Monday, February 27, 2012

Progress with Birds and Watercolor





I've shown a lot of work at the Manayunk-Roxborough Art Center over the last six months. Each month members have one wall on which they can show so there's always the opportunity to show at least one work. I've shown so much bird art recently that I debated doing a new watercolor based on landscape, or perhaps a dragonfly or butterfly.

As I looked through my landscape photos I came across one of the beautiful salt marshes surrounding Nummy Island near Cape May in New Jersey. That reminded me that one of my very first bird watercolors, and certainly the fist one that I thought even marginally successful, was based on three shorebirds at Nummy Island. That prompted me to do a new version of it.

The new version, on 9x12 inch Arches 300# cold press watercolor paper, is a top. The little 5x7 or so watercolor from five or six years ago is beneath it.

The new watercolor is quite different and shows, I hope, that I've learned a little bit about watercolor over that time. But the poses are still pretty much the same. I liked those poses sic years ago and I still like them now. But they seem best small and simplified, an accent in a beautiful landscape.

By the way the next show at MRAC opens this Sunday. Unless I ruin it this watercolor will be on the member's wall. (Well I didn't ruin the watercolor but it's not hanging nonetheless. A mistake at gallery caused it not to be hung. It will go onto my online store instead).

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