New paintings and regular art updates.
I must go down to the sea again
Says the old poem.
And I know why
Beauty and violence
Gentle lapping wavelets
And white horses.
Frantic families
Lost sailors
Storms and waves
So high they reach up, up
To the sky.
Birds skim the surface
Grab fish in their beaks
Puffins and Skewers
Cormorants and Choughs
Ever changing
Sometimes boring
I must go there again.
Feed the birds.
£2 a box
There’s a song there somewhere? One of our things we do when we walked round Westport lake. The birds were all round us, pecking our toes. Trying to get the food out of my hand. Even in this weather they want feeding. Ducks, Geese, Goslings, Coots and Moorhens and a solitary Swan.
The birds still have babies, a bit bigger than yesterday, they haven’t all flown the nest yet. It was lovely to see them.
Once you see something it’s hard not to see it. You ‘get your eye in’. I’ve recently seen a few different ones on various walks and I can’t resist taking photos of them. This could be a duck or a pigeon feather? I don’t know. I remember learning how feathers have thin strands with little hooks on them so when a bird preens it’s feathers the hooks can sort of zip the feathers up and hold the strands of the feathers together? I don’t know exactly how it works. I guess I should look it up on line or find a book with details in it. It is fascinating to think about the mechanics of birds wings.
I did a few quick sketches of the birds and animals while we visited today. A great opportunity to sketch some lovely creatures.
A racoon, a baby owl and a falcon called Logan. They were all enjoying the sunny weather today.
Gentleshaw is a wildlife rescue centre and is based at Eccleshall in Staffordshire. It’s in a garden centre but is run seperatley. They offer bird flying experiences and take in animals that are unwanted by owners that cannot be placed in zoos. They give space and care for many birds and animals which could otherwise lose their lives.
My photos are a bit blurry but I also drew the birds and animals. See my next post!
When you play with digital apps you can get all sorts of effects, especially if you use more than one app.
In this piece I created the image using cut monoprint and post-it notes. Next, I imported it to my photodirector app, I used the effects button and converted it to a half tone pattern. Next I took it over to the sketch app and I added a flood fill with rainbow colours a few times. Finally back to photodirector, changing uthe texture and splitting the image into two seperate patterns. Always remembering the back button if I didn’t like the effect!
I did the drawing of a fingerprint for today’s #bandofsketchers prompt but there was some question of whether this was in line with the prompt. So I decided to do a fingerprint out of black monoprinting cut up in a collage. That didn’t really work because I couldn’t stick thin enough pieces of paper down. So it’s morphed into a rather cheeky couple of birds!
Digital drawings of birds, using ArtRage oils and then my sketcher app.
Birds sing
Rain falls
Washes the air
Bird song
Crystal sounds
Twinkle like stars
On the breeze.
I tried to make a bird feeder out of a plastic milk carton rather than just throwing it away. I usually have my milk delivered in glass bottles but occasionally when I run out I resort to getting a plastic carton.
I cut three holes in the side, and because seed would just fall out if it was vertical, I turned it horizontal. Also I made the holes big enough so a bird would not get its head stuck, made a little platform by bending the bottom edge down, and cut off any sharp edges.
Partly filled with Niger seed. Hopefully this will work, the handle was pushed over a vertical branch. Will check and make sure birds are OK…..
A duck and a coot. If this was a race, the coot is winning. The twig looks like the finishing line for a rowing race. The duck is a Mallard drake, I don’t know if he’s preening or asleep? I love the ripples on the water. My phone camera has reacted to the bright light and has reduced the exposure time so it appears darker. You can move the position of your camera to affect this. If you look at an area with less bright light then the exposure would open up again. But I like the strong contrast in this image and the depth of colour. It’s difficult to see the details on the birds because they are in deep shadow.
