Kenya

Sheltering in Place, Part 9

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5 Minute drawings from Wednesday, during the Draw Breath virtual livestream figure drawing group on Facebook I’ve joined; Platinum Carbon fountain pen in a Strathmore Windpower Drawing sketchbook

I guess the big news here is that, at least for now, we’ve “crushed” the virus and plans for a partial reopening of businesses are being developed. We’ve only had a couple of new cases in the last couple of weeks for a total of 54. No deaths, currently no hospitalizations. We are required to wear masks now when out in public and to observe social distancing. Our public health dept. is doing a wonderful job, not only in dealing with Covid-19, but in the quantity and quality of their public communications about it. Locals can currently take a survey on what businesses they think should open first.

We’re going out for groceries, but otherwise keeping busy at home. On Sunday we’ll swing by the North Coast Native Plant Society place to pick up an order of….native plants. The ordering was done using a plant list on their website to make one’s choices of plant and quantity, then you downloaded the order form posted on their website, filled it out, photographed it and attached it to an email back to them. This was only one of four ordering options they offered. We will drive onto the property being used for the sale at noon on Sunday, pay with a check and then load up our plants. Everyone has a separate pick-up slot. It’s all been very well-thought out and organized so that they can still have their sale, but keep everyone safe.

In art news, I’ve been doing extensive repaints on some older paintings I’ve done of African subjects. I’ve entered three in an online animal art show and will get the results on the 5th. Here’s one of them:

“Playtime” oil on canvas 20×30″ (price on request)

And for serious fun I was invited a week or so ago to join a Facebook group called “Draw Breath”. Since live figure drawing isn’t an option now, a group of mostly illustrators who also attended or teach at my alma mater, the Academy of Art University, have arranged Monday, Wednesday and Friday livestreamed “virtual” sessions from 4-6pm. It’s a three way split screen with the model in the middle and an artist on either side drawing in real time and chatting about what they’re doing and why.

3 minute figure drawings; Koh-i-Noor Versatil 5340 clutch pencil with multicolor lead, 12×9″ Strathmore Windpower Drawing pad; I posted about this very cool pencil with a multicolor lead in my previous post

And, here’s some photos of the garden I just shot this morning. Things are really starting to take off. We’re supposed to get “real” rain tomorrow which is great.

Rhododrendron and forget-me-nots
“Citrus Splash” rose

And down by the pond on an old chunk of stump…

Finally (I have to pay attention to what my last image is because WordPress’ or some algorithm uses the final image in a post for the preview on other sites) here’s another of my Kenya pieces, a warthog…

“Ready to Run in 3…2…1″ oil on canvasboard 20×30” (price on request)

Tales From The Field: Elephants!

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I went on my first trip to Kenya in January of 1999 to participate in an Earthwatch Institute-sponsored project studying lake ecology at Lake Naivasha. But first I arranged to spend five days in the Masai Mara at what was then called Camp Kicheche. I arrived incredibly jet-lagged from the long flights from California but was also equally excited to finally see African wildlife in their native habitats.

The photo at the top is my first sighting of wild African elephants. a family group moving into the bush. My driver, Daniel, stopped the car and turned off the engine. I had the car to myself. He had the hatch was open and the windows rolled down so I could get good photos. At this point I was using a Nikon N2000 SLR with a built-in motor drive (first time I’d had one with that), a Tamron 28-300mm lens and 2x doubler. and had brought 78 rolls of Kodak 200 and 400 ASA print film.  Not a “pro” set up but pretty good for what we could afford.

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The rest of the family group appeared, saw us, turned and headed away out of sight. And I thought that was it for my first elephant experience. Closer would have been great, but at least I’d seen some, and early in my first game drive on my first day, so no complaints.

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But, no, two reappeared with one looking straight at us.

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Then they started down the slope towards us….

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The smaller of the two turned and walked away into the bush.

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The big one came on down the hill towards the car, which as you will recall, was sitting with the hatch and windows open. I kept taking photos as he got closer and closer.

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Full zoom-in on this wonderful creature. At this point, Daniel said in a low tone of voice “It would be good to be quiet now”. Oh, right. The motor drive. So I set the camera in my lap as the elephant came closer and closer, straight towards the car. I realized that he was so tall that he could have rested his chin on the roof of the Land Cruiser. Or reached in and plucked me right out of my seat through the hatch. At that moment I became a fatalist. Whatever was going to happen would happen and there wasn’t a thing to be done about it. At about six feet from the front of the car, he turned and crossed in front of us on a diagonal. Daniel and I just quietly sat and watched him.

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Once past the car he turned and went back up the slope to rejoin the group, stopping just for this instant to give us one last look.

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Business attended to and, point made, he walked off into the bush.

 

An Earth Day Album Of 25 Endangered/Threatened Species I’ve Seen

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It’s clear that one lesson we, as a species MUST learn, is to share. All of these animals have just as much right to be here as we do. As they go, in the end, so shall we.

I’ve never made a point, for the most part, of specifically seeking out endangered or threatened species to photograph for my paintings. But, as it’s happened, in less than ten years I’ve seen two dozen, plus one, all in the wild. Quite a surprise, really.

Sometimes they’ve been pretty far away, but that in no way diminished the thrill of seeing them. Close-ups in a zoo or other captive animal facility can be useful, within certain limits, but seeing a wild animal in its own habitat, even at a distance, is much more satisfying and gives me ideas and information for my work that I couldn’t get any other way.

In no particular order, because they are all trying to survive on this planet:

Takhi, Hustai National Park, Mongolia

Monk Seal, Kauai, Hawaii, United States

Wolf, Lamar Valley, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, United States

White-napped crane, Gun-Galuut Nature Reserve, Mongolia

White Rhino, Lewa Downs Conservancy, Kenya

Laysan Albatross, Kauai, Hawaii, United States

Tule Elk, Point Reyes National Seashore, California, United States

Rothschild's Giraffe, Soysambu Conservancy, Kenya

Nene, Hawaii Big Island, Hawaii, United States

Desert Bighorn, Anza-Borrego State Park, California, United States

Grizzly Bear, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, United States (Bear 264)

Saker Falcon, near Hangai Mountains, Mongolia

Green Sea Turtle, Hawaii Big Island, Hawaii, United States

Grevy's Zebra, Lewa Downs Conservancy, Kenya

Lammergeier, Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park, Mongolia

California Condor, Central Coast, California, United States

African Lion, Masai Mara, Kenya

Hawaiian Hawk (Juvenile), Volcano National Park, Hawaii Big Island, Hawaii, United States

Siberian Marmot, Hustai National Park, Mongolia

Whooper Swans, Gun-Galuut Nature Reserve, Mongolia

Cheetahs, Masai Mara, Kenya

Apapane, Hawaii Big Island, Hawaii, United States

Trumpeter Swans, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, United States

Cinereous Vulture (Juvenile), Baga Gazriin Chuluu Nature Reserve, Mongolia

Argali, Ikh Nartiin Chuluu Nature Reserve, Mongolia

Sometimes The Art Fairy….

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Sometimes the Art Fairy floats down on gossamer wings and whispers something in your ear like….warthogs. And one must answer the call. So, I’m taking a break from my beloved Mongolian subjects and doing a painting of a warthog.

But first, here’s the azalea in full bloom that I can see outside one of my studio windows. It really brightens up a grey day.

On to the warthog. It’s from a reference shot I took during the October 2004 art workshop/safari in Kenya that I and ten other artists went on with the late Simon Combes. You can see pictures of the whole, wonderful trip here. The painting is 20×30″, a size that I use quite often.

Starting with the brush drawing done directly on the canvas

Laying in the shapes of the shadows

First pass of all over color

Second pass of color on the piggy

To be continued….

Five Reasons To Do Small Paintings

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Over time, I think most painters end up with preferences for size, ranging from true miniatures that may only be an inch by an inch to, well, big, really big. Like ten feet high.

I’ve tended to stay in a middle range, which happens to be what has NOT been selling during the recession. But before the meltdown, I had decided to start doing art festivals and I needed a large body of work. Most of the paintings are 12×16″ to 18×24″.

Then I joined the Lost Coast Daily Painters and found myself needing to have a small (5×7″ to 8×10″) painting to post every week. It was hard at first to work that small, but I got used to it and started to see some definite advantages:

One, they are more affordable for people.

Two, many buyers and collectors don’t have room anymore for work that is much bigger and it encourages them to take a chance on a new artist. That would be me.

Three, small works seem to be considered appropriate for gift-giving, so that expands the market a little.

Four, for me as an artist, I’ve found that it’s a good way to study various painting problems, like capturing light effects, without investing time and materials in a larger piece that might not pan out.

Five, they force me to focus on one idea and to keep it simple.

Here are three recent small works:

Arcata Bottoms Stormlight oil on canvasboard 8x8"

I wanted to capture the light effect of dark clouds and sunny areas. Working in a square format was fun, too.

Black Bear, Grand Tetons oil on canvasboard 16x8"

I’ve struggled with how to paint this kind of light effect- foreground shade and background sun. It’s a push and pull process. I think this works pretty well.

Reticulated Giraffe, Samburu oil on canvasboard 8x10"

Once again, I’m studying how to do a light effect- the high key shadows and reflected light on the head of the giraffe. I also ended up with a postive/negative shape relationship that I like. The color of the giraffe and the sky form a complementary color relationship, too.

What has evolved over the past year is an interesting split that is working well for me. I’m doing a lot of smaller pieces like the ones above (I plan to have 30 or so available at the Marin Art Festival). And then I’m painting larger, major pieces that can require a lot of preliminary work. With luck, you’ll see the latest one next week.


EBay Listings, 11-8-09; Cheetah and Lion

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Cheetah-500
Cheetah 9x12" oil on canvasboard

I photographed this cheetah on an art workshop/safari to Kenya in 2004. Click to purchase here

First-Light-500
First Light 12x16" oil on canvasboard

This handsome lion was laying in the grass as we drove up in time to see the first light of day hit his golden mane. Click to purchase here

Animal Expression, The Finale (at least for now)

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This has been a fun, and instructive, series for me and I’ll definitely be doing more of this kind of thing for my own study work.

Most of the drawings I’ve done for the previous posts were done fairly quickly, generally 30 minutes or less. For today, I’ve done more finished drawings, once again using the Wolff Carbon pencil on vellum bristol.

The idea for these was to use all the features of the subject, including gesture for the full body drawings, to capture its character and essence.

camel-headFor a Bactrian camel head study, I looked for reference with a 3/4 view, but most of what I have didn’t seem like it would draw well because the position of the features is so odd. Time was limited, so I stayed with a classic profile that shows his calm, unexcitable nature. My husband and I got to sit with a large group of camels at Arburd Sands when we were in Mongolia and I could practically feel my blood pressure drop as I sat and sketched them.

hyena-headThe body of this spotted hyena got too big, so I cropped her at the shoulders, which gives a different look than the camel above, in which the drawing trails off in value, number of lines and amount of detail. I find hyenas interesting and compelling on a number of levels. They live in a matriarchal clan structure, will go to war with lions and move a lot faster than you think they can with their gallumping, awkward gait. The African night wouldn’t be the same without their crazy whooping and insane giggling.

coyote-runningI love the flow of the pose I captured at Yellowstone as this coyote ran parallel to the road in nice morning light. The head demonstrates that you can get a lot of character without a lot of detail if you make your marks carefully, see the shapes correctly and don’t get hung up in drawing individual hairs.

gorilla-headThis drawing and the next one ended up too big to scan, so they were photographed and then processed in Photoshop. They were done on white paper, but I kind of like the toned effect. In any case, I’ve rarely done primates, but I got some incredible reference of the gorillas the last time I was at the San Francisco zoo and have been looking forward to seeing what I could do with it. The big silverback male was on morning patrol and he didn’t miss a thing.

warthog1Sometimes a subject serves itself up on a silver platter and is so compelling that the artist’s job is to simply not mess it up. I found warthogs to be, pound for pound, THE most entertaining animal I saw in Kenya. This one was at Lewa Downs, grazing near the lodge we stayed at. He’s got it all: great ears, that remarkable face and the solid body carried by relatively delicate-looking legs and feet.

Animal Expression- Part 2: Ears

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Starting at the top, so to speak, this week we’ll look at ears.

It’s important to not only look at the ear itself, but where it inserts onto the skull. These drawing were done in less than three hours with a Wolff’s Carbon pencil on vellum bristol paper. All the animals are native to Africa.

Bat-eared Fox, Kenya 2004
Bat-eared Fox, Masai Mara, Kenya 2004

Sometimes the ears occupy most of the top of the skull. They are the defining feature of this fox species, which is nocturnal. This one and its mate, however, were out and about near their den at mid-morning.

White Rhino, Lewa Downs Conservancy, Kenya 2004
White Rhino, Lewa Downs Conservancy, Kenya 2004

Ears can also be set high and perched almost at the corners of the skull. Notice how the fringe of hair makes them much more interesting and expressive than they would be without it. Also: Note that I didn’t “finish” the drawing, but concentrated on the parts of interest. Something to remember that might solve a problem sometime.

Cheetah, Masai Mara, Kenya 2004
Cheetah, Masai Mara, Kenya 2004

Notice that the cheetah’s ears are set low on the its head. They are down when the animal is relaxed and only come up when something has caught its attention. Ear set and skull shape are critical for getting  a cheetah head to look right.

Lioness, Denver Zoo 2008
Lioness, Denver Zoo 2008

I just happened to find this image of a lioness which has almost the same angle to the head as the cheetah. You can see that while her ears are in a similar position on her skull, they are much bigger in proportion to her head size. They are carried more erect and have a black stripe on the back that is apparently used as a signaling system when hunting with other lions.

The first three drawings were animals that I photographed in the wild. The lioness and the next two are zoo residents. While remembering that wild animals show wear and tear that captives do not, it is still very useful to do these kinds of studies to learn how to draw details like ears.

Hyena cub, Denver Zoo 2008
Hyena cub, Denver Zoo 2008

The outward curve of the ear inserts smoothly at its base into the skull. Hyena cubs are dark chocolate brown. For comparison, here is an adult (the mother).

Hyena female, Denver Zoo 2008
Hyena female, Denver Zoo 2008

As the head grows, the ears appear to move back on the skull. Unlike the cheetah, the hyena’s ears are carried upright. Hyenas always seem to look ready for anything.

Look at your own pets, whether it’s a cat, dog or hamster and see what you can observe about the ears. Then try drawing them!

Why GOING THERE Makes all the Difference – Thank You, Simon

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Four years ago today, internationally known wildlife artist Simon Combes was killed by a cape buffalo while walking with his wife on a mountain called Delemere’s Nose, which is part of the Delemere estate in Kenya where they lived. Just two months earlier, I and nine other incredibly fortunate wildlife artists were on the safari of a lifetime with him. Looking at dates on my images, I see that we had gotten up the morning of October 12 at the Kigio Wildlife Sanctuary and spent most of the day driving south to the Masai Mara. When we stopped for lunch in the Masai group ranch north of the reserve proper, we saw our first Mara wildlife, a male topi on top of a mound. Then, in rapid succession it was wildebeest, gazelle, hippos, a huge male giraffe right inside the entrance to the Reserve and then…lions!

My tribute page and the photos that I took of him during the safari are here. But what I want to share today is what it means as an artist to be able to travel to a place like Kenya with someone like Simon, who knew the ground and the animals and who always seemed to get us to the right place at the right time. I had realized very quickly on my first trip there in 1999 that it was  pointless to paint animals like cheetahs and lions without having seen them in their habitat. There’s really no way to get it right and those who have been there know the difference instantly. Trust me on this. So out of the 5,218 photos I shot in 2004, here are a few that I hope will illustrate this point, followed by some of the paintings that have resulted from the trip. If you want more, the whole safari is here. on my website.

Samburu encounter
Samburu encounter

Emotion and point of view play a major role in the creation of great wildlife art. How could the two women in the front vehicle not remember  and “channel” this encounter if they paint an elephant? We’ll all remember this morning in the Samburu going from cool to warm, the beautiful light and this bull elephant who made it abundantly clear that it was time for us to move along.

Impala and baboons
Impala and baboons

Artists get asked all the time where we get the ideas for our paintings. Well, here’s one I probably wouldn’t have thought of if I hadn’t seen it. Baboons and impala breakfasting together at Lake Nakuru. Part of the problem with zoos  and game parks is that the animals are out of context. You never see the natural groupings or interactions. Or if there are different species together, you have no idea how that would play out in the wild. To me, this kind of reference is gold. I can paint this African “Beauty and the Beast” scene because I saw it, photographed it, know it happened.

Young mara lions
Young mara lions

There really is something about lions. They define “presence”, even when they are still kids, like these two. Great afternoon light and you hardly notice that his face is covered with flies. For contrast, here’s a zoo lion. He’s gorgeous, with a huge mane and perfect whiskers. Dead giveaway, along with the flat light and lack of body condition. This lion don’t hunt. Which would you rather paint?

Zoo lion
Zoo lion

We went out on an evening game drive in the Samburu and as the sun was going down, it seemed to be really important to Simon to get to a particular place. We were literally along for the ride, so just waited to see what was up. Oh, yeah, this is very, very nice. It’ll do. Thank you, Simon.

Samburu sunset
Samburu sunset

Here’s a selection of the paintings that have come out of the safari so far.

Ground Hornbill
Ground Hornbill oil 18"x 24" (price on request)

Reference shot in the Mara. Simon did some interesting jogs with the vehicle to get alongside this big bird, who just wanted to walk away .

Samburu Morning
Samburu Morning oil 18"x 24" (price on request)

I loved the northern Kenya landscape with the huge, storybook doum palms.

Interrupted Nap (Spotted hyena)
Interrupted Nap (Spotted hyena) Private Collection

Reference shot in the Mara. There was a cub, too, but that’s a painting for another day.This one was snapped up by a collector who also loves vultures and gets first crack at any I do.

Thompson's Gazelle
Thompson's Gazelle oil 16" x 12" (price on request)

John Seerey-Lester was kind enough to choose this painting for inclusion in the 2008 Art and the Animal Kingdom show at the Bennington Center for the Arts.

That's Close Enough
That's Close Enough oil 12" x 9" (price on request)

Cropped in from a large herd of buffalo at Lake Nakuru. Nobody was getting anywhere near that calf. No way, no how.

Morning Break
Morning Break oil 12"x 24" (price on request)

Reference photographed in the Mara, where we got an eyeful of cheetah every day we were there. This painting was juried into the 2008 Animal Art show at the Mendocino Art Center here in California. I’ve got to be in the right mood to paint all those spots, but I do love cheetahs!

ART THOUGHT OF THE DAY

“A few days later I looked up from my work to see a new elephant, one that I had not seen before, standing quietly only yards from my easel. He had crossed the river to my side on the outer curve of the ox bow and wanted to pass through the narrow neck where I was working. To do so he would have to pass within five yards of me or go back the long way around. I held my breath as he shifted silently from foot to foot, carefully weighing the situation. Finally, he moved forward and past me, watching intently as I stood motionless. Such rare incidents of trust between man and wild animals give me a great thrill.”

Simon Combes, from An African Experience