RAIN NEAR GUARD SHORE

 

Some time ago, I painted a small study of the area looking east near Guard Shore Beach along the Chesapeake and while I felt that I did capture the feeling of a bright but cold morning, I decided to re-work the painting as it did look a little plain. I started with the sky as I wanted to capture the feeling of some showers that I had seen nearby and after finishing it, did a little more to the distant treeline and also the foreground grasses. After the re-paint, I'm much happier with this little one now and I'll probably paint a larger version sometime soon. With this work, I have once again gone back to painting the Eastern Shore which I have grown to love over the many years I have been exploring the area around the Chesapeake. Size is 5 x 7 inches, oil on canvas panel.

BLUE-FOOTED BOOBY

 

I am working on this Blue-footed Booby commission and am nearly finished with it. Since I am not that familiar with this species (I have seen brown and red-footed boobies) I went for a resting pose trying to capture the character and markings of the bird. Size is 14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas board.

LATE SUMMER EVE

 

After moving from Deleware back to Maryland, we are now staying in the Greenbelt area and this is the view we see looking out over a small pond with willows in the foreground, and a well-wooded lot beyond. Birds are attracted to the small flooded area beyond the pond where beavers have made their home, and we have had a few Bald Eagle flyovers as well as plenty of Red-shouldered Hawk sightings - there is a resident pair nearby (along with Barred Owls which we hear calling most evenings). I'm doing a series of paintings based on this view - mostly concentrating on the time when the leaves began to turn shortly after we arrived. This oil was painted on canvas board, size is 8 x 10 inches.

MORNING MIST - MALLARD

 

When we lived near the reserve, I would quickly go down to the lake whenever misty conditions arose. These kind of scenes always quickened my heart and I often wondered if I could capture the mood of what I was seeing and experiencing. Deciding to try such a scene in watercolor, I started with a wet sheet of paper then laid on washes of color while it was still damp. So many things can go wrong when one is working in this manner but for once, things seemed to go my way. When everything had dried for a while, I carefully added the mallard and the foreground grasses to complete the painting. Size is 11 x 15 inches, watercolor on Arches paper.

FORSTER'S TERN

 

 

I think I forgot to post this painting that I did back in 2021. During early spring, we found some terns feeding near the access road to the beach and as we parked, this bird sat for awhile on a nearby post where I managed to do a few drawings and watercolor sketches. Size is about 14 x 11 inches.

DOWNY WOODPECKER ILLUSTRATION

 

I have been procrastinating over this painting but it is about finished now. I took a little more time with the plumage of this bird as I have always loved the smart black and white trim of this species - the touch of red on the head of the male is really like the cherry-on-the-top. I hope to be getting away from these more simplified illustrations this year and working on some slightly different and interesting compositions - I have a few on the go right now. This watercolor is on a 12 x 9 inch sheet of Grumbacher paper.

PEREGRINE FALCON STUDY

 

I had watched and sketched this Peregrine quite often during the winter I spent down In Virginia where it was an almost daily visitor to where we were staying. There were plenty of birds for it to feed on and I often saw it hunting - some quite spectacular stoops - but as most of the action was some distance away, never saw it actually catch anything! Occasionally I would find it on the ground feeding (where it seemed to spend a lot of time) othertimes out in the estuary or skimming the shoreline. This is my second favorite falcon (after the Gyrfalcon) and I'm sure this fascination for larger falcons will lead to many more paintings of them. Size is 5 x 7 inches, watercolor on Bockingford paper.