Trying to make sense of a head pose, drawing from videos. Rusty margined flycatchers have insanely flexible necks, like pretty much any bird. But this is a good illustration of the feature. Pencil on paper, 8″ x 6″

Drawing from videos: very useful if you don’t have live birds in your studio. While painting a pair of rusty-margined flycatchers, I was troubled by a weird head position in the field sketch. What looked okay in the drawing looked bizarre in paint. So I launched a field video and sketched to see what was going on. A passerine’s tucked-up neck is relatively long and flexible. This flycatcher turned to the left and looked at something behind it, then swiveled and looked at the same thing from the other side. A flycatcher needs a circular view. Or, maybe spherical. Looks weird in practice, though. In the end I changed the pose.

Orchid drawing updated with some light pastel in the background and a few highlights. 14″ x 20″ pastel and graphite on Ingres paper.

Drawing and painting are two different art forms, and what’s on my easel lately is mostly painting. Even though I like lines so much, in the painting, outlines tend to squash the illusion of reality.

I added a little pastel to the orchid drawing, around and within the lines. Chalk or conte or white compressed charcoal works. The starting point is a mid-toned paper, like the Ingres above. It’s still a drawing, but the dry media adds light and suggests volume. A tip: when combining pastel and graphite, never go darker in pastel than your darkest graphite value. Dark pastel placed next to dark graphite sets up a struggle between the matte pastel and shiny graphite. The graphite always loses.

Catching a few more head poses of a rusty margined flycatcher, drawn from a video taken on Barro Colorado Island last May. Pencil on paper, 8″ x 6″

Video drawing birds, by the way, is a great tool. Here’s the flycatcher video if you’d like to try. You can see it swivel its head around and hear the engine of STRI’s BCI-Gamboa shuttle boat Jacana at the dock nearby. At the end, you might even catch the sleepy roar of a far-off howler monkey troupe. Normal sounds of Barro Colorado Island, always there in the background.

Happy Friday.

A little festive commemorative ornament just for you: download, print out, cut on the dotted line, and hang up. Cheers!

A few last minute gift ideas for you or the lucky bird artists in your life:

Clockwise from upper left: The Laws Guide to Drawing Birds, Drawing and Painting Birds, Capturing the Essence

The Laws Guide to Drawing Birds, by John Muir Laws, Heyday Press, covers so much ground so comprehensively that the next time I teach a bird drawing course, this will surely be the textbook. Proportions, angles, anatomy and birds in motion (there’s a cute orange-and-toothpick visualizing exercise you can do at home) are explained with abundant, beautiful illustrations. Laws is a great instructor and motivator, and this is my new go-to book when I’m stumped on eye-shape of a foreshortened flycatcher or the secret tricks of wing-drawing. Highly recommended.

Capturing the Essence, by William T. Cooper, Yale University Press. Cooper is the king of parrot painting, and if you haven’t seen his Parrots of the World or more recent  Australian Parrots, those would make splendid gifts, too. Capturing the Essence goes into anatomy and field sketching, and Cooper describes design process through thumbnail sketch compositions and good step-by-step painting demos of birds in watercolor, acrylic, and oils. Huge plus: we get loads of gorgeous sketches and paintings of Old World/Down Under species: bowerbirds, hornbills and birds-of-paradise. Admire and study this wondrous book.

Drawing and Painting Birds by Tim Wootton, The Crowood Press. A terrific blend of practical instruction and inspirational work by Wootton and other fine bird artists (disclaimer: I’m on pages 15, 24, 73, 83, and 121). Lots and lots of field sketches to ogle at; cool skeleton drawings reveal the internal scaffolds of various avian body types. There’s a super-helpful articulated gull model to copy, cut-out, assemble and draw from (and freak out the cat with). Demos and discussions of field sketching techniques, how to add color in the field and compose a painting, plus a slew of exercises to warm up your hand and eye prior to sketching real live birds. Awesome book.

Other than peering at a quetzal through new binoculars while wearing hand-tooled cowboy boots, I can’t think of a nicer way to spend the holidays than curling up with one of these volumes, unless you throw in a mug of cocoa and plate of cookies, which I will gladly catch.

Happy Friday.

Happy Holidays from Gizmo, Ant Man (the photographer) and the Motmot. Cheers to all!

Vanda orchid and Jamba fruit dove embroiled in a festive color scuffle. Acrylic over graphite on cradled wood panel, 18″ x 24″.

Does anyone remember the seductive purple Vanda orchid that won my heart at OKC’s famous Myriad Botanical Garden a few months back? I paired her with a jambu fruit dove (Ptilinopus jambu) from the Oklahoma City Zoo’s aviary.

Jambu fruit dove, sketched at the OKC Zoo. Graphite, 8 1/2″ x 11″.

Another irresistible lure came in the form of a tube of interference violet acrylic. Call it too much of a long cold winter, call it low blood sugar, call it a screaming need for eye-candy. Yes, I did it, and I’m not sorry.

Looks unassuming and straightforward from the front? Take a step to the right.

My next painting will be on black velvet.

Happy Sunday.

Roseate spoonbills preening and moving nesting material around; High Island’s Smith Woods rookery, Bolivar Peninsula, Texas. Watercolor over pencil, drawn through a teeny Nikon field scope to the great amusement of the Guys with the Big Lenses. 8 1/2″ x 11, Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook.

There’s a species of birder that birds through the long lens of a high-caliber camera. These birders are usually male, although more women join the band every year. I call them the Big Lens Guys. They appear to be an army unit clothed in camo and khaki and multi-pocketed vests. As a rule, they are strong and silent, patient and intense. When a warbler alights, bazooka lenses swing to aim, focus, and fire off motorized clips of imagery. It sounds (and looks) like a battlefront. It’s awesome.

The Big Lens Guys on warbler watch. Artificial water features are staged to attract birds, and roped off to hold back the paparazzi. Ant Man, far right, expertly birdwatches and drinks coffee in one smooth motion. Lafitte’s Cove Nature Preserve, Galveston Island, TX.

A pair of artificial water features were in operation at Lafitte’s Cove Nature Preserve, a jungly copse of hardwood and vine on Galveston Island. A weary songbird making landfall after crossing the broad Gulf of Mexico would spot this patch of greenery and come in for a drink, lured by splashing water. In migration, anything feathered can drop down and birders will be right there to catch them. Blue winged warblers, Baltimore orioles, painted and indigo buntings, rose-breasted grosbeaks, waves of Tennessees. One day I stopped by and a McGillivray’s warbler did, too.

Common nighthawk on a post near condo towers, Galveston Island. Pencil, 8″ x 10″

Here’s where the story gets a little dark. Of the two water features, one was under intense scrutiny, while the other feature, tucked away in deeper vegetation, was oddly devoid of birders. When things got quiet at Feature #1, I walked over to #2, a short distance away.

Tricolored heron studies, watercolor over pencil, Stillman & Birn Alpha Series 8 1/2″ x 11″. Fishing for teeny minnows in a Bolivar inlet on an incoming tide.

Where I saw something small and misshapen twisting in the gloom. Raising binoculars, I peered into the shadows.

In the pool, a water moccasin takes a warbler. Watercolor over pencil, Stillman & Birn Alpha Series, 8 1/2″ x 11″

A water moccasin of enormous size was gulping down a warbler. From the head and upper body of the bird, I could tell it was a female black and white. I was about to sketch the drama, but first I hurried back to relay the news (common courtesy, I guess). The Big Lens Guys uprooted and made a beeline for the second feature. With their long lenses and tripod legs they erected a barrier that shut me out as they fired off their cannons. As I struggled to see, a nice birder got indignant on my behalf (bless you, whoever you are) and pushed me to the front of the crowd, where I sat on the ground cross-legged and drew. The snake worked its jaws around the struggling warbler as photographic pandemonium exploded behind me. One Big Lens Guy even balanced his lens on my head. For a brief moment the water moccasin wore the suggestion of a mustache, gray primaries being the last to go down the throat. Then they, too, disappeared, and the snake slid backward into the mire.

White ibis and dunlin, Galveston East End marsh. Watercolor over pencil.

On our last night in Galveston, Ant Man and I ate dinner by the beach and took a long sunset walk on the darkening sand. Exhausted birds shot past us across the curling waves of the Gulf, flying low and tired. Warblers and buntings and grosbeaks, they skimmed the beach, rose up at the seawall, and disappeared into the night.

Back home again, I rigged up my own artificial dripper out of black tubing wrapped around the branches of our holly tree and attached to the faucet outside. Water dribbles into the bird bath below. Birds come from blocks around to splash in the little concrete basin. And there’s nary a snake in sight.

Happy Tuesday.

The Royal Swans at the Kastellet, which isn’t Danish for “small castle”, but translates to The Citadel. From the air it looks like a star. A moat around it hosts a family of mute swans; these are the morning’s sketches of the two parents and their 5 cygnets, born this spring. Pencil in Moleskine sketchbook, photographed with an iPhone. Sorry, no scanner.

I haven’t run up much of a bird list here in Copenhagen. The city habitat is a little heavy on stone and masonry, so whatever lives around here must love rooftops and manicured parks. That narrows the list to pigeons (rock and wood, how appropriate), corvids (hooded crows, jackdaws and magpies), and a few gulls (common black-headed, herring, great black-backed) around the wharf. This week we’ve been busy with official business: finding fruit stands and cheesemongers, learning how to navigate cobbled streets and shampoo-purchasing, filling out forms. Birds create a playful diversion. Living in the attic apartment, we can stick our heads out of the roof windows, and sometimes, birds whoosh past at nearly arm’s length.

Wood pigeon on the chimney, swifts (Apus apus) high above. It’s the view from the writing desk where I’m sitting at the moment. Pencil in Moleskine sketchbook. Those are my fingers at the bottom of the page, holding the pages open.

Below us, Nyhavn (New Harbor) is awhirl with crowds of diners and drinkers clinking glasses at little tables. A strolling accordionist squeezes “Moon River” and “A Time For Us” while herring gulls and magpies lunge at dropped smorrebrod. Today I watched an unleashed chihuahua bury a bone under a tree in a city park as a hooded crow stood by. When the dog’s back was turned, the crow snagged the prize from the dirt and flew away. They are adaptable, those birds, those that can adapt.

Jackdaw, a garrulous, pigeon-sized corvid with charisma. This one seems to be amused by the Nyhavn tourists below. Sketched from, maybe, six feet away, with my head stuck out the window. Pencil in Moleskine sketchbook, 5″ x 8″

As long as we’re in the city, I’ll be looking at the vast possibilities of other things, too: bicycle traffic flow patterns and rider fashions, sketching gruesome statues and 19th century tall ships, people on the street. The birds of Copenhagen, however, squeeze into the human ecosystem with not a lot of room to spare. They breed in castle moats and shaved yew hedges; their wings sweep green spires and chimney tops. And that’s where you’ll find me: sticking my head up above the roof tiles, watching the jackdaws play.

Happy Friday.

Wonderful Copenhagen: the evening light on candy-colored houses, taken from the window of our little Nyhavn apartment.

A great crested grebe, sketched on Sortedam So, one of the concrete lakes at the edge of Copenhagen’s City Center. The facing page is a sketch of the canal around Christianborg Castle, where a swimming race was underway. The copper-roofed building behind the bridge is the Old Stock Exchange, built in 1619. Watercolor over pencil, 5 x 8 Moleskine.

This is a special weekend- Birds In Art is currently underway at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin. My great friend (and great human being), Barry Van Dusen, is being honored as this year’s Master Artist. A brilliant choice, more than richly deserved. I’m guessing that at this very moment he’s on the podium, gold medallion on silk ribbon around his neck, giving a stirring speech. Also at this moment: a black carriage drawn by a blond-maned draft horse is trotting an elegantly-dressed group to a restaurant down the street, and an accordion player  is squeezing out “Fernando’s Hideaway” alongside the canal. Nothing whatever to do with Birds in Art, but a little detail never hurts.

Congratulations, Barry!

Barry Van Dusen scope draws shorebirds in a Connecticut marsh, as fellow bird artist Mike DiGiorgio does the same.

Sketching with him has always been among my most priceless experiences. He can brush the richest watercolors into autumn marsh scenes, patiently draw shorebirds through a scope on windy coasts, and sit comfortably cross-legged in leaf litter, painting early-blooming hepaticas. And make it look easy as breathing. To Barry, I owe much. 

In honor of today’s ceremony: a few bird sketches, a little landscape, and one random photo from Copenhagen. Wish I could be in Wisconsin. For a few moments, anyway.

Happy Friday.

Who can ever get enough swans, and what’s a castle moat without them? Mute Swans, Copenhagen. Watercolor over pencil, Moleskine 5 x8.

Common black-headed gulls, Copenhagen harbor, watercolor over pencil, Stillman & Birn sketchbook, 8 1/2″ x 11″.

Purple-blooming heather on the moors of Northern Zealand, Denmark.

Copenhagen street scene, with bicycles.

Candy store, art store, what’s the difference? Shopping for color in Copenhagen.

The sky is turning citrus-orange behind the pinned stack of royal crowns (actually, the Danish Royal Parliament’s bronze spire) jutting above the tiled roofs, and the accordion player downstairs is squeezing out “Fernando’s Hideaway” for the 15th time today, but I’m basking in the glow of yet another good find- a great Danish art supply store. I’m sure I’ve walked by it more than once- it’s right across the street from my favorite fruit stand. But I only just noticed it today, adding fuel to my suspicion that Denmark is a magical city, with beautiful shops that appear and disappear at will. Same goes for its winding streets, charming cobbly town squares and perfect one-table sidewalk cafes, found one day and lost the next. I tried to lead poor, patient Antman to some newly spotted fabulous thingy, but we walked in circles, landing every time at the twisted serpents of the old Stock Exchange building. The thingy, whatever it was, it had evaporated like the Danish mist.

More color on the streets of Copenhagen. Not a Schwinn, but possibly some sort of spell.

So here’s a question: would you rather have a collection of fine pastels, cool tubes of oils, nickel-plated brush washers, colored pencils, long-stemmed brushes, or….a box of chocolates? That’s a tough call when you’re addicted to both. But doesn’t an art supply store ignite a creative flame that chocolate can’t subdue? Perhaps chocolate with a Sennelier oil bar on the side could….no, wait. You could start a bonfire with that combination. Or maybe a bon-bon fire.

Sorry.

Pied wagtails and Reed bunting, I think. New bird on me. Sketched at Nivå Bugt Meadows north of Copenhagen. On the reedy, marshy side of the refuge. Mechanical pencil on Stillman & Birn Alpha Series 8 1/2″ x 11″ sketchbook.

Tomorrow I’m joining a group from the Dansk Ornitologisk Forening (the Danish Ornithological Society) for more adventures in birding. This time at Køge, a stretch of coastline south of Copenhagen. Birds are moving south. The flats of Køge should catch a few good shorebirds, as did the flats of Nivå yesterday. There was magic there, and art supplies, but no chocolate. I only hope to find the way back there again, someday.

Happy Friday.

Lapwings and Oystercatchers at the marshes north of Køge, Denmark. The lapwings hung out in the inland lagoons and the oystercatchers socialized in the kelp and surf on the other side of a single grassy sand dune, which shows you how compact a niche can be. Køge is pronounced, “kooweh”, sort of. My Danish neighbor is trying to teach me Danish pronunciation, and when Danish tones are attempted by American lips, hilarity ensues. Watercolor and pencil on Stillman & Birn 8 1/2″ x 11″ Alpha Series. Drawn through the scope.

There’s this wonderful long barrier island along Køge Bay, south of Copenhagen, a bird sanctuary called Olsemagle Revle, with marshes and beautiful white sand beaches that go on for miles. I’ve gone there twice now, once with the Danish Ornithological Society  and once alone. That would be today. The S-Train (“S-Tog”) goes right near it, and you can take your bike on board for free, get off at Olby Station and ride to the marsh, about 2.5 km.

I swear I’m going to post a tutorial on how to physically get your bike on the Copenhagen S-Train. It’s a great service, goes everywhere, works wonderfully, but if you don’t know the ins and outs, and if you’re anything like me, you’re going to screw it up. This is my bike on the S-Train. I’m sitting next to it, making sure it doesn’t fall over, even though it’s securely engaged with the rear-tire clamp rack. The first time I used it, my bike fell on the expensive roadster next to it, earning me an unhappy look from its owner. I love the S-Train, but it’s a learning curve.

At Olsemagle there are scads of swans, buckets of barnacle geese, a glut of golden plovers, and plenty of graylag geese to go around. Also, today, naked men. In Denmark, sunshine + beach = nudists, but I admit getting caught by surprise. Two guys on the dune, who, from a distance, seemed to be dressed in long pink t-shirts, were simply displaying their sunburns. One nude man walked up to me as I trudged across the sand, scope over my shoulder, and tried to entice me into joining him for a swim. Though the Danish was incomprehensible, the body language was unmistakeable. I thanked him and hurried along, eyes forward.

Barnacle geese at the marsh. Their white faces in black necks makes them look like sock monkeys. Beautiful geese. Not the most common in the marsh, but the most vivid. The greylag next to them- that’s the most common. Pencil in Robert Bateman 8 1/2″ x 11 sketchbook.

Fabulous day, beautiful marsh, lots of sunshine, plenty of exciting encounters all around. See below for one more.

Happy Friday.

A flock of gentle sheep helps keep down invasive beach roses. Which reminds me to shop around for a warm sweater before winter sets in.

A snippet of a sketchbook page; avian activity at the Botanical Garden, a.k.a. Botanisk Have. “Have”, pronounced, “ha-va”, is the Danish word for garden, and might be the root of the English word, “haven”, which it certainly is. Pencil with spots of watercolor on Stillman & Birn Alpha Series.

Step through the gates of the Copenhagen Botanical Garden and the city vanishes; it’s quiet, serene. A great collection of plants from around the world; a green hulk that looked like a woolly mammoth garbed in lace cap flowers was Hydrangea aspera ssp. sargentiana. The Garden is now in autumn glory: grasses and flowers and foliage frosted with soft yellows and delicious reds with berries on top of everything. Hawthorns and Sorbus are in fine fruit, attracting birds. A wren reeled off  sibilants and long, liquid warbles while European robins fluttered and plucked at harlequin glorybower’s purple beads. Moorhens tottered out of the pond to pick at the grass on the bank- who knows what they were eating there- along with magpies and wood pigeons, fattening up on chestnuts and fallen crab apples. And then, there’s the architecture.

The Copenhagen Botanical Garden’s Palm House, built 1874. Purest, most glorious Victoriana.

Cormorant, preening, above quietly reflective lapwings at Nivå Marsh. Pencil on Stillman & Birn Alpha Series.

Not a big day for drawing, but a splendid one nonetheless. The agenda included smorrebrød with biologists and a visit with ornithologist/mind-bendingly fine bird artist Jon Fjeldså at the University of Copenhagen. A seven mile walk was taken with a stop at Assistens Cemetary for a moment of respectful silence at Hans Christian Andersen’s grave.

Gray heron poses in the moat around the Kastellet, Copenhagen.

There was the purchase of two cute hats and a black knitted scarf that feels like a big hug around the neck from a dozen teddy bears. There was a grocery purchase conducted completely in Danish that went like this: green beans, persimmons and a head of radicchio go on the counter. Fresh-baked Middle Eastern flat bread catches my eye. I say, “Hvor koster det ?” – “how much does it cost?” and am actually understood by the grocer. A watershed moment. He responds with something in Danish, which of course, I don’t understand, but I pay the bill, whatever it is, and we share a little smile.

Red-necked grebe catching fish at the rampart moat in Christianshavn. Sketched through the scope and painted while sitting on a bench beset by a continual stream of dog walkers, joggers, bike riders and babies in perambulators . Watercolor over pencil in Stillman & Birn Alpha Series sketchbook., 8 1/2″ x 11″

I also bought a kilo of lamb at the Halal butcher next door. Do you know how much lamb is in a kilo? A lot. Antman is making a huge stew right this minute. The butcher smiled at me, too.

Later, Antman and I stepped around the corner for a concert by the Copenhagen Klezmer Trio. Bittersweet clarinet, accordion and bass under chandeliers in the gorgeously carved, gilded and bedecked Royal Theatre’s Old Stage foyer. It was all wonderful, and now we’re tired.

To round out a full day that included absolutely no drawing, Ipresent a shop-window from the Copenhagen boulevard, Norrebrogade.

Happy Friday.

Muskox and hooded crows at Copenhagen Zoo. Watercolor over pencil, Robert Bateman 8 1/2″ x 11 sketchbook.

At the Copenhagen Zoo today, drawing many new animals. The rainforest walkthrough was enchanting- rich and properly steamy with living plants and birds that displayed and sang. A good thing to see in a zoo.

Reindeer, Copenhagen Zoo. Pencil on Robert Bateman 8 1/2″ x 11 sketchbook.

This reindeer bull was nosing around a doe in estrus. I made a little sketch and added a wish for a future Santa’s helper.

Humboldt’s penguins, Copenhagen Zoo, pencil on Robert Bateman 8 1/2″ x 11 sketchbook.

Humboldt’s penguins at the Copenhagen Zoo, underwater view. Pencil on Robert Bateman 8 1/2″ x 11 sketchbook.

Humboldt’s penguin, Copenhagen Zoo, inordinately attracted to my red mechanical pencil, which must look like a fish.

The penguins were a kick, especially from below.

Crested seriema, Copenhagen Zoo. Pencil on Robert Bateman 8 1/2″ x 11 sketchbook.

Lesser Malayan Mouse Deer, black-necked weaver, Copenhagen Zoo. Pencil on Robert Bateman 8 1/2″ x 11 sketchbook.

It was a good day well spent, and now it’s time for Copenhagen Culture Night, or, rather, Kulturnatten. The city turns tonight into a huge party with music, dance, food, concerts, light shows, you name it. There are big doings on every street in town. Museums open their doors. Concerts, tours, light shows, food demos, endless fun. It’s just starting up- you can hear the roll of drums. Time to join the party.

Happy Friday.

Northern Lapwing, a.k.a Vibe (Vee-bay). The Danish name is charming, and suits it well. What’s a wing, lapped, anyway? Pencil on Stillman & Birn Alpha Series sketchbook.

Getting out with Danish birders is delightful even if you don’t speak Danish. Birding is an international language, anyway; just watching and listening will get you pretty far. Many Danes speak quite a bit of English, too. When that fails, there’s always barking and pointing at the sky, but it really helps to learn a few terms and names to follow the action. You’ll want to write down the words phonetically, too, so get friendly with a Danish birder who’ll let you take notes. Then, when someone calls out, “Rød glente flyvende venstre”, which sounds like, “royl glinta floon ven-streh”, you can look up and see a red kite flying left.

It’s not called a “hawk”, it’s not called a buzzard, either. In Danish, it’s called a “musvåge”, pronounced, “moose-vo”.

The Danes are first-class birders. They move quietly and efficiently in the field. They know their birds. They are low-key and nearly single-minded; hunger does not slow the mission. They eat with binoculars held just north of the mouth.

And of course, I’m missing 15/16ths of the conversation- the buzz goes straight over my head like a flock of migrating lapwings (pronounced, vee-bay). I’m sure there were plenty of discussions on field marks and such, and I think there may have even been talk that wasn’t about birds at all, because nothing about birds could be that funny.

Actually, I take that back.

Red kites flying, white tailed eagles (havørn,  pronounced “howr”) at their nest, a common buzzard sitting (siddende, pronounced “SIL-ena”)  on a farmhouse roof. Now, let’s all say it together.

On a recent bus tour to southern Sweden with the Danish Ornithological Society, while we scoped out a marshy lake, my birder friend began telling me that the smew (which we didn’t see) is called a lille skallesluger, “the small one that swallows shells” and pochard, which we did see, is called a taffeland (the d is silent). He translated this roughly to “the snobbish meal duck”, so-called because, once upon a time, a Danish King handed them out as favors to his rich friends. Knortegås is the brent goose, and unless my friend is pulling my leg, “putgås”is its cute Swedish name. It means “farting goose”. I’m afraid I giggled.

Pied wagtail (hvid vipstjert, pronounced, “vil vip-styert”) and reed bunting (rørspurv, and don’t even try it)

A birding trip to the countryside an hour or so north of Copenhagen, with a few die-hard birders on a cold rainy day. Good birds, no complaints.

I’m so immature.

At lunchtime, the group sat on an old concrete foundation by a stream, alternately eating bites and scanning the kites floating in circles overhead. Suddenly the trip leader hollered and I turned around in time to see a jackdaw-sized black bird flapping past a line of trees. It clearly held its head out front on a longish neck and wasn’t a jackdaw. It was a black woodpecker, one of my most-wanted birds. I turned back to the leader and gave him the thumbs-up sign and a silly grin.

I just hope thumbs-up means the same thing in Danish as it does in English.

Happy Friday.

A flock of European goldfinches pick thistle seeds in Doñana National Park. Drawn through the scope, watercolor over pencil in Lana 1590 8 1/2″ x 11″ spiral bound sketchbook.

The rain in Spain falls mainly on Sevilla at the moment, where Antman is giving a talk and I am enjoying a few quiet moments of reflection and gratitude on Thanksgiving Day.

Red kites, Doñana National Park, drawn through the scope. Watercolor over pencil in Lana  1590 8 1/2″ x 11″ spiral bound sketchbook.

I’m thankful for our four-month Danish adventure and for family and good health. I’m thankful for the purple swamphen that flapped into view yesterday like a great feathered eggplant. I’m thankful for the benign wariness of the giant bulls of Doñana that allowed me to pass by, uncharged. And I’m especially thankful for the kind hospitality of our new Spanish friends in Sevilla.

Stone chat, Doñana National Park. Drawn through the scope on 8 1/2″ x 11″ Lana 1590 spiral bound sketchbook, watercolor over pencil.

I’m thankful to you, too, for spending a little time with me at Drawing the Motmot. I’m happy you’re here.

Spotless Starlings, an Iberian endemic, Doñana National Park. Drawn through the scope on Lana 1590 spiral bound sketchbook, 8 1/2″ x 11″, watercolor over pencil.

White stork nest in dead cork oak, Doñana National Park. Watercolor over pencil, Lana 1590 spiral bound sketchbook 8 1/2″ x 11″.

Tonight we’ll celebrate Thanksgiving with paella and delicious local olives and crusty bread. I’ll be sure to drink to the health of all, probably more than once. A glass of sangria sounds perfect right now.

Happy Thanksgiving.

They really do nest on chimneys, and although it looks like one, this white stork is not a plastic lawn ornament. At the Palacio, the biological field station in Doñana National Park, our lodgings for several days of wildlife heaven.

18th century cider mill dam in Harvard Forest, Massachusetts.

One sees the prairie in layers: sky, grass, soil. And then there’s the forest, constructed from tall, thin strips: tree stems, stacked stones, waterfalls, a slice of sky at the top. One set of laminations lays out flat, the other stands on end.

The drawing, made while standing on the mossy bank just downstream. Graphite and pastel on 22″ x 15″ Rives BFK tan paper.

It’s a nice theme and a way to re-imagine a few of the plein air drawings from Harvard Forest : as tall thin sections sliced out of the originals (in Photoshop) and enlarged in paint. Into each goes a tiny wood warbler from sketchbooks of the same period and place. American redstart, ovenbird, northern waterthrush, chestnut sided warblers.

Preparing panels of Baltic birch with buff titanium gesso, 4 coats, sanded between. A fine dust of powdered gesso has settled throughout my new studio. New studio. Has this been previously mentioned?

Three up, ready for a sealer of matte medium.

Early 19th century malt mill with American redstart. The first round of color is wash over pencil, burnt umber with ultramarine acrylic and a little glazing liquid mixed in. Big wide short-handled brush. Fun and fast. 20″ x 48″ Baltic birch cradled wood panel.

And in the process, an interesting thing happens. Each painting recalls, for better or worse, thoughts, moods, and whatever was playing in my ears when I drew them in in the first place (podcasts, audio books, the annoyingly redundant song of an American redstart). Moving the pencil over the exact pathways of the original lines unleashes some vivid flashbacks. Do you also experience art-triggered sense memories? Is there a neurologist in the house?

Happy Friday.