Winter’s Cache
Last week’s snowfall coated nearby fields and hedgerows and, lucky for me, left little clumps of snow atop of bird nests that were formerly hidden. I waded into the shrubby field adjacent to our house to have a look around. It didn’t take long before I found several nests amidst the waist-high goldenrod, thorny vines, shrubs, and pioneer white pines. This one had been repurposed by mice as a larder of bittersweet and rose hips. Though not an unusual practice, it was a rather colorful surprise and quite worth the cold feet… Read More
Front and Center
I have several half-finished flower paintings in my sketchbook and allium in bloom that’s calling me from the garden. A Louisiana waterthrush is singing to beat the band by the streamside and a blue-winged warbler just showed up in the thicket by the woods, but there aren’t enough hours in the day to capture them—yet. I just wrapped up teaching The Art of the Bird, so nests have been very much front and center on my desk. At risk of seeming single-minded, I hope you’ll indulge me with another nest posting before… Read More
A Lovely Beginning
I found four bluebird eggs in a carefully woven nest of fine grasses in our nestbox today. I suspect that there will be five tomorrow, and then the female will begin to incubate them. Waiting until a full clutch is laid ensures that the young birds hatch, grow, and fledge together. Most of the other songbirds that nest here are just getting started or are yet to return. New songs fill the blossoming woods and fields each day – what a lovely beginning for the new season. Tips & Techniques- When painting… Read More
Lasting Construction
The Eastern Towhee is a bird of forest edges and shrubby fields where they scratch around on the ground for seeds, fruits, grains, and insects. I see them occasionally foraging under our shrubs and I hear them frequently in spring and summer calling from the brushy field bordering our property. What I’ll never see is their nest in the wild, which is always well concealed on the ground. Hence, I put the towhee on my short list of nests to pull from the shelves when I visited the NYS Museum ornithology collection… Read More
Get Sketching!
It’s that time of year when I’m eager to put pen to paper, but cold, gray days dampen my enthusiasm for going outside. It’s the perfect time for my annual pilgrimage to the Pember Museum of Natural History in Granville, NY. Open just a few hours on Saturdays, I arrive and get to work quickly. There are so many choices amidst the wealth of specimens, but I’m always drawn first to the nests and eggs. From there, I branch out to birds and insects. I focus intently, keep my pen moving, and… Read More
Retreat
The sketches I’m posting today are from my weekend teaching at the Botanical Art & Nature Sketching Retreat at the Ashokan Center in New York’s Catskill Mountains earlier in November. Sixty-eight people from all over the country came for the weekend and it was an incredible convergence of artists. I was honored to teach alongside extraordinary botanical artists Wendy Hollender, Lara Call Gastinger, and GiacoMina Ferrillo, and to be in the company of so many warm, enthusiastic, and supportive people. Given my brother’s deteriorating health, I wasn’t sure whether to go but… Read More
A bit of weaving
Grass and twigs, pine needles and spider webs, plant fibers and lichen, pen and paint. We weave our nests over hours and days, the birds and I. The birds, of course, are the first artists. I’m just picking it up where they left off, in awe of the fine details and beautiful forms they’ve created. Tips and Techniques- Sketched with a Micron 005 sepia pen and painted with combinations of ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, raw sienna, and burnt umber. Nests from the collection of the New York State Museum.
It never gets old
When bird nests are carefully preserved, they can last a long time. The ones you see here were constructed and collected at least 100 years ago. They eventually found their way into the ornithology collection of the New York State Museum in Albany, where they were carefully wrapped with cotton batting, boxed, and stored in metal cabinets. I was thrilled to get a peek inside recently and be allowed to take out several nests to photograph and sketch. I’ll use the photos in upcoming classes and projects, but seeing the real thing… Read More
Renewal
It’s the season of waiting here in New York: waiting for warmth, waiting for blossoms, waiting for green, waiting for birds to return. But it’s the season of renewal, too, as spring unfolds with song, color, and light. I’m celebrating Earth’s turning toward the sun with this tree swallow nest and the promise of eggs and new life. Wishing you the same. I’m excited to be sharing techniques for sketching nests and other nature subjects during Botanical Art & Nature Sketching Retreat. This weekend workshop takes place Nov. 8-11 in New York’s… Read More
Unshelved
Most museums have far more of their collections tucked away behind the scenes than on display. Used primarily for research—or often just sitting in temperature-controlled storage—the public rarely gets a look. But as luck would have it, my visit to California coincided with an exhibition called Unshelved at the San Diego Natural History Museum (The Nat). On display were birds, mammals, and insect specimens in display cases that harkened to museum displays of yesteryears, before museums decided to shelve specimen cabinets in favor of exhibits that placed species in greater context of… Read More
Drawn In 