Experimenting with Tufted Titmice
My journal proved a good place to experiment this week with tufted titmice, dark backgrounds, and text. These birds often visit my feeders in winter, providing good opportunities for study. I thought I would sketch a few birds in different poses as time allowed, but after painting the bird on the left, I decided to take a different approach. I wanted to add big text and see whether I could get a bird to perch on the letters. It’s a little tricky to substitute letters for branches, but the bird on the… Read More
Winter Birding at Gooseberry
I had to great fortune to visit family in Westport, Massachusetts, over New Years— which gave me the rare opportunity to visit the ocean in winter. On two consecutive mornings, I headed for Gooseberry Neck Island, a small spit of land jutting out into Buzzards Bay. Wind roiled waves crashed over the jetty at high tide, sending a spray of surf over the road. Fooled by the low arc of winter light brightening the day, I left the protection of the car to scope the beach for shorebirds. Gulls and sandpipers foraged… Read More
Ode to Joy
I have many fond memories of sledding as a kid: steep hills, thrilling descents, and inevitable wipeouts were all part of the fun. Sledding is great, in large part, because it packs so much emotion: anticipation, fear, exhilaration, wild abandon. I felt especially challenged to capture some of that experience in this small painting, which I did as part of a Christmas book commissioned by my cousin for his daughter. Sledding is one of the things they like to do together– so although I don’t typically paint people or snow, I resolved… Read More
In the Bleak Midwinter
I finally cut down the last of my baptisia pods, which were attractive in the fall, but had become bent over and forlorn since the last snow. Still, I liked the shape of this stem and decided that a stark portrait might be fitting for the first day of winter. Christina Rosetti penned In the Bleak Midwinter as a Christmas poem in England sometime prior to 1872. The entire poem was later set to music and published as a Christmas carol in 1906. The script is based on Italics from the Treatise… Read More
Jean Mackay
The Nature Explorer’s Sketchbook
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