Of Dappled Light and Sandhill Cranes

Of Dappled Light and Whooping Cranes

This little work is another one of the images that I've painted based on things we saw on our summer trip to visit family.  This guy was regally strutting through a wooded area.  I loved the way the dappled light made the base of his neck and part of his back seem to glow.  I also really liked the warm and cool contrast of the colors.

Sandhill cranes are rare birds in many parts of the country.  People come from far and wide to see them wintering in parts of Texas, then in the summer they retire to the cooler climes of places like rural southeastern Michigan.  As a kid I didn't appreciate how special it was to see them because of the pedestrian setting we'd see them in: a grassy, abandoned farm field easily spotted from the back of my Aunt's Ford 150 pickup.  As an adult, I realized how lucky we were to have these relics of an ancient time grace the Waterloo recreation area.  Hope you enjoy this picture as much as I enjoyed once again viewing this old friend on a warm Michigan morning.

As usual, I'm posting this little painting for sale on my Daily Paintworks gallery and auction site.  Check it out there if you might be interested in this piece. I'd love to hear your input, and your own memories of these elegant relics of the past.

Daily Painting -- Oh, You Nut ... hatch

Oh, You Nut ... hatch
Watercolor on canvas
10 x 8"

 Late this winter, I took a number of pictures while on a day out in Lancaster County, and I posted them on this blog and on my Facebook page.  I asked people what they wanted me to paint some day.  I got a number of responses about what people liked, and then promptly got too involved doing business-related things on the web to remember to do that.  Yesterday, I was thinking, "What to paint today?", and I remembered my commitment.  So I looked over the pictures people said that they liked, and this is the result.

This picture is of a white breasted nuthatch hanging from a pine limb at the Lancaster County Central Park. I love watching these natural acrobats zip up and down, and around and around a tree. They're easily distinguished from other small birds because they hang upside down as they quickly circumnavigate the tree to unearth bugs underneath the bark.  I think this behavior of acrobatically arching away from the tree is their way of getting a general look around.

Shuts Enviromental Library
Lancaster County Central Park

For people who are interested in how I make compositional decisions when I paint -- particularly starting with photo references, I've provided the two photo references I used to create this piece.  I'll share the process I went through with this little painting.

I looked over what people said they liked and thought would make interesting paintings.  I also considered comments they offered.  A couple of people liked the pictures of the nuthatch, but when looking at it, I agreed with one comment that said the background was dull.  If you look at the photo of the nuthatch below, you'll see what I mean. The colors are dull and their values too close to that of the bird to be as eye catching as I wanted.

Original of nuthatch

   I quickly realized that a logical alternative background   would be one located within the Lancaster County Central Park where this nuthatch shot was actually taken.

I chose the long view of the park's environmental library (pictured above) as the new background because it was interesting, but also distant enough to remain secondary to the nuthatch in the painting.  If you notice, I chose to paint building and its surroundings in softer focus, and with paler hues than the original to keep viewers focused on the bird.  I also slightly altered where the little evergreen branch was in the foreground, and placed my signature in a way that visually linked the tree limb and the little branch.  In so doing, I provided a visual path down the limb, along my signature, up the branch to the nuthatch.

I'd welcome any comments or suggestions about this -- or future work. If you want to look into purchasing this piece, go to my gallery page on Dailypaintworks.com

Fine Day Out in Lancaster County

We have been having January thaw weather -- blue sky & clouds and temperatures topping out in the high 40's (about 8 or 9 C). We finally decided to take advantage of it, so yesterday we attended a winter birding program at Lancaster County Central Park. 

It was great and we were so charmed by seeing things like snow drops (that shouldn't be out for about a month at least) that we decided to continue the fun by taking a ride.




Arny asked where I wanted to go. At first, I said north, and then I looked at the clouds moving in and said, let's just follow the sun. He thought it was a great idea, and we had a wonderful couple of hours drifting through the county, choosing each new turn after consulting the sky. If our direction of travel started to move us into clouds, we turned towards the most sunny place. 




What we saw on our ride reminded us of how beautiful our county is even in the more-subtly-hued times of winter. By the end of the trip, we were pleased and surprised to find that our drift had led to one of our favorite natural places, Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area, and that it already had a large population of swans and geese.


 Check out a selection of the photos we took below and 
tell me which ones you think I should use as subjects for my "painting a day" project.

Fox Sparrow on Christmas Tree

Sparrow on Feeder

Nuthatch on Pine

Chickadee Hanging From Feeder

Winterberries

January Snow Drops

Seed Pods in the Sun

See 

Dried Grasses Glowing in the Sun

Winter "flowers"

Sycamore Against a Winter Sky

A Spiral of Swans, Middle Creek WLMA

Middle Creek Swans & Geese in Late Day Sun

Swans Trough Late Day Trees