Batik

When I was a sophomore in high school, my art teacher allowed us to do an art discipline of our choosing for a semester. I had already done quite a few acrylic paintings and wanted to do something different. A friend of mine suggested batik, since she had already learned how and would be happy to show me.

So we both invested in some Rit dye, lots of paraffin, newspapers (to absorb excess paraffin), some old cotton sheets, and a batik instrument for the finer details - and we were off.

We had loads of fun and made quite a few batiks. Only one of mine survived all kinds of moves and life changes, and here it is (borrowed from my Dad to photograph). I'm surprised how the greens are still pretty vivid after over 30 years. The sky used to be a bit more blue, the reds in the flowers have faded to the lightest pink (I had used beet juice), and the brown in the tree trunk (some natural dye there also) are just hints.

Since we were interested in more natural dyes, we experimented with lots of them at the time. I can remember a pot of paraffin constantly on the stove during evenings and weekends; and ironing out layers of wax from the cloth into newspaper. It was a lot of work, but it was also a very satisfying technique and provided lots of surprises between each dye bath.

We got high marks for our semester, thankfully!

Walk Discoveries

It's to be in the 90s F today, but the mornings sure are chilly. Fall is on its way. When I went for my walk today, all the poison oak is turning red - "the better to see you with"! - and the old madrone leaves are coming down, along with the old bark.

These little Nubian buck kids are new to the neighborhood. The light beige guy always bleats when he sees me. He's young enough to want to have company other than his brother, apparently.

And then there are the lovely lawn ornaments one sees these days. (Quite an impressive rack, I'd say!)

And last but not least, the walking paths were crawling with lizards of all sizes. This guy was not longer, from head to tail, than 1.5 inches. Although he was leery of me, he did not bolt. After photographing him, I carefully walked past him so that my shadow didn't flow over him like a predatory bird. But I did tell him to please be careful - I almost stepped on him!

Street Smarts

Time for a fawn update. The Mamma is teaching her fast-growing kids street smarts, and they're doing great.

Here they were on Sunday morning, traversing one of the streets. They are getting big, one bigger than the other, and I suspect that one is a boy.

They continue very healthy and freely mix now with their elders, while keeping a close eye on their mom - she still has a lot to teach them...

Quirky Charlie

Charlie No-Toe has some funny habits - and they are as predictable as the sun rising.

Here is Charlie indulging in his habit of flying over to the salt shaker and licking whatever traces of salt might be left on the shaker. Usually there are no grains of salt - only a faint powdery residue. It's not good to give parrots salty food, so I don't usually leave the salt shaker out. But occasionally I forget, and he's there like a magnet.

The other habit he has, also very predictable, is to raid Sam's food container on the living room tree and steal large pellets (or the chunks Sam leaves behind), which he takes to the wicker basket and slowly works on, eating it bit by bit. The Harrison's large pellets are less refined than the cockatiels' fine pellets and have millet seeds and other bits showing. I think these bits - and the satisfying challenge of working on the big guys' food - are what's most attractive.

Nature Sketchbook.2

There are always lots of objects to draw from nature, some living and other having come to the end of their cycle.

I found a tired-looking (but interesting!) dried peony seed head at the end of summer, which combines both death and life: the dead outer husk protecting the life-giving seeds inside. The cedar pod does the same.


By the way, one of the most amazing nature experiences I've had was to open a Moonflower (Ipomoea Alba) seed before it had dried out and hardened. Opened very carefully - and it is possible because its seed is large - one can extract the actual green sprout with its wrinkled cotyledon leaves and small smooth root bud. When I performed this "dissection," I was flabbergasted and a little horrified at the same time: I'd exposed a living plant embryo and deprived it of its life.

Intellectually, I have always accepted that life somehow miraculously springs forth from a small dessicated seed, but seeing this was truly amazing. A perfect living embryo is formed inside a seed, it dries out, then becomes green again under the right conditions. My appreciation of seeds and plants magnified by many factors after seeing this in reality.

Nature Sketchbook.1

Cleaning out my closet this weekend revealed an old nature sketchbook I had started a couple of years ago and thought I'd lost.

I used to take it on my jaunts to Lithia Park in Ashland, Oregon, where lots of migrating waterfowl come to rest en route north or south. I wrote: "This fellow - a canvasback? - was desperately trying to get some shut-eye, but was constantly thwarted by busy bozos like the one to the left. Long-suffering, he muttered ducky oaths under his breath and his wing."

Another entry showed two other ducks: "The plain brown duck was very vigilant while her friend/mate slept. She never relaxed. Friend/mate was black with white specks in front/chest."

This type of journal/sketchbook is a lot of fun. It's a very cheap way to help hone sketching skills while also improving one's powers of observation in nature. A fine point drawing pen/felt tip and some colored pencils does the trick.

Whispering Madrones

I love madrone trees. Perhaps it's because they remind me of eucalyptus that I fell in love with, living in California when I was young. I used to go up to a grove of them on top of a hill in the San Francisco Bay Area and sit and listen to the wild oats swaying in the bay breezes and hear the rustling of the leaves and smell their wonderful fragrance. I always felt better when I did that, especially when things weren't going well in my life.

Like eucalyptus, madrones shed their old bark in August, revealing a greenish, cool, and very smooth new tissue underneath. It is a treat to stroke the new bark and feel the aliveness under the hand. You can almost feel it is growing. One thing for sure, if you stop and listen in a large grove of shedding madrones,

you can actually hear the soft, constant rustling and curling of the old tissue-thin bark, as it pulls away from the new bark underneath - bark that no longer fits the new one.

And like eucalyptus, the madrone has a remarkable ability to heal and keep growing. I've seen ancient stumps with still-living bark around the base continue to produce bark that sheds annually. When a very old tree goes down in a storm, it may take many decades, but often you will see new trees forming from the roots of the old tree.

I call this formation "the six sisters." It's been through fire and storm, and yet it keeps on producing more trees around the original base.

It's a tree that doesn't give up and it keeps trying to live and grow, no matter what happens to it. I like that.

(I have two paintings inspired by madrones, and more will come in time: Madrone Gifts I and Madrone Gifts II.)

Big Morning Sky

This morning, on my drive to work, I was treated to this marvelous big sky. There were lots of quickly-moving big dark clouds with openings that the early morning sun shone through in columns. It is hard to see in this photo - I had only my cell phone camera at hand, so the quality is poor. But it may give you an idea.

And the air had been wind-washed of all wildfire smoke. What a lovely change!

And here is another photo from my work parking lot.

The weather turned out to be sunny and mild in temperature today. The slant of the sun is also markedly different, reminding me that autumn will soon be here.

I love that shift from summer to early fall and eagerly look forward to the leaves turning.

Well, while it lasts, may your waning days of summer be good.

Life's a Gym

Besides eating and hanging out with me, Sam does like a good bit of playing most days. Sometimes he doesn't want to play without me; other times, he's content to play on his own. These shots are taken of Sam in self-directed mode, and one of his favorite hang-outs is on top of his cage in his play bowl - a large carved wooden bowl filled with odd and interesting stuff.

I think Sam is part dragon. Like most green dragons, he likes to hoard things. Often he won't even play with small pieces of wood or foot toys. But he fiercely claims them as HIS OWN. And then there are times he will deign to allow you to handle them - but only under a very watchful eye, as if he doesn't quite trust me with his loot.

Sam also likes to explore. The "tree on wheels" in my living room has been parked next to my music stand for months, and he's been aching to get to it and find out what's on top of the fireplace mantel. Here he is after having finally stretched far enough to gain a foothold on the stand and made it to the summit. What!? Another bird?!




There are also many interesting things to discover in his woven grass bag. I deposit odds and ends in there for him to find, and he'll spend lots of time just quietly chewing on wood bits and sea grass rope.

Well, it's all in a day's work and play for Sam, working up to the next important item on the day's agenda:

"What's for supper?"

Of Painting and Smoke

Well, the wildfire smoke is back again,
with a vengeance. Today it was worse than ever because there is a cloud cover holding all the smoke in. It is supposed to rain, but nothing so far. This photo shows how colorless the sky is.

When the sun did show through the clouds briefly, it cast a sickly yellow glare over everything. (In the next photo, you might be able to see a yellowish glare over my easel and painting.)

Nevertheless, as much to distract myself from the smoke effects as to simply paint, I managed to paint most of the day. I've named my newest painting (not yet done) "Saturday Morning Rehearsal at the Britt."

It's coming along. I'll post the final results once I finish it and have it scanned.

I find that working with a color chart helps me immensely as I paint. All my watercolors I've listed on a chart, broken down into 5 basic color columns: yellows, reds, browns, greens, and blues. I write the name/brand of each, then place a sample of the raw paint - undiluted and diluted.

This is a great point of reference when trying to choose just the right color for a certain application. Even so, most of the colors I use are used with another color or more than one, in order to achieve just the right hue.

"We Take Care of Our Deer..."

I've mentioned before that our town has a fondness for its urbanized deer. We don't wage a futile war against them just because they like our gardens. If we're that particular, we fence in the delectables. Otherwise, we share and are happy that the deer are a familiar presence we can watch and enjoy. After all, we're the ones who've encroached on their territory.

I was reminded of this town-wide attitude when I called the City Hall yesterday morning to report a very leaky faucet in the old cemetery - actually two leaks, one of which was slowly dripping into a watering trough; the other, flowing gently but steadily into an old grave, greening its sides but probably not doing any favors to whatever remained of the occupant belowground. (This is not a "Memorial Gardens of Eternal Repose" with carefully manicured lawns and flower beds. This is a wild west sort of rough and tumble place that's parched and brown in the summer.)


I was cheerfully told that the sexton (gee, what an old-fashioned title - I didn't realize people still had a job with this name in the US anymore), who was away till Monday, would be informed about the fast leak. He told me that I should not worry about the water dripping into the trough, as that is for the deer. "We take care of our deer, you know."

Now, that's an attitude I'm behind 100%.

And the Heat Goes On...

... affecting human and deer alike, in a comatose sort of way.

This buck just flaked out in the shade of my backyard plum tree, resting his weary (and no doubt heavy) head.

And the "Old Mamma" doe found the same idea entrancing, it seems.

Well, that's what's happening around these parts. Stay tuned for the latest-breaking news on how quickly the grass is turning brown...

106 Degrees Fahrenheit...

Summer is roaring through here at 106 degrees F. Too hot to think. Therefore, for my own sake, I needed to blog about something cold. To remind me that snow does still exist, and can exist again...

Here is a photo of an outing we took to the Jura Mountains in France in the spring a couple years ago. My friend is actually RUNNING with snowshoes, he was so happy to be out on the pristine snow that had recently been wiped smooth from a wind.

This one is of the chalet off the parking lot where people regroup to either start their snowshoeing or Nordic skiing; or to end their journey. No one was there that day as the season was over - except that the snow came back while no one was expecting it.

And one more shot at the end of our excursion, with the sun shining low through the beautiful snow-clad pines. It was such a fun outing because we had the entire place to ourselves.

Ahh, I think I feel slightly cooler now...

Lizard at 11:10

This fellow is my latest painting. I believe he's a Western Fence Lizard. I found him lounging on a very weathered old stump of a madrone tree, whose outer bark was still very much alive, amazingly. In fact, it was starting to shed a layer of bark, which curled around the edges.

The lizard was found late morning, and when I looked closely at his position on the stump, I thought he did a good job of telling time, sundial-wise.

I painted this on Fabriano Bright White hot pressed paper, which is my paper of choice when I want to do fine detail with mostly dry brush. I did, however, do plenty of wet glazing when I painted the stump. It took about 3 or 4 glazes each of Aureolin Yellow, Alazarin Crimson, and Cobalt to get a bluish-tinged weathered wood look. With hot pressed paper, wet glazing is a bit tricky as the lovely smoothness of the paper does not lend itself to absorbing much water before the fibers lose integrity. So care must be taken: each glaze must dry thoroughly before the next one is added, and there must be as little working of the glazed areas as possible so that the fibers don't turn to mush.

I had a lot of fun painting this one - and I LOVED the cracks in the wood that all pointed toward the lizard. Here is a detail from the painting.

Painting in Progress

I recently finished a painting, which I will soon post here and on my website. Meantime, I've been working on another one, inspired by my love of music and music-makers.

I began this watercolor painting over the weekend, starting with the first under glazes of yellow and the lighter colors. (Don't worry - I won't leave the violins yellow!) This painting shows a small part of the musicians playing during a Saturday morning rehearsal at the Britt. I always love sneaking in on these whenever I can. Most of the time I can't afford to attend the real performances, so I get a preview of the evening's offerings early weekend mornings.

When I saw how focused the musicians are, and the sweep of the double bass player's head and arm, as if he's one with the music and the instrument, I wanted to capture that feeling.

Well, there will be much more to show later when I make more progress!

Summer's Height

Summer is at its height, but I see it is giving out signs that Fall is on its heels. This morning I saw some leaves starting to turn red in a maple tree, amazingly.

But, first, it's blackberry season in the sunnier, drier spots, and the berries are delicious!


The Rogue Valley has been famous for its pear growing. But over the years I've lived here, I've seen pear orchard after pear orchard be tractored under to make way for vineyards, wine being the new cash crop, it seems. And apparently quite a few outstanding wine growers are in this area.

For now, I'll stick to blackberries - they're free and right outside my door. Hooray for summer!

Clear Skies Today!

After moaning about the smokey air yesterday, the winds came last night and blew the smoke away, and I was out the door walking as soon as I could this morning!

This is a panoramic view from the vantage point of the old pioneer cemetery in my town. Since it's an historic Gold Rush town, the cemetery has been maintained and is quite interesting.

I walked there today because I wanted to avoid the star thistles and burrs I'd get on my normal route; and it's a good stiff incline, so good exercise.

It's quite fascinating to see how society was divided in the 1850s, and that is clearly evident in how the graves were set out. There is a section for the Catholics and the Jews (on the outer fringes - they were denominations that weren't very popular), then the Protestant folks.


There is a "potter's field" section for the poor and disenfranchised who couldn't pay for a proper burial. This included a few Indians, Chinese laborers who worked on the gold diggings, thieves, etc. And finally, the choicest sections seem to be for the Masons and the Odd Fellows, whoever they were.

It's also interesting to see how many immigrants are buried here. These are just two out of many.

One thing about it, it's QUIET there!

California Burning....

...and the smoke comes north.

This has been the summer of fires. So far, nothing major has burned in Southern Oregon, but poor California seems to be on fire for so long. We get the smoke from the more northern fires.


Since I'm highly sensitive to smoke and don't do well at all with it, when I'm not at work, and on weekends, I've had to shut myself in my home with air filters, exercising with my old Nordic Track machine. I surely miss my walks.

Occasionally, though, the winds change and the smoke is blown away from our valley. But so far, those times have been few.

Well, that makes the Autumn all the more desired and appreciated. I hope that wherever you are, you do not have wildfires and that your wildlife is safe!

Happy (Dinosaur) Feet

Sam has what I call "Happy Feet." When he's on the floor or a table, he waddles with a pigeon-toed gait, which seems to match his personality: Slightly off-center, transparent of motive, and very endearing. At least, he has his priorities very straight: food, cuddles, and foot toys.

Parrot feet also remind me just how much they resemble something anciently dinosaurish. They're covered with a rough scaly skin with claws that can do amazing feats of dexterity.


In case you're wondering what kind of contortion this is, it's simple: Sam's preening with one foot over his head so he can reach his elbow for a general cleaning.

And feet are exceptionally important for carefully eating every tiny piece of almond, which is Sam's favorite treat of all.

Happy feet are a good thing!

R.I.P. Little Mice & All Tiny Creatures Who Don't Make It

My co-worker, who lives deep in the country, brought to work two tiny newborn mice. She'd been cleaning her outside storage room and in one box she unearthed, a mother mouse scurried away from a nest of shredded newspaper, containing two blind, hairless mice.

She left the nest alone for quite some time that day, hoping the mother would return. But the mouse never did. Meantime, the babies began crying desperately. So what could my co-worker do but try to help them? She knew they would eventually die, being so very young and no longer than 1.5 inches, but she had no choice in the matter.

The babies actually lived for three days, being fed by dropper. And when not sleeping, they were always in constant motion, seeking the soft belly of their mother. They never stopped trying to find that "home" until they finally died, quietly, in a warm shoebox.

I got to see them still alive. I marveled at their tiny toes, miniscule tails - even their very long translucent nose whiskers. Nature had yet again produced two more perfections that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Here's to Mother Nature - long may she reign, despite everything we humans do to destroy Her wonders.

Different Strokes

I love to keep learning about my chosen medium of watercolor. This book, Different Strokes-Watercolor by Naomi Tydeman, caught my eye not long ago. It is so vivid and colorful. And I liked the title!

The cover shows two interpretations of the same flower by two different artists. The same theme is carried throughout the book. It's fascinating.

I never tire of seeing how other artists interpret their subjects because every artist has a totally different perspective of anything you place in front of him or her. And no one way is right, nor is it wrong. Happily, every interpretation is what art is about: expressing one's own creative viewpoint and passion about a subject. I like this book because it celebrates this inclusiveness, while at the same time providing tons of helpful tips on technique and methods.

There are also several demonstrations of painting progressions - from drawings, initial stages, first washes, finished painting. Demonstrations include still lifes, landscapes, buildings, people, flowers. There are also chapters on basic color theory, composition, and watercolor technique. The book is geared for beginner watercolorists, but I think any artist would find it fun to peruse and learn from.

Happy painting!

The Britt Music Festival!

I had the opportunity yesterday morning to visit the grounds of the Britt Festival in Jacksonville, Oregon, and listen in on the rehearsal for the classical performance for that night. It was wonderful! (The above shot is part of the view from the Britt grounds.)

What is the Britt Festival, you may ask? Well, for those of us who live in Southern Oregon, it's the best venue for fabulous open-air evening concerts under the stars - from classical music, rock, pop, jazz, and the truly legendary. To give you an idea of this year's performers (just a partial list): Crosby, Stills & Nash, the Neville Brothers, Michelle Shocked, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Keb Mo', Mark Knopfler, B.B. King, Winton Marsalis, Billy Bob Thornton, Lyle Lovett, Judy Collins, Willie Nelson, Midori - and the list goes on.

The Britt Festival begins in June and ends early September. It was named after an important and visionary Swiss immigrant, Peter Britt, who made his home in Jacksonville during the Gold Rush. He was a photographer by trade, but tried his hand at gold prospecting, bee keeping, wine cultivation, horticulture, etc. By the time he died at age 86, he was one of the wealthiest and most highly respected men in Southern Oregon. The festival grounds adjoin the original site of Peter Britt's home.

This shot was taken in the spring, before the Britt is open, but it gives you an overall context.

Last year, I took a photo of one of the morning classical rehearsals that I later attended that evening. There is nothing like sitting on a green lawn under the stars, surrounded by woods and pine trees, listening to such music, seeing the warm golden lights from the stage, sighing in unison with the audience during a particularly moving passage.



Departing in the late evening from the grounds is very difficult. But the memory of the experience carries me through many days afterwards.

Fawns Are Growing Up

The fawns are getting bigger and bigger.

Here is one of them being groomed by his mamma.

And another one.







Mamma's taught them well - they now groom each other.

They are just beginning to lose their fawn spots on the lower flanks - their new adult hair is beginning to grow in and the spots are getting fainter. By summer's end, they'll be "spotless."

They continue to be healthy and lively, though they don't play as much. They can't get any more free lunches from Mamma. So many grasses and browse, so little time...