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Wings Over Winecountry, Colleen's place (2 Viewers)

thanks Russ, always say I have to make up with discipline what I lack in innate talent. When I was learning to ski, it took me forever to learn,( I snowplowed down the then steepest slope in Colorado, legs locked in sheer terror, if fell I'd have fallen all the way to the bottom) but in the end I was a ski instructor, and a good one, I knew all the ins and outs of how to get thereB :)

Still slugging it out with the avos...this is the mating I saw, She stayed stock still her neck all stretched out and He preened and fussed and fussed and preened and splashed water all over including her. She just stayed still and blinked the water out of her eyes til he finally leaped up and one half sec was done...hope this is not x-rated. I used the new Aqua pencil but it got sort of heavy handed here. It's really best for small accents added to the real pencil....
at least records the moment.
 

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Precisely the same behavior as I was watching from ours here Colleen. I almost get the impression that the female wants the male to get on with it and he just can't resist one more preen or splash, it's not as if she's playing hard to get by that stage is it! The mating is followed by a short parallel run before the pair separate.

The two sleepers here are superb I recognise all the same shapes and curves as the European 'version'.

Mike
 
superb stuff here - you've gone all the way to using your sketches to describe a narrative - wonderfully observed. The freedom of watercolour in the sleeping birds is a joy to behold.
 
nickderry said:
superb stuff here - you've gone all the way to using your sketches to describe a narrative - wonderfully observed. The freedom of watercolour in the sleeping birds is a joy to behold.
Click to expand...

Exactly my thought about the freedom of the watercolor. There's also a nice sense of light in the leftmost bird in particular.
 
I find the remarks about the wc very strange I thought it way too tentative and washy, but what do I know:-O

I did get my new brushes today from Rosemary and Co, in the UK, even with shipping( which is cheaper than UPS) and converting, they are less than series 7 WN and wow, they are fantastic, really springy hold a fine point , big fat bellies....seem like they have more hair than the WN...such a wonder to use...Can really highly recommend them, I have the series 33 kolinsky,( and got the 441 half rigger for detail) they feel so great to paint with, so my wc should improve....http://www.rosemaryandco.com/pure-kolinsky-sable-c-77.html

Finally the avo heads are coming out right, see the last one on this page...Since the stilts are there too, and are similar I've started on them too. Taking the advice of Jackie and others and doing one kind of bird at a time...but feel I have the avos in basic ways good enough to brach out. Sketches here all done in the field, but painted at home.
 

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Colleen,

Just joined your thread.

Am BLOWN AWAY by your BEAUTIFUL WORK!!!!

I bow to you!!!

Those Avocets are TRULY remarkable! I LOVE your stuff!

AMAZING and LIFE-Affirming!

You are a BRILLIANT ARTIST!

Kudos to you! :t:

phil
 
thanks Ed.

Here is the last set of avo sketches, I can now draw them in the field pretty well, still some issues here and there, but have the jizz down and the basic forms enough to attempt a painting...

wc is still not up to speed, seem to be in a phase now where it looks more like stains than paint, oh well, keep painting and it will evolve, new Rosemary and Co brushes are a joy to use, I need a bigger one, think a size 8 would do it, the 6 is a bit sm for full page
 

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This is the sketch of the painting I've been working towards with all the avocet sketching.

In Jan, I went on a wet and sometimes dry day out to Shollenberger, and after
sketching the shovelers, I noticed a line of avos and stilts all resting, then a little sun came and lit the water, then went away and rain came, but I stayed looking and doing a few scribbles of this amazing sight, mostly they don't hang together much. One image burned into my mind, what I thought was a line of avos had a hidden stilt in it.....I want to try and recreate that discovery, and the nearly abstract shapes of the birds in the most subtle greys I can manage.

I did 2 pages of thumbnails trying to find the comp, some with 7 birds some 6, then down to 3 and finally got this one to work...Sketch is done in the graphtint pencil for birds, with water wash and watercolor background...

I do seem to have a thing for groups lately, don't know why. I will use oil on this. If I had the right pastels it would work in that too. maybe another version.

including a shot of the end of the lake, a seasonal one now totally full of water with none of the land you see here. The line of birds is just beyond the second sand spit. I started with the stilts at the left and ended with avos at the right, and only in that one spot in the center they overlapped. Now of course they are fighting over nesting sites and will have nothing to do with one another.
 

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I much like the discovered stilt in there.

Schollenberger looks some muddy misty lowland Scottish estuary with Pintail and Shoveler - not what I imagined for Californ-i-a at all..
 
yes Ed I've often thought it looks like some of the shots the lads post here, in winter it is rainy and foggy, snow only on higher elevations above 2000' and then only a few times and sunny days sometimes. Right now it's very green like I see some shots of Ireland, but soon it will turn golden as the grass rapidly dries out and the rains stop until next year. The neat thing about Shollenberger is a wide path goes all around the seasonal lake, as it fills the birds can be very close and being used to people walking on the path don't fly away so I can just settle down and draw sometimes without aids. Dogs are all leashed, and a big wide band of weeds and thistle on the banks to keep people from going down to the water, only drawback is some people just want to stop and talk, after verbal abuse from that vegetarian last year I try not to do that.

I have a hard time when the light goes away starting in Dec, and the days are short, I crave the sun, but the misty grey times are really interesting artistically, and influenced by LJ and others, I'm coming around to trying to paint that. I was born in So. Calif and there is a lot more sun down there, and way too many people!


Here is a closer shot of the birds, there were no pintail there at that time, but shovlers, coots, ruddy, pied grebe, and gulls. Later the white pelicans will show up. You can see the line better, stilts in front avos behind, and a place where they blend...I hope to do a soft focus misty dreamy painting, see it in my head, have since that day, now to try and get it out on the canvas
 

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ed keeble said:
I much like the discovered stilt in there.

Schollenberger looks some muddy misty lowland Scottish estuary with Pintail and Shoveler - not what I imagined for Californ-i-a at all..
Click to expand...

'The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco.' - Mark Twain.

This probably struck me more than anything else that I ever read about San Francisco while living there in the 70s, because it's TRUE. Colleen lives quite a bit north of there but I imagine there's some similarity. Southern California I think is what most people think of when they think of California. Northern California, especially along the coast is a bit different. But I defer to Colleen on this. It's been 30 years since I lived there.
 
Right-O Tim...I bow to the king of awful weather:-O Best thing is in spite of the damp etc, it's not cold here, at least not often I seldom need a parka, and can go outside most days easily.....In the winter is fun cause most other people don't go and I have the places to myself. Have to give that up for summer which is more like you all must think of the place, day after day of sun, sometimes for several days in a row it gets over 100 degrees.

I used to live in Lake Tahoe California, several years there we had almost 30 feet of snow, so at least here there is no shoveling
 
Underpainting done, I was going to do a Whistler and call this arrangement in black and grey, but have gone for Odd Man Out..

this is the underpainting looks like I'm going loose on this...I have some new paints, always a lot of fun, so I am using just two complements. Mussini, Verona Green Earth, and Root Madder( a red), adding some Natural Bohemian Earth, and to cool Indigo with Flemish white, a lead flake from Doak. Toned canvas with the Root madder and Nat Bo. Earth, which is giving a warm undertone of yellow and orange. This is not quite the color I thought I'd have, but this is a study so I'm just letting it have its way.

This will dry for a day and I'll try an alla prima for the final overcoat...

10x20 on smooth oil primed linen.
 

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SuperAtmospheric!

Love its diaphanous textures.

And that BW Stilt fails to be an interloper. In composition terms, he is the same, but something other. Which makes the eye continually quiver, and rework the scene..

Brilliant again!
 
...actually, I think I figured it out. Forget the last question. It looks like a beautiful place! What part of N. California is that near? It kind of looks like it could be around Red Bluff or on the way to Clear L. - maybe?
 
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