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!

 

I'M BACK ... a painting's progress

ACK!! This is my new hip joint. I still have mixed feelings about having something like this done, but it was either that or living in constant pain or being stoned on opiates. I put up with the increasing pain and loss of function for over four years. I finally decided to have surgery but had to have it done across the border in the U.S. It was pricey [thank goodness for the small inheritance left to me by my aunt] but the surgery and after-care were fantastic. Dealing with the American medical system, and comparing it to the Canadian made very aware of the inadequacies  and inefficiencies of our medical system here. I won't rant on and on about it, but if you'd like to comment, please feel free. Anyway, it's five weeks since the operation, and I am doing extremely well, healing very quickly. I hope to be riding Bruno again in August, and taking the dogs out for long hikes in the woods.

This is my friend and neighbour, Christine. She is an ecologist with environment Canada.  She and her daughter have been an enormous help - taking care of Bruno, boosting morale, bringing meals ... I could not have done this without their help, and I am most grateful! My sister, Steph, was also a huge help, driving me to and from Bellingham, caring for me at home. She made sure I didn't overdo things [I am not a patient person, and wanted to get back to life as usual in the first week post-op] More about Steph in a later post ...

My drawing

First few applications of colour. Most of this painting was done wet-on-dry to get a sense of texture of the feathers. The colours used throughout the work were aureolin, quin. sienna, quin. burnt orange and phthalo. blue.

Gradually building up depth of value and texture with  wet-on-dry applications.

And here is the yellow-breasted chat, found here in British Columbia in the interior regions of the province. I showed the painting to Christine this morning when she came over to feed Bruno, and she loved it. So I will have it framed, and give it to her with many thanks for all the help she has been the past few weeks. I also gave her daughter one of my tugboat paintings that she loved. 

So that's it for now. I'm not sure how often I'll be posting or painting - still can't sit or stand in one position for to long.

Thank you for visiting!