Hello Spring!

 Song - When the Red Red Robin Comes Bob Bob Bobbin' Along by Bing Crosby

 

 Mr. & Mrs. Titmouse have been busy making their home a showstopper for 2021.  For two weeks one of them would be in the house tap-tap-tapping all day long as the other one flitted back and forth making sure all was well.  I guess they were hoping to enlarge their nesting box.  

 

I get so much enjoyment from these two and am able to help teach my grandson Henry about birds and their nests.

 

 

A birdhouse in the shade garden fell to the ground sometime this winter - probably by a squirrel - and Mr. B was kind enough to help rehang it with extra screws!

 

It may be too late for the birds to use this spring but it will be ready for them next year.

We have been seeing this small little wren like birds and I found out that they are Bushtits.  They love the suet feeder full of bugs and nuts! They also like the nesting balls I have hanging on our trees.

They work very hard at pulling the cotton out of the twig ball and just when you think they have too much to fly with, they go in for even more!

Even the hummingbirds go in for this nesting material.  They have gone through two balls this month so I just purchased two more along with some refill for the first two!  

Two days ago I woke up to find two beautiful deer in our backyard happily munching away on my roses. In 25 years they have never gotten into our backyard and when I walked out to see the damage they had done I almost cried.  My new tender rose growth, the hydrangeas, new shoots from my sweet peas....gone....now I love deer but not in my garden!  Mr. B and I went out that day with deer repellent and sprayed the yard.....I have two more bottles coming in the mail today!  Yesterday I opened the front curtain and there was a big ol' turkey on my front porch.  He didn't do much damage and I was glad that Henry got to see him and now walks around the house saying "gobble, gobble"!

One more beautiful troublemaker in my yard - hawks!  Just while I was typing this post I saw him fly into a tree right outside my door.  I see you Mr. Hawk trying to hide behind the wind chimes!!!

 

"Enjoy the little things in life for one day you'll look back and realize they were the big things."

--Kurt Vonnegut

 

 

Love is In The Air

Song - When The Red Red Robin Comes Bob Bob Bobbin' Along by Bing Crosby


California is finally getting some rain and the creek in our backyard roared all night long.  It's a good sound to hear as we have had too many years of drought.  When I woke up on Valentines day and looked out at our empty vegetable garden, I spotted these two love birds trying to decide if they should go out on a date.........

......or not.

And just yesterday I spotted a Robin in our Privet berries.......but look who is beneath him......a Cedar Waxwing.

Before I knew it the trees were full of Waxwings and Robins.

They were very good about taking turns eating as some of them 

would wait in this Oak tree on the other side of our yard and then when it was their turn, 

they would dive right into that clump of berries. It kinda felt like I was in that Hitchcock movie with birds multiplying by the second!

Their break consisted in getting a drink of water to wash down all the berries 

and then wait in a nearby tree.

"No winter lasts forever; 

no spring skips its turn."

--Hal Borland

Easter Bunny

Song - Easter Bonnet by Bing Crosby

 

Oh boy, Bunnies!!!!

Enjoy your Easter weekend!

"Happy Easter to everybunny"

Abstraction & Jazz

Song - Take Five by Dave Brubeck

Earlier this week I took a workshop in Orinda from Sandy Ostrau. She is an incredible artist from Palo Alto. 

Sandy painting a figure

As I seem to have hit a plateau with my painting and I needed to shake things up a little.

So I have been thinking lately that I would like to paint a little more abstractly and more impressionistically instead of being so "fussy".  You know the fussy thing I mean? It's when you paint everything down to the last minutiae so the viewer doesn't need to think about much.

Sandy's landscape demo

But when you paint more abstractly, the viewer knows it's a landscape or a figure but it is done in such rich colors and lovely form that the viewer becomes a participant.

One of my favorite figuratives of Sandy's done from the rendering below

Pretty amazing, huh?


Sandy had asked us to bring along several painted canvases that we would then paint over. I have lots of those!!!

Unfortunately, I don't have a "before" photo to share but trust me.....this was rendered fairly realistically but just didn't knock my socks off. But now it sings....not like Sandy's but hey.....it was my first attempt!

So at lunch we got to talking about how a lot of people just don't "get it", meaning abstract work.  People walk by and say "Oh my kid could do that!"  But amazingly it is difficult to break down all of the components into large, strong shapes!

I compared it to Jazz.  There is the kind of jazz that is melodic and you kind of know what's coming next.  But there are other kinds that I have trouble following.  I think abstract painting is kind of like that.  Some abstracts will blow your mind because you can't seem to get it (and maybe you are not supposed to!) and others you can follow and recognize as a landscape or a figure.  Somehow that feels a little more settling to me. 

Love this one of Sandy's as well!

It was a great workshop and I actually had fun playing with my paint!


Please check out Sandy's work here - www.sandyostrau.com

 
 "Ah, swing, well, we used to call it syncopation, then they called it ragtime, then blues, then jazz.  Now, it's swing.  White folks - you'all sho is a mess!"  --Louis Armstrong talking with Bing Crosby