Three Rivers Hidden garden Tour

IT'S APRIL- and that means Hidden Garden Tour. I'm really excited this year- I will have 20 paintings finished of the 4 gardens on the tour. In addition, I will be painting a portrait of one of the garden owners on Saturday, in her garden. Each garden has an artist (or 2) painting "en plein air", a real treat for those of you that like watching an artist at work. There is also music, art for sale, food and beverages at each location. The event is this Saturday, April 21st, from 11:00-4:00.

TICKETS are still available- get them HERE for an absolutely wonderful event.

Rock Star!

THAT"S ME under my "rock sheet". I tried it out for the 1st time last week. I didn't want anyone to see me, at least not until I knew it worked. (I don't mind looking ridiculous if it works, but if it didn't work, I'd just be a fool under a sheet.) A nearby friend has a covey of quails that come around every day to eat the bird seed she throws out, so I thought I would try there. She said they were very friendly and I could get pics easily – I tried without the sheet first.

NO WAY. They wanted no part of me. So I hunkered under the sheet with my lens poking out from a hole and –wow! They ignored me (almost) completely while I took several hundred pictures. Now I wish I had gotten even closer. This is going to be fun!

Robin Eggs

ROBIN EGGS are warm and comforting. It might be their color, or tiny size, or maybe what they represent – new beginnings. For me, they are a means of time travel, an instant journey back to a 10-year old me.

I GREW UP on a vineyard. Each spring, my brothers and I would grab our little notepads and, in my organized manner even back then, traverse the rows, searching for birds' nests. We very carefully peeked into each vine, documenting each find, and then following the progress of each nest until, at last, all the baby birds flew away.

SOME EGGS didn't hatch, while others were eaten by small mammals or other birds. And it always broke my heart to scribble, "Dead hatchling– not strong enough." Occasionally we got to see the parents feed worms or bugs to the babies. It was so exciting I couldn't sleep some nights.

SOON the nests were empty, and we moved on to new adventures. We ditched our notepads and found other ways to amuse ourselves, not giving nests another thought – until the next year, when it would seem like just the best idea all over again.

I painted Robin Eggs on 16 x20 hardboard panel, which I cut with a jigsaw.

Lorikeet 2

WOW. Sorry folks. I just couldn't get back to this. Actually, I hit a snag when I got to the green feathers and I kept finding other projects to spend time on (running 1st Saturday in Three Rivers and framing 20 paintings for my show in January, to name 2)!
RAINED all day today. So my grandson and I painted at home with the heater on. Nothing like the rain on a metal roof with a 4-year old sharing watercolor expertise. I learned a lot.
I PAINTED the lorikee's head in watercolor. It was working fine. But when I got to the body feathers I quickly decided to switch to acrylic and gouache, first painting solid black, red and yellow areas and then, with a fine pointed brush, painting lines of color. Much better. So this is now a "mixed-medium" painting. Whatever works!

Rainbow Lorikeet -1

I JUST LOVE this photograph of a Rainbow Lorikee. I didn't take it. Sarah Williams (user name MeHere) of Brisbane, Australia did. She is one of hundreds of photographers that share their work on SXC.hu, a leading free stock photo site.

SXC.hu was started in 2001 as an alternative to expensive stock photo sites. The images are free and you can use them for almost anything – web design, artwork, inspiration. They are high-resolution photos and are easily searched by topic. There are some restrictions- in some cases, the artist wants to be notified, and sometimes you need to give them credit. Some just want to see what you did with their image. And it is very simple to contact the artist – a click away. My favorite comment quoted in a photographer's intro came from Asif Akbar (user name asifthebes) from Mumbai, India, who said, "You can use any of my images without permission. Life is short, but there is always time enough for courtesy." Wow.

I ALMOST ALWAYS use my own photographs in creating my artwork. But I am going to paint this bird – because it makes me so happy! And those feathers – I can already see the wet watercolor spreading on the page. Follow me- I'll show you how I do a watercolor.

I LIKE different watercolor papers but I especially like the inexpensive Strathmore 400 series because it lets me pick up color easily, and I think I will be doing a lot of that here. My image is 14 inches by 10 inches. Let's get started.



FIRST, I wet an area with clear water. Using cobalt blue, I drop large amounts of paint in the wet area. I don't have to hurry to remove highlights in the feathers because, with this paper, I can do it easily even when dry. In the upper right area, you can see where I have removed color to look like feathers.

FILLING IN the black is next. I can't wait to see how it will look (and not at all sure how I will proceed) so I leave the blue (which has already started to bore me) and go forward with the black and adding opaque blue on top to make feathers life-like. Yeah- I like it – so now I can go back and finish the blue area. The red beak is pretty straight-forward. Wet the beak with clear water (this keeps the paint in any given area), drop on large amounts of red, then orange and yellow, then pick up white highlights.

Turkeys!: Day 4, Finished Painting

I BELONG to 2 women's groups, a canasta group of 8 that has been meeting once a month for over 30 years, and a newer group of 9 women that meet to discuss important parts of our lives (WOW- Women of Wisdom). At the WOW meeting last night I realized that we are TURKEYS! In both groups, we are a rafter of non-laying hens that flock together – too old to lay eggs, but with a lot to live for! So this painting is dedicated to all the hens in my life. Thank you ladies – you are my teachers, my support, my friends. I love you!

COLORS are blocked in.


DETAILS are added. I love it! Thanks for joining me. If you have any questions, just ask in the comment section. I'm happy to answer questions.

Nadi

Turkey!: Day 3, Black Lines and more...

I PAINTED the black lines and started filling in color. I am having so much fun with this picture. I am having 8 women for dinner tonight at my house – the food is all cooked and the table decorated so I snuck away to paint at the studio for an hour or so. I hope to finish this tomorrow!

Nadi

Turkey!: Day 2, Designing Painting

FIRST I decide on a canvas size. I picked a 20"x 24" for this one and then opened a page that size in Photoshop. Next I paint the canvas bright orange, so it will be ready. I've taken a lot of turkey pictures, but I don't have any egg or hatchling ones. So I found this in a book I have, along with other pictures of eggs etc.

NEXT, I need a hen – which this is not. You can tell by the beard hanging and the leg spurs, but mostly because of the pink head. I did like the stance though. I think I can use this.


I FLOP the picture, take off beard and spurs, then add a foot. The background is transparent (not really white).

I DROP in the hatchling picture behind hen.





I MOVE one baby forward by cutting and pasting in front (each piece is on its own layer in Photoshop, and layers can be moved in front, behind etc.) I had to cut hen's right leg, separate it from the hen layer, put it on its own layer, then move it in front of chick. Now it looks like the hen is standing over all the eggs.






I ADD leaves to bottom.



I DROP in several different backgrounds and liked this yellow best. Because the hen is dark, I liked the gold sky behind. But I'm still not happy with the hen's body- not enough happening.


THERE! I can live with that. Now I will print this out (it is already sized 20 x 24). I print out on letter size paper and tape them together. I am now ready to paint black lines on orange canvas.

Turkey! 1

I LOVE turkeys. Maybe because of Thanksgiving – turkey decorations mean great kitchen smells and lots of laughter. But how much do I know about real turkeys? Not much.

IT'S TIME for a treasure hunt. That's what I call the hours I spend researching information that I have let remain undiscovered all these years. So here are some fun facts that I learned today.

THE WILD turkey is smaller than the domestic turkey (which has been bred so fat that he tips over),and has red, instead of brown, legs. The small bumps on the head are called caruncles. The appendage that droops over the bill is a snood. A turkey can fly 55 miles an hour and outrun a man. His eyesight zone is 300º (as compared to an owl's 70º), has acute hearing, a poor sense of taste and almost no sense of smell. The turkey has no homing instinct – if taken to a new environment, he just makes it his new home. Grown turkeys roost in trees at night.

THE MALE (tom or gobbler) can change his head colors in seconds – to warn off other males or to signal females for mating. His snood dangles when he is hot, sexually aroused or fighting. He has a beard that juts out from his chest and spurs on his legs. In spring, he mates with as many hens as he can and takes no part in nesting or rearing of the poults. A male less than 2 years old is called a jake.

THE FEMALE (hen) is half the size of a tom, has a bluish head sparsely feathered, has a tiny snood and a few caruncles. Her plumage is controlled by hormones, so if her ovaries should be damaged, she would grow the feathers of a gobbler. Because the hen can sometimes have a beard and spurs, the most reliable way to distinguish them is by head color. Toms have a pink head, the hen's is blue-gray. After mating, the hen becomes a loner. She will lay from 8 to 13 eggs per clutch. After leaving the nest to eat, she will return, taking a different route each time, often flying the last 100 feet, to confuse predators. Poults open their egg with an egg tooth that will fall off in a day or two. This is called pipping. During the 2 days of hatching, the poults imprint on the hen, and get to know all their siblings. After leaving the nest, the hen will often watch her brood from afar, and even feign an injury to gain attention from a possible predator.

A RAFTER (or flock) of turkeys comes in 4 types: hens with their young, hens not successful in hatching poults ( up to 20), adult gobblers (up to 25 birds), and young gobblers that have left the family flock. There is a peck order and rank is achieved by fighting. There is fighting among gobblers, as well as hens; in fall and winter there is also fighting between flocks, in which whole groups participate.

TURKEYS have about 30 different calls. Here's a few:
Gobble – Come to me, mama.
Whippoorwill – Back off buddy.
Rattle call – Fight! Fight!
Alarm putt – Danger. Danger.
Cackle – only used when flying.
Yelp –I'm lost!
Whit-whit – I hear ya- this way.
Predator alarm – Eek! I'm being attacked!
Distress Scream – My babies! My babies! Help!
Pit-pit-pit – Careful- I have a funny feeling.
Peeping (from inside egg) – Look out world- here I come.
Hatching yelp – Mama's here, you're safe.
(Poults learn their mother's individual voice at this point, while in the egg!
They must also imprint when hatched or they will be confused their entire life.)
Lost call – Maaaa-maaaaaa. Where are you?
Singing alarm – Look up! Danger above! (AT which point, all turkeys look up.)
Purring – Y'all still there? Let's keep together.
Tree yelp – Good morning. All here? Let's have a good day.

MY PAINTING is going to be the hatching event. Stay tuned.

Nadi