Cabin Weekend

Not only have I been away from this blog, I have been away. This past weekend was the one where I spend time at a friend's family cabin. This year, there were 14 of us. It's always one of my favorite weekends of the entire year.

While I spent a lot of time with my spouse and friends, I also spent a significant amount of time with the hummingbirds. In fact, I went a little crazy photographing them.

I experimented with using a tripod and also just holding the camera. I took pictures from inside and outside. This one was without any zoom, so it shows the distance when I was shooting from the inside. The feeder is barely visible. I wasn't much closer when I was outside, since I didn't want to spook them.

I probably took 175 pictures of just the hummingbirds. Hurrah for digital cameras! Many of the pictures were blurry or were of an empty feeder. While I love my camera, it is not the best for taking sharp photos of fast-moving objects.

Cropping is the only change I did to any of the pictures in this post. This one is my absolute favorite. I'll call him Hamlet (to drink or not to drink - - that is the question).

Here are some other seated hummingbird pictures.

When I was outside, it became a game to try and see where the hummingbird(s) would perch before they approached the feeder. I tried to get a good picture of one of the perches, but it was too hard.

Still, I like the difference in the expression in these two pictures. There was a branch/stick that they perched on (until I figured this out and they started perching elsewhere). The background is a tent, since the cabin could not quite fit 14 people. I didn't crop these, so they are at full zoom.

After they stopped perching on the stick, I noticed that they would perch on the power line. While this is not a great photo, it shows just how small they are. The power line looks like some humongous cable, when it's just a power line.

I also saw some skirmishes where one hummingbird would chase off others.

Last, but certainly not least in the hummingbird department, I got some good in-flight pictures. Finally, since I was not successful the previous two years. It turns out all I needed to do was spend oodles and oodles of time obsessively devoted to picture-taking. This was the first decent one.

After that, my luck seemed to increase and I got some others.

I did get some other wildlife pictures. There was a nesting pair of osprey. This year's offspring either fell out of the nest or had recently fledged. On the second to last day we were there, the offspring were on the ground. There were three of them.  The next day, we only saw two of them and they still weren't flying. Plus, it had rained. There were also several dead fish, which the parents must have brought. The parents were either hanging out on the nearby telephone poles or they were flying around. When they were in flight, they were joined by other osprey, since we saw up to 5 adult-sized birds flying.

Here is one of the youth on the ground. I like the different greens and textures in the foreground and background.

Here is the best soaring picture - - another very hard picture to take with my camera (since I'm also not great at tracking over distance).

On the last day right before we left, my spouse and I went down to the dock to say "goodbye" to the lake. We were rewarded. It was windy so the lake had waves. Still, we saw mom and 6 babies straight out from the dock. They aren't loons, but I am not sure what they are. Our friend thought maybe red-necked grebes. I looked up a picture and I'm not sure.

Now that I'm home, I was thinking about hanging up a hummingbird feeder, here. I might. I might not. I'm a little afraid that if I do, I won't get anything done around the house or gardens ever, other than trying to take more hummingbird pictures.

By the way if any of my friends are interested in painting from any of these, please do! I am going to, after I do a few practice paintings of cats or something more familiar.

Levitating Cat

This ends a very, very long break from my blog. Wow.  Habits are easy to keep when you keep them going and hard to start back up when you don't.  My hiatus started right before I left on vacation (juggling convention in Fort Wayne IN with a stop in Milwaukee for several days before the convention started - - thanks for asking).  Since returning, I have not been good about carving out time to draw and paint (or blog) for various reasons.  The most recent excuse is a delicious one.  The black raspberries in my yard are blessing me with abundance.  I'm spending around 30 - 45 minutes each day harvesting.  Most of them are going into the freezer to enjoy throughout the rest of the year.

The first day back from vacation was for laundry and other type of re-entry-related tasks. Plus, I started this painting. It's the second try of one of my last paintings.  I love how this cat's paws just spill over the side of the bunk bed.  There is an ease in how cats use their bodies which fascinates me.  Maybe, I should take some pictures that aren't so focused on the face, but rather the cat's overall pose, and try to paint from those.  It would be a good excuse to work in a more rectangular format and to try to build volume and shapes with paint.

I like the start and, in truth, am afraid of messing it up.  Silly, I know.  It's just on paper.  I can (and will) always paint another one.  I will finish this soon.  Until that point, meet the levitating cat.  I left more black gesso peeking through the body of the cat, but in truth, it could use even more.

Two nights ago, just to pick up a paint brush, I spent several minutes and painted two color wheels. For one I used the greener shade of blue.  In the other, I used the redder shade of blue. I only used one layer of color and am pleased with the coverage/opaqueness in the yellows, oranges, and reds.

Self Conscious

I've been feeling a little self-conscious and I've also busy. When I get out of the habit of posting to this blog, drawing, or painting, it can be hard to pick it back up. To get the habit back, this is a "just do it" post.

My hubby got a new bike last week.  It's a step-through bike.We don't have a secure place in the garage, yet, so it's in the living room. Here is a very quick sketch from last week. I wasn't warmed up. I didn't measure. I didn't plan. I just started with the seat and went from there. It might sound like I'm making excuses. I'm not. It was fun to have no expectations. It was interesting making decisions about what to include and what to skip.

I've passed on posting a few things, which is a bad thing to do. That starts me down the self-conscious path. Here are two timed pear paintings. Last week at the co-op, I saw an adorable red bartlett pear. The other timed paintings were limes and I lost my ability to make round objects have depth and volume, so those aren't presented.

#341 - Timed Pear Paintings - 4" x 8" - paper

In the spirit of painting from life, I also did another, non-timed, pear painting. I reached a stopping point on this one and didn't stop. The light bounced back up on the pear on this one and I was pleased that I really saw it and saw that it was a cool, blue-lavender color.

#342 - Co-op Pear - 6" x 6"

Last week, I also had fun drawing a peony flower that I placed in my little vase. I didn't have the patience or time to do the entire flower, since there is a lot of detail! Instead, I really enjoyed doing the outline and adding some of the inside shapes for volume.  It was almost hypnotizing looking and drawing the shapes of  the larger outside petals. Here's my favorite. The vase is wonky, but  the flower reads to me.

My Eyes

As much as I grouse about how poorly I see, I am feeling vastly superior to my camera phone this morning. I have been working on drawing a single iris flower last night and this morning. I remembered a small, handmade vase I can use to prop up a single large flower or several smaller flowers. Mostly, I just enjoy flowers out in my yard, due to El Destructo 1 (Chandler) and El Destructo 2 (Hammett).

The bearded irises in my yard are past their peak. I thought I would try to paint them this year, but was too busy cleaning up the gardens, an ongoing project. Rather than completely missing the opportunity, I brought one in last night to draw. I also drew it this morning before I started to work from home.

My camera phone simply cannot capture the depth and richness of the color. I tried with several different backgrounds in the house. Earlier in the week, I also have tried taking pictures of them in the yard at different times of the day. These irises are that deep, rich purple, which is a true purple but is more closely related to cobalt blue than the camera can pick up. Cobalt blue seems like it would be a third cousin to the color in the picture, but in life it's more of a first cousin. The phone sees the color with too much red in it. Also what I see in life, the form and structure of the flower has so much more depth, volume, and beauty than the camera captures.

Here's the best, quick picture I could take.

While my drawings were not blind contour, I consciously tried to look much, much more at the flower than at my paper. This flower made for very good practice, since there are a lot of edges which curl back onto themselves. I find this to be a particular challenge to process and draw correctly. This morning, I also tried to draw smaller. All of these fit onto a 10" x 10" page. Last night, I did a similar number of drawings, but used 3 sheets to do it. For me, it's not so much about burning through paper. I would like to have more control and I feel like I drawing from life in one size, large. I'd like to add medium to the mix.

Last night's and this morning's drawings felt really good. I got out of the word processing side of my brain. It also gave me a boost of self confidence, since my painting has currently plateaued and even taking a step backwards. Yesterday with two timed paintings of a lime, I could not get the lime, a spherical object, to have depth and volume to it.

Wow, Wow, Wow

It’s like the universe said “you, you need the information in this video”. I’ve watched some of Alphonso Dunn’s videos in the past and I think I need to watch more. In this particular video (and the one which precedes it), there was a lot which clicked. The breaking things down and seeing applies to all of it. The directional stuff seems like it would help with paint strokes.

By the way, part of my current non-focus has involved mindlessly scrolling through Facebook. I’m not sure why I am wasting time this way, but it’s sure easy to burn up time once you start! While I ate lunch today, I checked out part 1 and 2 of the drawing fur videos. If I am going to spend time looking at a screen, this is a much better use of time!

Small Victory (Very Small)

Focus. Discipline. What’s that? It certainly has disappeared in my art practice. It’s early June. The weather is gorgeous and I have about 1,000 things I would like to do. My painting has been spotty, which is a problem. It’s too easy to start to make excuses and skip days when the habit wanes. It also is an open invitation to the internal critic. On the drawing front, it's a little better. I am sketching at home in little pockets of time here and here.

Meet my favorite model. While I adore my other two cats, if I find myself wanting to pick up a pen, it’s almost always because of Hammett. There has always been an ease about him in the way he moves, sleeps, and poses.

This morning he was bathing on top of a small perch, so there was a lot of movement. I tend to freeze up or go for too much details or in truth not even try to draw in this type of situation. Instead of getting all hung up on what I don't know how to do, I spent 10 minutes just trying to capture part of the cat or the feel of a quick pose without worrying about accuracy, detail, or any of that. That felt like a small victory. This is the one I liked best. Since I drew on the back of the page, ignore the lines which show through.

New Background

My most recent painting did not turn out. Instead, here's my last one with a new background. I also played around with some of the details.

Yesterday, I also practiced making brush strokes just for the heck of it. There's nothing to see from that, but it was a lot of fun.