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Monday, April 7, 2025

The Emu

I am living on what is called an environmental farm, in the southwest end of the Fraser Valley. There are dozens and dozens of fairly exotic animals and birds here - cranes, pheasants, peacocks, and eagle [no longer able to survive in the wild], four emus, chickens, pigs, a donkey, two mouflon sheep, two sheep with three recent lambs, and a Nigerian [Nubian?] miniature goat. When I moved here a couple of months ago, the emus in particular fascinated me. They are taller than me when stretching their necks, and have some very distinctive behaviours and sounds. So of course I had to draw and paint one.


 One of the emus in their very large field. 


My drawing


For some reason, I wanted to start with a bright phthalo. blue spatter and spray.


The eye done, and some light washes ...

A wet-in-wet wash over the head and neck ...

And some added texture and darkening. I could have gone darker, but wanted the focus to be the eye. 
The size is about 17 x 20 cm. and if you have a thing for exotic birds, the painting is available. Please just leave me a note.

Thank you so much for dropping by!