Keeping My Hand in the Game

This will be a quick post before heading off to work. I've been getting in the habit of doing some art work most mornings and I'd like to continue. However I rarely have time to drive somewhere and work from life so most of my work is based on photos that I've taken.

I use a Strathmore Field Sketchbook for many of my watercolors. It includes interleaved lightweight sheets of drawing paper and heavier watercolor paper. I use the first to map out the composition as above.



Then I use the second to do the actual watercolor. Hopefully the sketch on the watercolor paper includes something that I've learned from the first sketch. In this case this is my second version of a painting from this photo or one similar. The first was an abysmal failure. One problem is foreshortening. I'm looking up at the flycatcher. The second, and this is a problem with photos, is that the tail doesn't seem centered under the torso. It's off to the left. If I were drawing from life I'd know whether this was correct or not. But here I'm left with the evidence from the photo. I know that it's highly unlikely that the tail really was off center. But it could have appeared off center. Most likely it did, though I don't know how. In any case this first version of the new watercolor remains fairly true to the photo.

A bigger problem will probably be the background. I've roughly sketched in what I'd like to do in the first sketch. Only time will tell if I'm able to accomplish it in the actual watercolor.

Thrush Extravaganza

I have to say that I really wanted to title this 'Hydraulic Thrush.' I hope that knowledgeable birders would know what I meant -- the Hermit Thrush. It has a way of raising its tail then lowering ever so slowly, like a pneumatic door closer.

That was my plan. We'd seen numerous migrating Hermit Thrush this weekend at both Militia Hill at Fort Washington State Park on Saturday and at Carpenter's Woods in Philadelphia on Sunday. At least two at each place. I took a lot of photos at Militia Hill. I did a preliminary sketch (at top) this afternoon thinking I'd use it to familiarize myself with them before starting a larger watercolor. But I didn't really have that much time today so decided to do a quick watercolor sketch (above) rather than start a new larger watercolor.

The rest of the post was then supposed to go on about how interesting Hermit Thrushes were in the way that they slowly lowered their tail.


But then reality butted in. There in our small, urban backyard was our first ever spring Hermit Thrush. In fact he's back again right now and I'll need to cut this post short. When thrushes come to visit, you shouldn't ignore them.

Addendum: the Hermit Thrush stuck around last night. I was busy grilling outside until it got dark and every once in a while I'd inadvertently surprise him and scare him into the next yard.

I've been reading both the PA Audubon birding list and ebird for Philadelphia and it's obvious that a lot of Hermit Thrushes have moved through recently. We tend to notice large scale migration when we vacation at places like Cape May, NJ. But it's all the more amazing when you see it right in the city you live in, in the 'normal world' rather the exotic birding vacation world. I think this is one of the most striking aspects of spring: the rhythms of nature on indisputable display.