Cute Alert-Kitten Update

| foxstudio

The kittens I’m fostering have gained ground faster than we expected. Merlin has doubled his weight in two weeks, from one pound to two. The shelter staffer who asked me to do the foster came over today and weighed all three. Their coats are now soft and fluffy and their energy level is normal (which is to say, they are total maniacs for hours, then completely crashed out).

I wanted to see how fast I could bring them along and it looks like a combination of three things turned the trick: a big helping of wet food every day in addition to free-feeding kibble; room in a covered pen to run crazy, climb and otherwise get lots of exercise and being handled, snuggled and petted at least twice a day.

Here they are as of today:

Kestrel

Raven

and Merlin

If you live in Humboldt County and are interested in any of these guys, go to my contact page on my website and email me. They are now about 8 weeks old and ready to go to great forever homes!

Sketches from Live Pets! :-)

| foxstudio

Julie Chapman recently posted a couple of sketches of her dog on her blog (no, we won’t go there). A series of comments followed about the value of drawing.

You can read my comments here: http://julietchapman.com/blog/?p=59#comments . They’re #5 of 6. She just finished doing her summer animal drawing workshop outside of Kalispell, Montana at the Triple D Game Ranch. I attended a few years ago and found it very worthwhile.

So, she challenged the readers of her blog to get out the charcoal and draw along. I accepted.  It took a few more days than I’d hoped, but here’s the best of what I came up with over about an hour this morning. One challenge was drawing kittens that are black and fluffy. A little hard to see the structure. I also found that they would get up and come running to the front of the crate every time they saw me watching them. The trick is to ignore all that and go for the gesture. These took maybe 15 seconds.

Then I went into the house and there was Persephone, aka The Princess, taking her morning princess nap on the bed. She then sat up and I got a quick start on a head study. Didn’t get all the stripes in, though.

Finally, next to the window on the floor, Niki the collie was zonked out. This one is mostly coat (he’s got a big one!), but the curves were nice.

I used a 4B Wolff’s Carbon pencil for all the sketches and a Canson Universal Recycled Sketchbook. The paper has a good amount of tooth for the pencil.

ART THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Today’s thought is from Edgar Payne’s seminal book, Composition of Outdoor Painting, which every artist who paints outdoors or anywhere else, for that matter, should have. It’s expensive and might be hard to find, but it is as good a presentation of the traditional craft of oil painting as you will find.

“While talent or genius must exist, at best they are merely embryonic factors and no one can guide these into productive artistry without the initiative, perseverance and determination of the student. To say that the artist is born and not made, is only partly true. Actually, while it is an important qualification, there is no proof of real worth in talent until it has been developed and expanded by a tremendous amount of serious study and hard work.” (Bold added by me)

You may have noticed…

| foxstudio

I’ve just changed the theme I’ve been using to one that allows RSS feeds. Let me know how it works. All these new ways of interconnecting things sometimes makes me want to just go get a glass of wine and sit by the pond.

Friday Features

| foxstudio

Think I’ll start a couple of quick Friday Features:

OUR OWN BACKYARD BIRD SIGHTINGS:

Current regulars: American Goldfinches, Least Goldfinches, Steller’s jays, ravens, crows, house sparrows

Semi-regular visitors: one pair Black-headed grosbeaks, an osprey (!), a great blue heron (we have a large pond), a red-shouldered hawk, barn swallows, violet-green swallows

The Very First for our yard: this morning, one male western bluebird

PLANET SAVER TIP OF THE DAY:

Honey bees are in crisis. Without them, kiss fruits, nuts and berries good-bye. Visit this link http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/26/MNLA11FN5B.DTL, which was in today’s San Francisco Chronicle for more information.

What you can do: Set aside, say, a six to ten foot square or so in your yard and plant it with bee-friendly plants like lavender, coriopsis, sunflower, thyme and coneflower. Your local nursery should be able to point you to bee-friendly plants for your area. If enough people do this, it could make a real difference. Even better, replace some or all of your lawn. Just think, no more mowing, dethatching, fertilizing, weeding and you’ll save water, plus have flowers for your home.

BONUS

Find the live cat in this picture:


To Finish Yesterday’s Post….

| foxstudio

I ran into serious problems posting the images of the kittens yesterday and finally gave it up and wrote to tech support. Turns out, doesn’t it figure, that it was something I had done with a setting that I shouldn’t have. But the reason I bring it up is to pass on how quick and great the tech support was! Three Cheers for WordPress!

So, since it’s the next day, here’s a new ART THOUGHT FOR THE DAY, one of my all-time favorites for truth and pithiness, from Edgar Degas, who knew a thing or two about painting:

“Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.”

NORTH COAST OPEN STUDIOS

Had a good turnout this year. Lots of nice people, many of them first time visitors. Here’s a photo of the studio ready to go, with Niki also ready to help with hosting. He appointed himself Official Escort To And From The Cars, much to the amusement of the attendees.

HOT OFF THE EASEL

Just finished this one yesterday. The reference was a print photo that I had been meaning to paint for ages. It’s important to see the warm tones in the snow leopard’s coat, which is similiar to polar bears. It’s an oil on canvas on board and is 24″x18″, so the head is life-sized or maybe a little larger. If you are interested in snow leopard conservation, check out the Snow Leopard Trust at www.snowleopard.org.

Art and Kittens, How Can I Lose?

| foxstudio

ART THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:

I have spent most of my professional life for the last ten years trying to gain some competence in the craft of oil painting. Although some artists proudly describe themselves as “self-taught”, I’m not one of them except in the sense that, in the end, we all have to figure out for ourselves what marks to make on the canvas (or other support) and how and with what to make them in order to express our vision. I’ve found that good instruction is a great timesaver, so I’ve tried to learn from those who have gone before me, either as a student in art school or workshops or by gathering a small collection of “how to do it” or “how I do it” books to learn from past and present masters. It’s those books that I plan to “draw” on in order to share some of what I have found useful, valuable and thought-provoking over the years.

So, we will begin with a quote from Robert Henri’s (pronounced Hen-rye) The Art Spirit:

“Technique must be solid, positive, but elastic, must not fall into formula, must adapt itself to the idea. And for each new idea there must be new invention special to the expression of that idea and no other. And the idea must be valuable, worth the effort of expression, must come from the artist’s understanding of life and be a thing he greatly desires to say.”

(Note: many of these quotes date from a time when women were barely tolerated in the fine arts, so the male pronoun dominates; however, that does not invalidate the content)

NEW FOSTER KITTENS!

These three came into the shelter on June 4 and weren’t in very good shape, either health-wise or willingness to be handled by people. In fact, they started out labeled “feral and fearful”. Shelter staff was able to get them to the point where they could be picked up and petted. I brought them home a week ago on the 17th and will have them until they weigh 2 pounds plus a few ounces, which is the minimum for neutering. They were at around 1 pound, 3 oz,, their coats were dry and I could feel their rib cages since they had no fat. I could feel the vertebrae on the littlest one, who was visibly weaker than his two sisters.

It is one week later and they are much improved, thanks to room to play and high-octane wet food everyday. Coats are soft and tummies filling out. They come running, demanding to be petted now and like tummy rubs. They also have names (fosters get to name their charges); Raven, Kestrel and Merlin. So, here they are at age seven weeks or so:

Raven, whose name suggested the bird theme:

Kestrel, who has vocal opinions about almost everything:

And Merlin, quieter so far, but he was the weakest of the three when he arrived

Back from the Marin Art Festival

| foxstudio

Although sales weren’t what I’d hoped for, things were about as I’d expected given gas prices, the real estate implosion and the upcoming election. Made back gas and food money. I sold a lot of cards and a small original. But I got a lot more out of this event than sales. My fellow neighbor artists were equally talented and welcoming. And I feel like I laid a good groundwork for next year.

The people who came by my booth in a steady stream both days were interested and interesting, as one might expect in Marin County. There was the petite older woman who, it turns out, is an doctor of internal medicine who got her medical degree from Stanford in the 1940’s. Her father supported her, but her mother didn’t, saying that she would never go to a female doctor. Oh, well, with luck we’ve largely moved on from that sort of thing.

As always, got some great stories about other people’s world travels to places like Botswana and inner travels by a woman who does shaman work. Did I say I was in Marin County?

Many people were interested in my paintings of the takhi and most of them have seen the movie “The Story of the Weeping Camel”.

Out of around 300 artists at the festival, I was just around the corner from Jeff Morales (www.jmceramics.com), a fantastic ceramic artist who lives less than 15 minutes from me on the south end of McKinleyville. Small world #253.

One of the great things about the festival were the stilt walkers in absolutely amazing costumes. They really took the event to another level and drew a crowd wherever they went. Here’s two of them:

And, of course, being a wildlife artist, the universe conspired to allow me to do a little fieldwork in the comfort of my booth. Here’s the booth:

And here’s the little pocket gopher who came up for breakfast around 9am right next to the base of my easel in the middle of my space. Wildlife watching doesn’t get any easier.

I had fun doing painting demos during the weekend. Here’s the one I did on Saturday in about two hours, counting interruptions. It’s a kangaroo I saw in a zoo. Don’t know the species:

And this is the one I did on Sunday, on and off for most of the day. Considering the working conditions, I’m pretty darned please. It’s the best cape buffalo I’ve done yet. And I’m keeping him.

Great weekend and more to come!

| foxstudio

I had a terrific time doing North Coast Open Studios this year, not the least because I sold the coyote painting shown below in my June 3 post. The title is now “Double Check”

Lots of nice people, most of whom had not been to my studio before. On Saturday afternoon, one couple stopped by who had driven all the way from Ukiah just for the event. She had researched the artists and chosen the ones they wanted to visit, since, with over 100, there wasn’t time to see them all. I was very flattered to make the cut!

I’m now in prep mode for the Marin Art Festival and will head south on Friday. Really looking forward to it. Temperatures are supposed to be in the 80’s, though. I paid an extra $25 for electricity, so the portable fan goes with me. I ain’t suffering for my art if I can help it.

Today I’ve been scanning drawings for new notecards. Here’s three of them, a jackrabbit, spotted hyena and a snow leopard:

The next big event for me locally will be Wild Visions 2, a group show consisting of myself, Paula Golightly, John Wesa, Linda Parkinson, Shawn Gould. This time we are showing with Meridian Fine Art at the Umpqua Bank Community Gallery. There will be a reception the second Friday in August, so save the date! More as it gets closer.

Award at Palos Verdes Art Center Show!

| foxstudio

I just found out that “Takhi Stallion and Mare” as seen at the top of my masthead, has been awarded third place in the show “The Spirit of the Horse”, which is currently on view at the Palos Verdes Art Center in southern California. My newest takhi painting “That’s The Spot!” was also accepted into the show. You can see it by scrolling down a few entries.

This is my second award. Last year, I won a Juror’s Choice Award from the California Art Club for “Made In The Shade”, soon (as of tomorrow) to be available as a limited edition giclee.

And here’s a favorite takhi photo from Khomiin Tal. Plans are starting to gel for the September trip. David and I leave on August 24. I’ll start a countdown on August 1st. I’m hoping to blog from Mongolia.