Soft Morning

 

Sunday morning birdwatching in a dense fog which formed a soft, muted landscape.

This gorgeous property (owned by Case Western Reserve University; a bio-field station of sorts) is about 15 minutes from my house and I've been interested in visiting it for quite a while, in hopes to find some new painting inspiration.When I was invited to bird there, I was quick to say yes.  We didn't see many birds because of the fog, but we heard many. The morning was spent being totally enthralled with the mists and fog (must be my celtic roots), enjoying the good company of fellow birdwatchers and when the sun broke through...well, then we did see birds, birds and more birds!

Oh, I'll go back to paint this summer.  Eight more days of school!!

Portals

oil pastel on chip board

Colours are the wounds of Light ~ William Blake

as the anniversary date of my mother's passing (through her portal) arrives, i remember and miss her on this mother's day.  (and all days)

the other portal, the doorway through which my father passed.

thankful to both of them for passing on the gifts. 

For the love and mystery of Birds.

What started as a demo for a small face sculpture for my Ceramics One students evolved into this.  It is part self portrait, not the bird part.  I put the fingers and the crow on the piece to show the students ideas for adding other "stuff" to a face.  I chose a crow because of the crows flying around outside the ceramics room window and because of my post in March about Crows. 

The front of the face cracked off in the bisque fire.  A fine example to the students of "do what I say, not do what I do"!  I'm always cautioning them about hatching and slipping their work well and letting pieces dry thoroughly before we fire them.

But, as it turns out I like the cracked face and so did the students. A lesson learned in allowing mistakes/accidents to work for you.

For the assignment students were to integrate the front and back of the sculpture by making a connection with words, poetry, lyrics, a quote or any other way they could think of.  This quote is from a book called The Poets Guide to the Birds, edited by Judith Ketchen and Ted Kooser.