Strutting His Stuff

Strutting His Stuff, 10 x 8", acrylic on canvas,
by Tracy Feldman

This is a little painting I did inspired by some old photos I found.  Like with "Barnyard Bully Boy",   I didn't believe that the setting in which I captured this great blue heron showed him to his best advantage.  So, I pictured him, as I would have preferred to see him: purposely strutting along the edge of a body of turquoise water whose hue would make his warm body visually pop against the background.  I've always loved these large birds.  They remind me of officious clerks in a Dickens novel -- looking purposefully elegant, but sometimes behaving in the most ridiculous ways.
 
     I can vividly remember one time that I and a large crowd were captured by the site of a great blue who seemed intent on suicide by fish.  He was in the process of trying to swallow a huge fish he had just speared. It was much wider than his neck.  He tossed it up in the air, expecting it to slip right down his gullet.  Unsurprisingly, it stuck like a cork in a bottle. But, our blue was not deterred from his task.  He spent at least a quarter hour trying to swallow that behemoth -- seeming to almost kill himself in the process.  In the end, all the bird's inelegant gyrating did have a good effect.  He downed the fish and lived.  We all cheered.  I hope you enjoy this picture of his brethren as much as I liked painting it.

       As with all the small paintings on this blog, if you are interested in buying Strutting His Stuff, You can bid on him on my Daily Paintworks gallery and auction site, or buy him directly on the site.  I hope you enjoy and would welcome any comments.

Barnyard Bully Boy

Barnyard Bully Boy, acrylic on canvas, 10 x 8",
 by Tracy Feldman

Years ago, when we were visiting Bunratty Castle Park in Ireland (by Shannon Airport), we saw this remarkable rooster strutting around. I loved his look -- so puffed up -- and  I had always wanted to paint him, but I lost the picture I took of him.

    Just the other day I found a group of old photos and there he was.  I still found him visually compelling, but the dusty farmyard in which he strutted his stuff was uninspired.  So I painted him, but simplified the background to let him shine.  As I worked on him, I realized that he had protrusions under him that looked like they were made of claw material -- which made him look even more like a tough.  Thus, the name of the work was born: Barnyard Bully Boy.  I hope you enjoy it.

   Tomorrow I'll post another small work I did based on the old photos I came across.

    As with my other small works, I'm putting my bully boy up for auction in my digital gallery on Daily Paintworks.

Honing the Saw and Taking Flight

Cardinal Impressions, Acrylic on canvas, 8 x 10", Tracy Feldman

Good Mothers Day, all.  I'm not a mom, so since this day celebrates others, I thought I should at least do some painting, or painting-support activities today to keep my art momentum going.  I started out by working on another painting in my Longwood Gardens in Spring series, but then realized that it is not practical for me to paint seven days a week, so I decided to suspend the work on the Longwood-inspired painting until tomorrow.

5 little canvases waiting for some paint

Instead, I decided to spend some time today doing some of the work that Steven Covey would refer to as "honing" activity that will make it easier to work when I return to painting my "Longwood" series on Monday.   Covey is the personal effectiveness guru who wrote, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

"Honing the saw" was one of those seven habits that people often mistake for being a waste of time because they aren't officially doing what they consider their "real work".  As I remember it, these activities are things that might on the surface seem less worthy of spending time on because they don't actually have measurable work outcomes.  But because these activities help you  be more effective when you do sit down to do what you consider "real work", they actually are very important in helping you be as effective as possible at work, as well as in life.  These activities hone  (sharpen) your overall effectiveness in the same way as sharpening (aka honing) a saw makes the saw more effective when you actually get down to cutting wood.  Some of these activities keep your mind sharp, others center you, and others just set the groundwork to make future work possible.

The "honing" activity I chose was to paint the sides of the canvases I'll be using this week: mindless work, but I'm pretty sure that seeing the crisp little black edges will make doing the work seem just that little bit easier.

Why am I also displaying a new little painting of a crazy looking cardinal?  Because as I was painting those sides, my eyes strayed across the photo that Arny took recently of this little bird. We couldn't figure out whether the bird was an unusual female cardinal, or a young male on his way to getting his fully adult coloration and form.  Either way, I love the bird's wild-looking eyebrow.  It made it seem kind of like a punk rocker.  And as I looked at the crazy eyebrow, I got an irresistible urger to paint the bird.  Hope you enjoy it. I'd love to know what you think.

• Cardinal Impressions was up for auction on the Daily Paintworks site.  It sold, so it's no longer available.