Africa on my Mind

Here in the dead of winter, my thoughts increasingly turn to escape from the cold and dark. One month from today, I will touch down at Johannesburg Int. Airport, and start my month-long safari. Of course I really look forward to seeing the big African animals outside of a zoo setting, but my main interest is in seeing the smaller critters. Especially the birds, and reptiles. I can't wait.
Before each exotic adventure, I like to do a series of small paintings of the wildlife of the region I will be visiting. I take these paintings with me, and either try to sell them to fellow tourists, or to Art galleries. Sometimes I trade them for lodging in some nice ecolodges. Once I was robbed of all my belongings in Costa Rica. The thieves got my passport, credit cards, traveller's checks, driver's license, and worst of all. they got my brand new camera equipment, and my beloved Ziess binoculars. Thankfully the thieves did not have an eye for great art, and they did'nt take my paintings. I was able to sell them to a wonderful little gallery, (Namu), in San Jose. This helped me to continue on my vacation, and return home safely.

This is the first of my Africa paintings, Cat in the Grass, 9x12" It's dangerous to become enamoured with your own work, but I'm happy with this one.

They can't all be winners. The actual painting does look much better than this photo, but it does'nt compare to the Cheetah. It is a Malachite Kingfisher, 8x10". I'll do a few more paintings, and post them on the blog before I leave for South Africa.

Christmas Bird Count, Anchorage

For those of you who may not be familiar with the Audubon Society's annual Christmas Bird Count, it is a volunteer effort to take a census of winter bird populations. The event got started 110 years ago as an alternative to the Christmas Side Hunt. That was a yearly activity where idiots with guns went out on Christmas Day to shoot every bird, and animal they could find. They would load them onto awagons, and at the end of the day, take a tally of who shot the most critters. Most of their victims were never eaten.

Thankfully those days are long over, but the CBC lives on. It has become an important indicator of the health of regional bird populations. I have covered the same area in Anchorage with Owen Hughes, (who is 90) for 13 years.

We always start out at the crack of dawn, 9:30am, in Alaska. We keep going until well after sunset, 3:30pm. Before moving to Alaska, I participated in CBC's in Northern Arizona for many years.

This is where we started our count. It's a tiny park, next to the Chester Creek Greenbelt. The temperature was -5f, -20c, when we left our houses.

The first birds we encountered were Bohemian Waxwings. We counted 163 of them in total. In some years, we get 3000+.

Another photo of little black specks. These are American Robins. We saw 45 in all. That's way more than usual, we are lucky to get even one most years.

Black-billed Magpie.

There were 10 magpies today.

We saw 30 Ravens.

The only other species we saw were 6 Black-capped Chickadees. Five species altogether, that's our all-time low. 14 is our highest number ever. These totals are pathetic compared to the old Arizona counts. Once I participated in a CBC in San Blas, Mexico. We got 300+ species on that day.

The Eagles of Winter

We have had a large dump of snow around here, that has continued for days. The snow in my yard is now thigh deep. The thermometer on my balcony reads -13c, thats +7f. Tomorrow is forcast to be 10 degrees colder. These temps are normal for this time of year, and the scenery is stunning. I've been seeing a lot of Bald Eagles around town. They are being fed by a few people, and many more of them fill their bellies at the city dump. The eagle above was enduring the snowstorm in a nieghbor's yard, yesterday afternoon.

The following photos were shot earlier near the fire station across town. That is where most of the town eagles hang out because an old woman feeds them year after year. This is strictly against the law, but the powere that be, look the other way.

The controversy about feeding eagles is that more eagles survive the winter than would otherwise survive. The artificially elevated eagle population puts extra pressure on traditional prey species in the summer months, when the eagles are not being fed. Nesting loons, and Sandhill Cranes, suffer the brunt of eagle depredations.

Volunteers monitor nesting loons around Anchorage, and the Matsu Valley. In some years, eagles snatch every single loon chick. The loon poulation is steadily dropping. The same thing is happening with the local crane population. That is why many conservation minded people hate the fact that eagles are being fed in the winter months. The number of eagles that feed at the dump is even greater. Another controversial practice is the rehabilitation of injured eagles. These eagles are released locally when they have recovered, and that adds to the problem. In spite of all that, it's great to see eagles up close.

The Futile Pursuit of Perfection

When I was younger, often I would longingly admire the work of established wildlife artists. An artist would paint something, for instance an eagle, and I would look at it and say, "there is no need for anyone to  ever paint another eagle because this one is perfect, and who could add to that?" Six months, or a year later I would see another eagle painting by another artist, that put the first one to shame. How could that be if the first one was perfect?
Of course perfection is not a static condition, it's a fluid existence that always progresses. How do I measure perfection in my own art? Since I can't know how others percieve my artwork, I can only measure it against my own arbitrary standard. The way I judge my own paintings is by comparing the completed work against the mental picture that first inspired the painting. It does'nt matter whether the painting looks good, I dont even know if it looks good, unless it looks the way I invisioned it would look. Someone else seeing what I consider to be perfect, may not relate to it at all.

My paintings almost never look the way I wanted them to look. In fact, in me whole carreer, only three paintings have come close to the mark. One of those paintings was just completed today.

This is the first of my perfect paintings. Spectacled Eider, 8x10". Of course it is far from perfect by any standards other than the fact that it looks just like I intended it to look. If you have modest expectations, then it's easier to reach perfection. The actual painting, looked much better than this photo indicates.

This is my second perfect painting, Red-necked Grebe, 11x14" This is a more ambitious effort than the first. Miraculously, I painted the whole thing in one day. Everything went smoothly without a hitch. Why cant they all turn out like this one?

Here are two photos of the third perfect painting. The varnish is still drying on this painting. Feather Dusters, 18x24" It is a much more ambitious work than the grebe painting, and it took weeks to complete. I was interested in three things with this painting, light, atmosphere, and texture. These are the main themes of many of my paintings. I also wanted to make the eagles look down, and dirty. The mottled plummage of sub-adult Bald Eagles is more interesting to me than the more pristine, brown and white of the adults. That is why I portrayed two sub-adult birds of different ages, and one adult for comparison. They are lounging about on a rocky coastline like Bald Eagles often do here in Alaska.

Many people resent the eagles because they eat all kinds of garbage to survive the winter. Then in the summer, the elevated eagle population, eat many young loons, and Sandhill Cranes. Loon, and crane populations are on the decline, while eagles are more abundant than ever.

Bohemian Delights

For the past several days, this whole region of Alaska has been socked in by a dense cover of ice fog. This afternoon the fog lifted for a few hours to reveal a frosty winter wonderland. After lunch I set out with my camera to get a few photos. I did'nt get far. In my driveway I heard the soft peeps of Bohemian Waxwings. When I looked up to spot them, I was impressed by the view I got of the waxwings in the Mountain Ash trees, growing alongside my driveway. I began photographing them, and kept at it until my fingers were numb from the cold. I shot 146 photos altogether. Here are just a few examples.

Bohemian Waxwings would not be here at this time of year were it not for the many ornamental, Mountain Ash trees that have been planted all over town. When the berries run out, the waxwings move on.

These guys are such elegant birds. They are certainly a bright spot in the long, dreary , Alaska winters.

Two New Remodels

These are two paintings originally done in 2003. They gathered dust in a gallery since then until I got them back on Thanksgiving Day. Naturally for me, I could'nt just leave them be. I had to play with them in the hopes that I could somehow improve them.

The Gray Glider, 12x24". I think the overall idea of the painting is good, but I did a very sloppy job of painting this Great Gray Owl.

This is the new version. I repainted every square millimeter of the old painting.

The same version of the painting, photographed in a different light.

The next painting, Snowshoe Shelter, 15x30" was based on a scene of a Snowshoe Hare in the forest across the street from my house. Since then, the land has been developed and a mini mart now stands in it's place. I liked the overall painting but the hare's face looked really funky to me. The low angle of the winter sun, creates warm colors, called alpenglow.

So here is the new version of the painting. definitly better.Below is a close-up of the first version of the painting.

This is the new Snowshoe Hare. I left the eye as is, but I changed most of the rest of the painting. Good enough for me, at least for now.