Thought I’d fill part of the void by putting a few more things up on my Etsy store. The Folded Flamingo was created for a lesson for a class I was teaching a few years ago, a repeat of one of my earlier watercolors.
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Tag Archives: birds
Newer work #88
Haven’t posted newer work in a while. This is one of a series of smaller paintings on panel that have needed to work on to replace sold work. (Darn, could use selling a few of the larger ones, I’m battling the balance between inspirations for larger pieces vs. storage space….)
#1398 Snowbirds. 9×12″ refractured watercolor and poetry on gallery-wrap panel. Poem written for and into painting is: Summer into fall we fly to our other home winter into spring
Sonnet Challenge #33
I haven’t posted a sonnet in a while. I was going to post one about hot flashes (seeing as I’ve been enjoying to the extent that I need to start laughing about it) but Andrew Eales’ post this morning reminded me about this sonnet:
Birdsong
It’s in man’s heart, because it’s in his head
to merge both words and music into song.
There’re places in our brains they both belong
together – feelings more than just what’s said.
But too, we wonder how that seed was sown
that made us lilt our words into a tune.
Was it the wolves a-howling at the moon
or cat’s meow, or buck’s loud rutting groan?
It’s much more likely that the sound above
that we sometimes call angels, were the trills
inspiring us to develop singing skills
to tell our stories, feelings, sadness, love.
Whatever was that singing that we heard
outside our souls? It was a little bird.
The end of a class
Over the winter I have been teaching an intermediate watercolor class at a gated community in La Quinta. I’ve done a number of exercises that have produced multiple paintings in a category that I don’t usually sell work in. Now that the classes are coming to an end, I have a set of perfectly good paintings in a box kicking around the bottom of the studio. So, Etsy time! Here are three paintings I put up this morning, ready to go to a new home for a reasonable price. $80!
More birds.
I only had two students in my Paint the Night class last night at the Vanguard Gallery in Moreno Valley, but they both had fun. One of the questions were, what kinds of birds are they? Jenibirds? Blue fronted swifts? This is a very popular image, and sometimes students use their own imaginations and create red-fronted Jenibirds, or once, blackbirds.
Folded Flamingo
Teach’s Folded Flamingo.
Many years ago I went through a bird-painting phase. A couple of these have made great subjects for my Monday afternoon class. This Monday just past, I guided the group through creating a flamingo that had folded its long neck up so it could hide its beak in its wings. Here’s the group having completed their versions of Folded Flamingo.
Seven more Folded Flamingo
A regular class
Trilogy in La Quinta is a gated community with an active creative club. A couple months ago I got the opportunity to become one of the watercolor class instructors there, and teach about twice a month on a Monday afternoon. It’s a guided-tuition class, a little like the paint-n-wine format in that all students complete the same painting, but with much more of a learning opportunity focus.
I get so wrapped up in demoing and guiding, that I usually forget to take photos of the class in action. But this time, I persuaded the ladies to let me take a pic of their completed exercises to put on the blog.
Yes – they all look great!
They sure do make me work too! Not only do I need to prepare the exercises, but I get requests of trying subjects that I don’t usually do, so my skills get stretched as a result. Seems like we’re all having fun, though!
New display at Sm’Art gallery.
Alana, my wonderful gallerist at the sm’Art gallery co-op in La Quinta and Michael Angelo Hernandez have been repainting and reorganizing the gallery. Here is my strip of wall as we finished hanging it earlier in the week.
While I was putting up a few new paintings, another new artist, Tomasso Biondi, recognized the tall sunrise on the left – he had seen it published somewhere. If I had it published I lost track of it. The odd thing is I don’t think it’s the first time that someone had that comment about it….
And yes, those are a couple of pet portraits at the bottom. After I did one over the summer, Alana thought it might be a good idea to offer them. (Yes, I can do them remotely…..)
Another sonnet.
Sometimes it gets quiet at art fairs. There is often a bit of a lull around lunch time. If I’m sitting at the back of the booth at the desk, I’ll often use the time to work on my bucket list item of more Shakesperean sonnets than Shakespeare. Flagstaff was productive and I was able to write a sonnet each of the three days. I sometimes have to search around for inspiration, Saturday’s inspiration was the nest of sparrows within tweeting distance.
Sparrows
The sparrow has more color than you’d think
(but painters know burnt umber, wine, ecru)
and though they seem to flit off in a wink
the observer sees the little things they do.
Sometimes they’ll dust in patches of soft sand
and often in a puddle from the rain
with wriggling bodies, wings aflutter, and
the knowledge that they’ll soon feel fresh again.
The well-trained ear can spot each different call –
the black-throat’s glockenspiel and house’s cheep
the white-crowned sparrow’s sweet melodious trill
and common to them all, the young chick’s tweet.
So if you ever thought sparrows were plain
Take another look and listen, think again!
Another sonnet.
I’m still working on that bucket list of writing more Shakespearean sonnets than ‘The Bard’ himself, and sometimes a quieter hour at an art fair can be productive. Will had the opportunity to write about sparrow, but didn’t, though I don’t think he would ever have seen some of those mentioned, they just weren’t available there!
Sparrows
The sparrow has more color than you’d think
(but painters know burnt umber, wine, ecru)
and though they seem to flit off in a wink
the observer sees the little things they do.
Sometimes they’ll dust in patches of soft sand
and often in a puddle from the rain
with wriggling bodies, wings aflutter, and
the knowledge that they’ll soon feel fresh again.
The well-trained ear can spot each different call –
the black-throat’s glockenspiel and house’s cheep
the white-crowned sparrow’s sweet melodious trill
and common to them all, the young chick’s tweet.
So if you ever thought sparrows were plain,
Take another look and listen, think again!
Skyscapes for the Soul - Jeni Bate 