King Tide
While visiting southern California last month we took time to explore the tide pools at Cabrillo National Monument. This is one of the best protected rocky intertidal areas in California and our timing was perfect. Sun, moon, and Earth aligned during our visit to create a King Tide, a twice-yearly occurrence in which the low tide is nearly two feet lower than normal. This exposes far more of the rocky shore and reveals a greater diversity of the fascinating creatures that live at the edge of the sea. Tips and Techniques– I… Read More
It’s Complicated
Consider the brittle star – a simple marine creature comprised of a central disk with five arms extending outward to gather bits of food. Now multiply each arm by two, and two again, and again, and again…and you have a magnificent basket star. I saw this one, Gorgoncephalus eucnemis, on my recent visit to Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s Benthic Invertebrate Collection in La Jolla, California, and I was entranced. These creatures live in deeper ocean waters so, unless I take up scuba diving, I will never see one alive. I think it… Read More
A Collection of Feeder Birds
If you feed birds in the winter, you know that watching what comes and goes can brighten your day and connect you with what’s happening outside from the comfort of your windows. We have a great variety of birds year-round and I like to keep a record of what shows up each season. Among my favorites is a pair of red-bellied woodpeckers whose heads glow flaming red when the sun shines. I was glad to give this bird the spotlight on this illustrated list and let him steal the show in my… Read More
Anatomy of a Shell
How many of us have picked up shells on beaches, turning over a smooth and perfect whorl, or marveling at the pearly shine inside a clam or mussel? We owe our fascination, of course, to the mollusks that created and lived out their lives in these structures, and then left them behind for the sea to recycle or someone to find. I hadn’t really thought much about the anatomy of shells before, but it’s time I learned. This page illustrates some of the major features of both bivalve and gastropod shells, along… Read More
From Bulb to Bloom
I’ve enjoyed watching my amaryllis over the last month as it shot up out of the bulb, grew taller each week, and finally exploded in colorful blooms. I drew it each week and ran out of room on this page just as the blossoms emerged. When I tried painting the flowers on a new page, I found I couldn’t do them justice in the confines of my sketchbook. So, I started again, this time on a 12×16 sheet of hot press watercolor paper, and that did the trick. Tips and Techniques-… Read More
Simply Complicated
It was a banner year for the White Pine tree in our yard. Laden with green cones at the uppermost branches throughout the summer, the tree rained down pinecones throughout the fall. I decided to collect a basketful before winter, thinking I might find them useful as holiday décor. They did, indeed, look nice in an old metal basket on our back porch, but the more I looked at them, the more I wanted to draw them. The simplicity of this sketch belies how very challenging that was to do. My plan… Read More
Incredulous
The colors and patterns that adorn the bodies and wings of beetles, moths, and dragonflies are nothing short of astonishing. My reaction to seeing them is like hearing an incredulous story: you can’t make this stuff up. And, in fact, you don’t need to…all you need to do is look. Tips and Techniques– When painting insects I start with the lightest “ground” color(s) on the body or wings. Sometimes the base layer is best created with a wet-in-wet wash of one or more colors that merge right on the paper. Once dry,… Read More
Passing on a Sense of Wonder
“What Bird Is That? A Pocket Museum of the Land Birds of the Eastern United Stated Arranged According to Season” by Frank M. Chapman, published in 1941, sits on my bookshelf next to several other old field guides. This guide is special not only because of its lively descriptions of birds, but also because it previously belonged to my mother-in-law, Alice, who I never knew. The book makes me think about the ties that connect us to generations past and future. Chapman, as curator of ornithology at the American Museum of Natural… Read More
Juncos Return
When the Dark-eyes Juncos return each year it’s a sure sign that fall is waning into winter. A small flock arrives like clockwork when the oak and beech leaves are the only ones still hanging on. Their white tail feathers give them away as they flash across the road and dart into the brush. I welcome them with mixed feelings—I hate to see October go, but I’m glad to watch them all winter, small black bodies puffed up against new snow or hopping out from under the porch on cold mornings. They’ll… Read More
Drawn In 