easel was already set up so I worked quickly trying to get down as much as I could before the sky changed too much. I meant to add a little more landscape to the bottom of the work but ran out of room! If I do a larger version, I can readjust that. Size is 8 x 10 inches, oil on canvas.

WINTER MARSH V

 

I began working on this painting of the evening marsh some years ago. My sketchbook has a few studies that I did of the subject but nothing much came of them. This is often the case and a idea can remain in my mind for quite some time until finally becoming reality - in this case expressed in a painting. I spent a bit more time on this one especially working on the grass as I wanted to capture the receding marsh grasses and textures, also on the water which leads the eye into the mid-distance and then on to the distant water. I'm relieved that this one came to fruition and hopefully this will lead to a greater range of evening paintings. Size is 10 x 8 inches (25x20cm), oil on canvas.

MARSH EVENING STUDY

 

In this study, I have returned to the nearby marsh but am now looking across the expanse of grasses to a distant treeline. This angle is much lower down and no water is visible although it is there hidden by the taller marsh grasses and cattails. The setting sun has finally broken through the heavy clouds creating a starburst pattern and illuminating a central pathway over the marsh - a rare effect but one that I was hoping for. A little later on, this was even more extreme and I may try to capture how that looked too. I have done a few small studies of the marsh from this side but this one is so far the closest to what I had hoped to capture. All there so far seem to be somewhat of an experiment - trying to capture the correct tones between the sky and the marsh. Oil on canvas, 8 x 10 inches.

GIRL IN A KIMONO

 

Deciding to change direction for once, I returned to my travels in Japan as I had always wanted to do something like this. The model for my painting was wearing an exquisitely patterned kimono full of flower patterns - real and imagined. Even the charcoal-grey areas had a slight texture and small details created with embroidery. Her hair had been twisted and arranged into a bun-like shape which cast its own shadow on her nape - an area long considered erotic by the Japanese. The waist band featured silk bows of different colors along with embroidered cords - the whole a delight to paint! With a subject like this, one is faced with a dilemma. What should one focus on - the kimono or the model? The way I got around this was to arrange a composition with the model facing away and most of the kimono cropped but with enough left to give an idea what the rest of it would look like. Overall though, I was especially attracted by the highlights in her hair so I focused on that first.

Here you can see how I started with a first pass of oil color after transferring my drawing onto the board. With this stage done, I drew in the details of the kimono then gave that area a first pass also. Returning the the head now that the paint had dried, I slowly brought the hair and arrangement of flowers on the left to a finish before moving back to the kimono and adding the final details there. Finally I could call it finished - a long project but a rewarding one! Size is 12 x 9 in (30 x 23cm), oil on board.

AMERICAN ROBIN STUDY

 

It has been a quiet winter around here bird wise, just a few of the more usual species present. During the very cold snap we had a few weeks ago where temps never got above freezing, a lot of the river froze over with only a few areas of open water. These were surprisingly filled with mostly Common Mergansers (Goosanders) with a high count of around 60 or so birds together one morning. I think that many of their usual wintering areas had frozen over pushing many birds south which was to my gain as I had plenty of chances to view these birds close up. Not just the females with their reddish shaggy crests but also plenty of simply stunning males in their picture-perfect breeding plumages. I love how the the sharp iridescent green and black head contrasts with the bright red bill and white of the body. Anyway, now that it has warmed up a little, I don't see them so often but yesterday for the first time this year I heard robin calls. A single male has been hanging around the rather large lawn area nearby so certainly we are beginning to see some migration. Looking over the distant landscape this morning, I saw a staggering flock of blackbirds - probably in excess of two thousand birds heading north just over the Deleware river. Cormorant numbers have risen too and I'm looking forward to many other species arriving sometime soon. The robin shown here was present feeding on some left-over berries, its plumage well puffed out due to the cold. Done in my sketchbook, this watercolor is about 11 x 8 inches.