Autumns's Last Leaves

Last week on my way back from my morning run, just as the sky was beginning to lighten, I saw two crows sitting in the very top of a large almost leafless maple tree.  Their outline was very striking against the pinkish orange morning sky.  One crow was facing east, the other west.  They were sitting there so quite,  it made me wonder what they were thinking on that beautiful autumn morning.  The image of those two crows stayed with me and I knew I had to paint my own version.

Autumn's Last Leaves

I struggled a bit with this one.  I started out painting it exactly like I saw it, but I always run into problems when I do that.  It felt boring, blah, and as if something were missing.  I then had to remind myself that I don't and shouldn't try to paint it just like I saw it.    When I try to paint more realistic, my paintings tend to tighten up and I'm never satisfied with the results.   I need to remind myself to loosen up and play with it.  

I'm still not sure if I'm finished with this piece yet.  I've been looking at it all week trying to figure out what it needs.  Yesterday I realized I hadn't put the leg on the crow.  It was amazing how a simple little bird leg made such a big difference!  I paint on watercolor paper and always start a piece by penciling the size of my painting on it.   Like this one is 11 x 14 on 12 x 16 paper.  So I end up with white around the edges that aren't part of the painting.  Usually I don't find this very distracting, but with this painting I did and after I cropped it off in Photoshop, I was really surprised  by how much more I liked it.    I think a little time away from it is needed, which thankfully the kids and I are going to my parents for the weekend.  We are going to go see "How to Train Your Dragon" on Saturday in Milwaukee with grandma and my nephews.   It's a live show with huge animated, flying, fire-breathing dragons!  How could we pass that up? 

  

Finch and Crow

This little guy was inspired by the sweet little purple finches that have been coming to our feeder this spring.  A beautiful bird with a wonderful song to sing.

I played around a bit with this piece.  I started with some nice splattering of coffee for the background and then drew in the bird.  I used a lot more watercolors in this piece than I'm  normally comfortable with.  I still haven't quite figured out watercolors yet, but I keep trying to work with them and find a technique or style that I like using.   The feathers were done with painted recycled coffee filters and tea bags.  The outlines were done with some homemade walnut ink.  Originally I was going to leave the background alone, but it just looked so plain and empty to me, and then I just kept adding and adding with watercolor, painted tissue paper and tea bags.  Hopefully I didn't add too much!

The crows around here have also been entertaining us.  This little guy left the nest on Friday and anytime ANYTHING got near it, it's parents would cause quite a raucous.  Cawing and cawing until whatever it was left.  They even chased several cats over the weekend, at one point there was about 8 crows going after one cat!  When our kids or our dog would go out to the swing set, the crows would sit just above in the trees and yell and yell  at them.  Very impressive parenting!  Today I found him out on our fence.  The parents were near by cawing a bit, but then left.  I'm wondering if they think he is old enough now to take care of himself?  I'm not sure.  This little guy stayed on the fence for about 45 minutes and then finally flew away to the top of our neighbors chicken coop.  I love watching the crows, so big and really quite beautiful,  such a smart bird that doesn't get the respect it deserves!