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Orchids and Flycatchers, revisited
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...
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The Motmot Holiday Gift Bag is a Bookcase
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:...
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Cheap Trick
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...
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Sketching Spoonbills on the Nest
At High Island, Texas, famous for warbler migration binges- no one ever mentions the spoonbill rookery. Or do they? Watercolor over pencil on Stillman& Birn Alpha Series 8.5x 11 sketchbook.
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Tales from the Isle of Galveston
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...
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The Birds, thus far, of Copenhagen
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...
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To Birds in Art, with love from Denmark
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...
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Sketch of the Day: Mute Swan, Christianshavn
A mute swan checks under the hood. Sketched through a scope at the edge of the jagged lake around Christianshavn’s ramparts. Christianshavn, a lovely, idiosyncratic neighborhood of Copenhagen, exists...
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Sketch of the Day: Lapwings at Nivå, Denmark
Flock of Lapwings drawn through a scope at Nivå Bugt Meadows. Beautiful marsh on the coast of Zealand north of Copenhagen, only a short walk from the Nivå train station. Pencil in Stillman & Birn 8...
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Art Supplies…or Chocolate?
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...
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Sketch of the Day: Shorebirds at Ølsemagle (oolseh-mowel) Revle
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...
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Sketch of the Day: Migration on a Danish Marsh
Fall Migration with a few thousand shorebirds on a sandbar at Olsemagle Revle, a bird sanctuary on Køge Bay south of Copenhagen. Starlings hawked insects, an osprey cruised, a kestrel put shorebirds up...
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Sketch of the Day: Ganymede and Jupiter’s Eagle
The story goes like this: Jupiter abducted the handsome shepherd boy Ganymede and put him to work as cup-bearer for his pet eagle. Denmark’s great sculptor of the 19th century, Bertel Thorvaldsen,...
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Sketch of the Day: Birds and Botany
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,...
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Friday Sketchbook: Odds and Ends
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...
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Friday Sketchbook: Copenhagen Zoo and a Night of Culture, Too
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...
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Friday Sketchbook: Birding in Danish
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...
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Sketches From Spain: A Few Thanksgiving Birds
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...
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Sketch of the Day: Sunrise on a Spanish Marsh
Spanish marsh at dawn, Doñana National Park. A grove of poplars served as a communal night roost and command center from which fifteen red kites launched into space that morning, one by one, to drift...
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Studio Paintings from Plein Air Drawings
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...
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