Long-billed Curlew at El Matador Beach--Malibu, CA

Located on the west end of Malibu, El Matador is one of three beaches located in the Robert H. Meyer Memorial State Beach, an area of cove or cliff-foot strands, also known as "pocket beaches" because of their isolated accessibility.

To reach this beautiful view, I had to navigate a series of dirt paths and stairways that zigzagged down the cliff face until eventually, if you desire, you arrive at beach level.  I stopped two levels short of the shore because I didn't want to flush the shore birds I spotted foraging among the rocks.  The one that attracted my attention the most, was colorful and tall, with a very long bill--a new bird for me.

It's funny.  Even though I had never seen one before, "curlew" immediately came to mind.  As we browse through blog posts and bird books, our mind obviously absorbs more than we realize.  The names and shapes of other birds we encounter along the way get stored in the "library" too, whether we're paying attention or not!

This sketch was created in a Moleskin sketchbook.  Described as heavy Italian stock pages for "fountain pen, charcoal, tempera, acrylic, etc", it contains paper unlike any I've used before.  And this was the first time I've tried painting on it.  New paper, especially non-watercolor paper, is just about as challenging as trying an entirely new medium.  In this case, you basically have to use less water and keep the paper dryer.  Though I have other sketchbooks, I wanted to try this one to see how I liked it for field sketching.  I've seen it among the supplies of other artists.  The verdict's still out for me.  I have to practice with it more to give it a fair chance.  This book  is for sketching, after all, not painting.

Bird Banding Sketches--Savannah Sparrow

This is the time of year when sparrows move south and settle into wintering territories, Tennessee among them.  The Savannah Sparrow is one of those beautiful birds, often blending right into the pale dried grasses in its habitat and appearing "brown" at first glance.

But when you see sparrows up-close at the banding table or even with good binoculars or camera, you find that instead of being non-impressive gray or brown, their back and wing feathers are exquisitely beautiful with contrasting patterns of black, white, cream, brown and rust.    

The sketchbook page above is one that I created in preparation for my bird banding article published in Nov/Dec issues of the TN Conservationist magazine.   

All of these birds were new to me last fall.  All of them are now imprinted in my mind through close-up views, photography and sketching.  Sweet, sweet sparrows!

TN Conservationist Magazine, Bird Banding and Sketching!

The November/December issue of Tennessee Conservationist magazine features my article on bird banding,  and I must say, it is a thrill to have my research, writing, photographs and art all featured in one place in one publication!  And the bonus of this project--the subject is birds and conservation, a subject dear to my heart.

The article, entitled Tracking the Birds of Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge, focuses on the bird banding activities of the refuge, a 360-acre preserve bordering the French Broad River, that is jointly managed and operated by the Seven Islands Foundation, a non-profit land conservancy, and the Knox County Department of Parks and Recreation.  And what's unique about this refuge?  Its primary habitat is grassland that is being reclaimed from agricultural plantings of non-native fescue and restored to native warm-season grasses that support grassland bird populations.

The article represents more than a year of research and collaboration with the bird banding team, and my own participation in bird-banding, which has been a joy unto its self.  Sketches, like the one you see above, and photographs taken represent incredibly intimate moments with birds, allowing me to see their detailed beauty and enjoy their personalities in a very special way.  Add to that, the wonderful friends I've made during the year's activities, and you have a very satisfying experience!

Painting a Loggerhead Sea Turtle--Part II

A fun painting to create, but also one that offered some challenges.  For one thing, I didn't know I would be away from it for an entire month and failed to write down the pigments I had initially chosen.  The second was my unfamiliarity with creating sea foam on the beach--uncharted territory.

The pigment challenge I resolved fairly quickly, glancing over my palette and selecting my likely choices (listed at the end of post).  The beach foam was a journey of trial and error, an exploration into suggestion, knowing that I had my scrub brush and gouache to back me up.  I did not create a separate sketch which would have been a good exploration alternative.  Sometimes I like to just jump in and move through confusion until what I want to see begins to emerge.

A first attempt at creating the sand beneath the sea foam

Life seems to be like this sometimes, new experiences push us to reach beyond what we know.  In the process we learn something new, often with gratifying results.  And its not always that the outcome is beautiful, its that we did it despite uncertainty.  I tackle many things this way, but I also turn to books for suggestions and practice.  Not only did I order a seascapes art book, prompted by this painting (that hasn't arrived yet), but I also bought Blair Witherington's gorgeous book, Sea Turtles, An Extraordinary Natural History of Some Uncommon Turtles.  Unfortunately, this book is out of print, but can be found on the secondary market (with patience) at affordable prices and in my case, brand new condition.

While I described researching new anatomy terminology in Part I of this painting series, Blair's book brought me the beauty, heart and elegance of this mysterious creature, a species that has its roots in the Cretaceous period, 110 to 65 million years ago.  True ancients.

Above I've turned to my scrub to smooth out the hard edges and reduce the clutter in the sand.  The turtle is where I want the eye to go and since I want to enhance her detail, I want the sea and sand to stay smooth and suggestive rather than detailed and distracting.

In the two images immediately above, you see the results of me thinking about and playing around with the beach and foam.  I'm moving back and forth between the turtle's shell and the beach, both requiring a bit of thinking and building.  The turtle's back is partially covered with sand, slung by her flippers as she covered her egg chamber.  By moving back and forth, from one area to the other, I relieve my tension while I'm working on an area of uncertainty.  But it also has a painterly purpose.  It allows me to keep an eye on the unity of colors as I watch the emphasis on the subject change with each color application to the background.

Above, I've added more detail to the turtle's back and sandy areas in the sea.  I laid an initial variegated wash of gray using a mixture of ultramarine and burnt sienna to form the background of sand above the turtle. As I added more details to the turtles body, I realized her golden and rust features would be better enhanced with a bluer shade of gray.  Below, after the area was completely dry, I used a large flat brush to glaze over the top of the painting with a light application of a bluer shade of gray.   To my pleasure, this had the dual affect of enhancing the turtle's shell and popping out the area of light yellow that brings the eye to the center of interest, her face.

To complete the painting, I softened some of the edges of the foam with my scrub brush, used a little white gouache to lighten foamy areas, enriched the appearance of sand on her back with paint splatter using a toothbrush, and darkened shadow details.

And some of the new fun things I learned about sea turtles, sparked by the curiosity that painting this one stirred?  Each species of sea turtle, seven altogether, has a characteristic number of large scutes (shell plates) on their hard carapace (shell), as well as a characteristic arrangement of scales on their head.  They have more flexible shells than land turtles, with the carapace and plastron (under shell) being joined by a bridge of supple cartilage, allowing for more speed and maneuverability as they navigate through many miles at sea.

Watercolor on 9 x 12" Arches 140# cold pressed paper.  Pigments used:  WN French Ultramarine, WN New Gamboge (yellow), WN Van Dyke Brown, WN Burnt Sienna, a touch of DVP Permanent Rose as needed, and WN Permanent White Gouache.  Most of my grays are a mix of ultramarine and burnt sienna.

Sketching Birds in the Backyard

Sounds easy enough.  But there is definitely a shift between photographing birds and sketching them.  And another gigantic shift between sketching from a photo and trying to capture birds while they're moving around!  So what you see below is today's attempt.  My solution for everything that doesn't come easily....practice!

Whey all my busy hummingbird activity ended earlier in the month (last observed visit October 11th), I took all but one hummingbird feeder down, hung a suet basket with homemade suet, a sunflower seed feeder and put out a plate with a mix of each.  The bird-y word got around fast.

It is such a joy to watch these birds--cardinals, mockingbirds, chickadees, titmice, wrens, downies, nuthatches--at the bath and the feeder.  If you sit and observe for a while, you can tell which are the juveniles by their behavior, especially at the bird bath.  I had the joy of watching young chickadees trying to figure out how to drink without getting wet.

My bird bath sits crooked.  No matter how many times I straighten it and pile rocks around it, it always shifts. On this occasion a cardinal was perched drinking and two chickadee juveniles, one after the other, ended up in a spot where the water had shifted away from the edge.  It was a chuckle to see them stretch, nearly tip over, and flutter to upright themselves and keep from falling into the water.  They next landed on the opposite side to drink.  I mean, you bathe only when you want to, right?  

And I got this special mockingbird treat during another time I sat on the patio to observe.  What a hoot, to watch this mocker grab the back ball shaped tops that hold the feeder together.  At first I thought he/she was after an insect.  But then when he tried more than one angle, and moved on to try each one, I realized it was a juvenile trying to see if that big, fat, black, berry-looking thing was tasty!

My response to that stare, "I promise, I didn't do it!"

Painting a Loggerhead Sea Turtle

It's often that while painting a subject that my mind wanders through the moments of first encounter.  In the case of this unfinished Loggerhead watercolor, I also couldn't help but wonder about the details of what I was sketching, specifically, the scales on the turtles' head, how they were arranged, what they were made of, whether they varied or were uniformly arranged in a species.  

My search led me to a familiar realization that I don't know a whole lot about some things, turtles being among them, especially sea turtles.  It was humbling to land on the US Fish and Wildlife/North Florida Ecological Service "Sea Turtle Quick Facts" page (link provided below) and begin reading the description of Loggerheads.  I understood the first sentence.  But in the next, I encountered carapace and plastron and as I read on, costal scutes, nuchal scute, inframarginal scutes and bridges.  I needed a turtle dictionary!   

Sketching and painting heightens my senses and deepens my curiosity, making me eager to learn more.  I'll share my recent experience with Loggerhead sea turtles at Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge in Brevard County, Florida, in an upcoming post.  But for now, get ready by brushing up on your memory of turtle anatomy and the language used to describe it.      

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and Sea Turtles

It has been such a joy to watch the hummingbirds that have come to my feeders this summer.  Those that live in northern breeding territories in Canada and the northern USA began their migration journey's in July, progressing southward approximately 18 miles per day.  In the southeastern USA where I live, in Tennessee, our birds have begun migration as well, the males departing earliest, leaving females with late fledglings and vigilant juveniles guarding nectar sources.  

All this activity has been an incredible thing to watch.  The more time I spend sitting near the feeders, the more I understand the necessity of all that chirping and diving and chasing that takes place.  In a few hours of observation, I may see a male define his territory with an incredible high-speed dive, a tentative fledgling at the feeder with his 'baby' gape still apparent, and two juveniles sparing in spiraling flight so ferociously that they both land on the ground.  The juxtaposition of so many aspects of their lives unfolding in front of me gives me deep pause.

And while I sketch these juveniles, internalizing every feather, the shape of their beaks, the position of their wings, their expression, I feel more and more connected to them, more and more hopeful that they will each survive their migration journey.  My art inspires my love for what I'm painting, just as surely as the nature I encounter inspires my art.

I experimented with salt in this painting, sprinkling a little too much, in my opinion, in a couple of places to suggest the sparkling of light in the trees.  While I waited for the paint to dry, I sketched a loggerhead sea turtle.  This was my first sketch of a turtle of any kind.  And as my pencil gave it shape, I fell in love with it all over again, bringing it even deeper into my heart, if that's possible.

Standing on a dark beach in the light of a full moon with the sound of the surf breaking while watching a sea turtle lay her eggs was quite enough to fortify my love for these giant marvels forever.  And while I'm sketching, I internalize what I know about them even more, see more deeply, and feel more deeply.  Painting is a meditation of sorts, and during that meditation I am one with this turtle, enjoying her beauty, the shape of her head, the sheer size of her body, those deep ancient eyes.  Every aspect of what I see and feel about her moves through me and forms the image I create on paper.

And when I paint hummingbirds, I'm one with their high-speed world, filled with a fledgling's uncertainty and mindful of the power and speed of that mature male.  I marvel at what they show me and how nature has put it all together.  Art and nature, nature and art.  They make my world a richer place.