This photo is a close-up of the painting that I have been working on for the last month. Can you tell what it is?
Another photo of the same painting. I'm guessing that you know that these are terns, but what species?
I'll give you a hint. There are only two species of tern that regularly occur in Alaska, Arctic, and Aleutian. These are one of those two species.
A full body shot of Arctic Terns.
The third tern in the painting.
This is the complete painting. It is 18x24". I have not come up with a title yet. I have some really good photos of Arctic Terns. They are very elegant birds and I have wanted to paint them for a long time. The problem for me has been that I cannot seem to come up with an interesting setting to place them in.
As you can see, I have not managed to come up with a composition that does them justice. There is not much that I can do with the birds themselves, they look fine, and I cannot alter the background without ruining the whole painting. It is obvious that I need to do something with the rocks.
This painting needs to be set aside until I can come up with some inspiration for it. I am fairly certain that I will not paint over it. For now, I have a few commissions to get out of the way. Maybe I'll get back to the terns when those paintings are completed.
I'll flesh this post out with some seasonal photos. These are juvenile Tree Swallows.
So cute all puffed up like this.
Green-winged Teal sifting the mud. These are probably juveniles. The adults have already migrated south.
The Sandhill cranes are just about gone as well.
The snow is creeping lower and lower down the mountains. I mourn the loss of summer, and dread the coming of the relentless winter.
3 comments:
Love the Tern painting! Very animated and I always enjoy paintings of birds doing something. Love the Tree Swallow pics too, especially when they are puffed up against the cold like that. Amazed that you were so ruthless with some of your older painting in the previous post - I usually keep all of mine as I feel there is something to be learnt from each of them. Still - like you, some works do get painted over - or torn up!
John!,the photos from the teals and sandhill cranes,are taken in the mudflats, you know?,are there, bird migration from the arctic circle that pass trough the southern coast of Alaska?.
Yes Marc, Birds do migrate through here from further north. Too many species to start naming them. It is more common for us to get arctic birds during the winter months. That is when we get Eurasian strays as well.
Right now we have Red-throated Pipit, Siberian Stonechat, and Sabine's Gull in south Anchorage. I have not seen them yet.
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