English Robin on a Brake Cable

English Robin on a Brake Cable - ~90cm x 60cm - Latex on Plywood

A few months back, I mentioned I did a thing... (went back to school). As of this past Thursday I am done for the term, having written my final exam. I'd started out the term taking a Sculpture and Drama class and ended up dropping the sculpture class (for a number of reasons, largely because I'd injured my shoulder and wasn't sure I was going to be able to do the work, but also checking on classes/credits I have versus classes I still want to take, I did not need the sculpture class, and, indeed, if I did finish it, I would not have been able to take one of the drawing classes I wanted to take later in the program...). 

The Drama class I was taking was Technical Theatre (Scenic Construction) - not acting - and so involved a bit of art making as part of the projects required for the class. 

The class was really fun, the teacher just fantastic with a wealth of knowledge from decades of working in theatre and filmmaking. While the class is called Technical Theatre I Scenic Construction, there was also parts on general layouts and theatre safety and an introduction to entertainment rigging. 

One of the final projects was building and painting a "TV flat". A "TV flat" is a modular section of a wall used to define space on a stage in a theatre or a soundstage. A TV flat differs from a more traditional theatre flat in the way the framing is laid out and TV flats have a plywood facing, whereas traditional Theatre Flats usually have a fabric facing. 

The first part of the project was just cutting the wood and assembling the flat in the theatre shop. The second part was to take a 6"x9" image and transpose it onto the flat using a grid method. The image on the flat was to be painted with interior laytex paint and a limited palette of primary colours were supplied and other colours had to be mixed from those. 

Most students picked images they did not create, but me, being me, decided I needed to paint something I MADE... 

Amanda took this picture of an English Robin on one of her trips to the UK many years ago and it hangs on a wall in a hallway in our house. I've often thought it would make a fun painting. 

I did a rough sketch with ink and watercolours and changed up some of the colours... just to see what that might look like. 

And then did a better copy with gouache on paper (~11'x17") and sent that to the prof to print off as a 6x9 image for me to copy onto the flat. 

While I was at it, I also touched up/repainted two other paintings I'd previously done (because we were supposed to submit a few options...)

Deirdre the DH Diplodocus - I literally took the original - painted in watercolours and inks - and painted over it with Gouache (as I figured gouache would be easier to reproduce with latex paints than wishy-washy watercolours!)

Pink Surly Karate Monkey on Blue-Green Background - this was already painted with gouache, but I touched it up, and extended the colour on a couple edges of the paper, to eh bike would fit into and area that would be cropped to make it a 2:3 ratio... 

Initially the prof suggested doing the dinosaur... but I talked him into letting me to the bird! 

Grid Transposition Method. 

outline done

mixing paints to figure out the greens.

painting the background

finishing things up. 

I did most of this work at home over the long weekend at the beginning of April, right before the last day of classes - when the projects were due! (I was NOT the only one leaving things to the last minute!). In the end the class was given a week extension. 

I hauled it all back to campus and submitted along with my drafting project. 

There was a drafting project as well which was fun - drawing a plan and front elevation of a small stage set. Got to bust out some skills and equipment I had not used in a LONG time... 

The painting project was really fun too. I feel like I have not been doing much painting for the last few years. What little painting I have been doing has been ink or watercolours and this felt like getting back to doing the things I used to do. 

Am I going to be doing more work with laytex paints in the immediate future... I don't know... 

Am I going to continue with this return to school business...? I don't know.. 

Probably... 

Unfortunately, I HAD planned to take some classes this summer - to get the first year Foundation in Drawing classes out of the way (which I'd never bothered to do back when I was taking classes in the 1990s...) but for some reason (some sort of restructuring of the School of the Arts curriculums...?) there were almost NO studio art or drama classes being offered in spring or summer session - despite there being all sorts of drama and studio art classes every spring and summer since, like, forever (my very first studio art classes were taken in Intersession and summer session back in... 1995...? Morgan took Drama last summer...) - all of which REALLY kind of wrecked my plans for how the next three years might roll out... Either I'll have to abandon the original plan of taking 4th year senior Drawing and Related Work IV A and B classes... or I'll be going to school for an extra year...?

So no school this summer... on the plus side, I'm probably travelling to France and the Netherlands, so I'll be seeing lots of (and perhaps making some) art while I'm there!   

Birbs of Saskatchetoon - American White Pelican

American White Pelicans are an established feature on the river by the weir in downtown Saskatoon all summer long. They can be sometimes be seen on other parts of the river, but you can almost always see them fishing by the weir. 

People around here get really excited around here about when the pelicans are going to return. The Meewasin Valley Authority organizes a contest every year letting people guess the day and hour they will return. There are volunteers from the Nature Society - and often people milling about with cameras for a few weeks in April waiting to capture pictures of the first Pelicans to return to the river by the weir. 

On Tuesday my mother reported to me by text having seen two Pelicans by the weir... I was a little suspicious of this claim. She didn't say if she'd walked down there or if it was while driving by (I'm guessing the latter). Has she seem a couple of big gulls? Was it just snow or ice? Or whitecaps on the river (it WAS a VERY windy day!). When I went out for a ride in the afternoon, I rolled past the weir for a look. 

No pelicans. 

If they HAD been there, I missed them... 

Wednesday, because I'd had an appointment within a few blocks of the weir, I popped by for a look. 

No Pelicans. 

Yes, that is snow. 

On April 20th. 

On Thursday I rolled past again. Most of the snow had melted and I avoided the dirt trails right down by the river because I figured they'd be pretty muddy. There was nothing at the weir, but from the weir... 

I spotted a white dot at the northern tip of the mid river sand-bar-turned-island just south (upstream) of the weir... 

I rode back up the Meewasin Trail and scrambled down the muddy bank to see if I could get a better look.

 Not much better... But with the binoculars, it was pretty clear it was an American White Pelican! 

Then while I was standing there, straining to get a better look at this one pelican huddled on the mid-river island... 

some movement caught my eye and I noted A WHOLE FREAKING FLOCK of fifteen or sixteen of them flew overhead!? 

They wheeled about a few times...

and I thought they might have landed by the weir!?  So I scrambled back up the muddy bank and rushed back to the weir... 

To find only one.... ONE!? 

I also just missed getting my camera out in time to catch it diving for food. It slowly floated down the weir to the other side of the river. 

She probably got better pictures than me... 

When I got to the other side, I noted a second pelican had joined the one on the island. 

There they are. 

It was still pretty windy and brisk - there had been a snowstorm the day before! So the two were huddled up against the wind. 

across the way I noticed a few other watchers - including a guy with a giant camera on a tripod! 

So... Pelicans.... 

American Whitle Pelican in the Birbs of Sasktachetoon Sketchbook. 

Amanda's Birthday Art Project

 Every April (well... MOST Aprils) the kids and I usually do a little art project and make some sort of drawing or paintings for Amanda's birthday. 

Last year it was birds. 

Another year it was Horses from Greek Myth. 

(apparently I didn't post what we got up to here very often...) 

This year, kids suggested fantastical/mythical beasties... 

Keiran and I worked on ours in the afternoon, together at the kitchen table. 

We took up a lot of space. 

Finnegan was preparing for a D&D game in the afternoon, so he did his later in the evening (luckily Amanda had to stay at work until quite late...) 

Keiran Brown, Gem Collector - 30cm x 30 cm - ink and watercolour on paper 

The story here is that Amanda, in a moment of self-awareness, came home from a Yoga Workshop and told us she realized she was a crap detector and not a gem collector - but she really wanted to be a GEM COLLECTOR. For, REASONS, she had always been a very critical person... and... that's who she is... but she's tried really, REALLY hard to learn to NOT just open her mouth and point out EVERYTHING WRONG with... whatever is before her. It's been a struggle. 

I thought maybe there was a subtle little double entendre going on here - perhaps Keiran was suggesting that Amanda was was still, in fact, a DRAGON, and going about "collecting gems" in totally the wrong way... But Keiran assured me the thought never entered their mind and they just thought DRAGONS ARE COOL AND COLLECT SHINY THINGS! 

Tim Brown - Great Horned Owlbear - 30cm x 30 cm - ink and watercolour on paper 

Finnegan Brown - Merlin-Lynx-Griffon - 30cm x 30 cm - ink and watercolour on paper 

Finnegan wanted to do a different take on a standard classic fantasy griffon and instead of an eagle head and lion body, he wanted to do more local animals and so made his griffon referencing a Merlin's head and wings and a Lynx's body - both critters found around Saskatchewan - we've even had Merlins nesting in our neighbours tree for a few years. 

I'll be sneaking these out after Amanda goes to sleep... not sure if I should replace some existing art work or just leave them on the dining room table for her to discover in the morning. The problem with the former, is Amanda might not even notice them!? Probably just leave them on the table... She can decide where to hang them later. 

(She totally doesn't read this blog, so I feel pretty safe posting stuff here before she's even seen them!) 

Birbs of Saskatchetoon - American Robin

After nearly two weeks of others reporting their first spotting of returning American Robins (and a whole week after I HEARD my first Robin), I finally spotted one in my backyard this past Friday, as I was going to get my bike out for a ride!

American Robin in my back yard. 

Preliminary sketch.

American Robin in the Birbs of Saskatchetoon Sketchbook.

American Robin,  20cmx20cm (8'x8"), Ink and Watercolour on Paper

Birbs of Saskatchetoon - Ring-Billed and California Gulls

 Bright, sunny days and warmer weather over the first weekend of April meant I could spend some time gazing at gulls with the big binoculars. I’m fairly certain I identified two different (but very similar) species of  gulls… 

Ring-Billed Gull and California Gull.

I decided to put both on the same page. Largely just because where it ended up positioned in the sketchbook. 

The next open page was opposite the group shot of gulls I did last week. Had there been a two page spread I could have drawn the two across I probably would have done that - and the text would have gone across both pages. As it was, if I'd done them on separate pages I would have likely ended up repeating text... I don't know... I did what I did and it's in the book and that's that. 

I guess this is the downside of painting things into a bound sketchbook. Can't pull it all out and reorganize and ditch certain pages... Ah, well.. 

While I was fooling around with preliminary sketches (I know it's hard to believe I do preliminary sketches when the "good version" looks so... not great...). This one made me laugh. Of course now I'm going to have the Beach Boys stuck in my head all day singing California [Gulls].... 

MOAR Birb

I haven't spotted any NEW birds to add to the Birbs of Saskatchetoon 2022 Sketchbook... but I have been out looking and taking pictures and even doing a few more drawings/paintings. 

Rock Doves at River Landing 

MORE Rock Doves at River Landing 

STILL MORE Rock Doves at River Landing 

You get the idea... 

Rock Doves clinging to the side of the Senator Buckwold Bridge

Magpie in my yard. 

When you think you have a prifect shot of a chickadee lined up and it turns around an moons you... 

There, that's a bit better... 

Chickadee at one of our feeders. 

Common Goldeneye under the Traffic Bridge. 

Common Goldeneye taking off. 

Sparrows in our lilac bush. 

it was in the file... must be a bird there...!? 

bird in our yard... I don't even remember... Sparrow? 

Rock Doves under the Circle Drive Bridge. 

Raven! 

Mallards

Mallard

MORE Mallards! 

Spotted a White-Breasted Nuthatch from my bathroom window - it was on a tree, then in our neighbours gutter. 

Spotted it again when I went outside. 

WAY up in a tree and kind of silhouetted against a bright sky... 

I waited and just kept taking pictures and eventually it worked its way down the tree to where it wasn't so bright! 

Not bad for my little point-and-shoot camera! 

could definitely use a few of these as reference photos for painting! 

Maybe...? 

Wow I took a LOT of pictures of this little guy

(and there were many, many more that were even less in focus that I edited out!?)

More Mallards. 

More sparrows

This past week I spotted a coyote and PILES of magpies in a field north of the university. 

Just chilling in the field. 

That is downtown Saskatoon in the background. 

Flying Magpie

Magpie on a fence. 

MOAR Magpie on a fence. 

STILL MORE Magpie on a fence. 

Magpie moved to a tree. 

Seriously, there were hundreds of them all over the place!? 

On the ground....

Up in trees... 

Filling entire trees!?

SO. MANY. MAGPIES!? 

A couple days later. I saw a HUGE flock of birds - probably Bohemian Wazwings. 

Pari of corvids out on the river having a snack. Not sure if they were Crows or Ravens... the WERE pretty BIG?!

So... some of the other art... 

Bohemian Waxwing - 20cmx20xm (~8'x8"), Ink on Watercolour Paper - did this a week or so ago, after the Group of Waxwings because I knew my folks would like an individual one. 

Another Bohemian Waxwing - 20cmx20xm (~8'x8"), Ink on Watercolour Paper - trying to loosen up and have fun. 

Working in the new Art Space. Downside of working here... no computer (I do like the large monitor of our computer upstairs and being able to blow up pics I've taken for reference to work from... I tried printing off pages to refer to... its not the worst, but the pics are black and white. 

White-Breasted Nuthatch on Tree - 30cmx30xm (~12'x12"), Ink on Watercolour Paper 

RAWK Duv with Attitude - 20cmx20xm (~8'x8"), Ink on Watercolour Paper