Art (short!)

It rained most of the weekend, so there was no birding (sniff) and just one quick dog walk at a heavily wooded park (to keep off the rain...sigh).  And without bird photos or dog photos, I'm left with more art.  Other than the sketch outing to the museum on Sunday, I did have just one ink sketch to share of a view from behind my office building of the Montlake Cut:

I wanted to show that there was water in the background, so I went ahead and added color later:

I'm also working on a watercolor painting (at home) of a Great Blue Heron, and I'm attempting to work more slowly and thoughtfully as I go along.  It's hard!  But I want to curb my tendency to rush things, and will keep at it.

Art at the Burke Museum

Sunday was the monthly Seattle Urban Sketchers outing, held this time at the Burke Museum on the UW campus.  Nicole joined me, and on a very rainy day, it was great to have an indoor location.  The sketching group was not as large as last month's, maybe 25-30.   There was plenty of room to spread out among the many exhibits (two floors worth of natural history and anthropology), and the only minor irritation was the occasional fussy child running about.

The main problem with this location, I soon discovered, was a wealth of material -- so many cool things to draw, and only 2-1/2 hours.  I made the mistake of rushing through each sketch in order to dash to the next thing, and was not that pleased with the results.

Afterwards I had a little think about this, and realized that this tendency to rush things is a recurring tendency, and not only in artistic endeavors.  I need to learn how to slow down and do things with greater consideration.  How do I do that?  I'm not sure yet, but am excited to explore this more.

After the sketching session the group reconvened in the lobby to look over the work done (hint: you can always click on any photo in these posts to open a larger version).

Nicole had a great time, too, and wants to do more urban sketching -- hoorah!  And finally, one of the co-leaders posted on the Urban Sketching blog, and she likes to take photos of the sketchers -- I am in two of the pics -- here is the link:
http://seattle.urbansketchers.org/2015/03/sketching-at-burke.html

More Hummingbird Photos

I managed to snap a few nice photos of one of the hummingbirds that regularly visits my feeder:

I like how the light shows the shadow of the bird's head inside the cup.  In the next shot, you can see the tip of the bird's tongue (which is quite a bit longer than that):

In between feedings the hummingbird flitted about in the shrubs nearby where I had a devilishly hard time getting a good photo -- this one was the best of the lot:

The sunlight was just too bright over that way, and all of the shots were overexposed.  Oh, well.  I'm sure I'll have more opportunities for hummingbird photography.  Finally, here is the bird back at the feeder, caught in hover mode with its tongue out:

Fabulous birds to watch!

Dachshund Time!

A Three-Dog Day happened last Sunday at Magnuson Park, with Truman, Winston, and Chloe enjoying the balmy weather:

A lot of sniffing took place, of course.

Down by the lake shore, Chloe found some pebbles to her liking, and spent some time rolling around on them.

Miss Chloe is now twelve and though still gung-ho about going for walks, is not quite so spry as she once was, so after the midpoint of the walk we plopped her into Truman's stroller.  She loved riding in it.  Truman seemed a tad jealous, so towards the end of the walk, I let him join her.

Such happy dogs!

As usual, more sketching!

Well, we're into the third month of 2015, which I declared to be the Year of Art, and so far it's going fabulously well.  What a wonderful idea, if I do say so myself.  At first,  I made special efforts to make sure I remembered to draw something or work on a painting every single day, even if it was only a 30-second pencil sketch of Truman sleeping at the end of the day.

Yesterday, though, it occurred to me that I hadn't thought about whether I'd done my art for that day, and hadn't thought about this for some time, and why?  Because it had become a habit -- drawing or painting was now so ingrained as a daily activity that I just simply did it without thinking or planning.  Hurrah!  Art is always with me now!  So cool.

Here is a sketch I did yesterday of some random plants in a landscaped area near my office building:

And here is what I sketched when I went to escort some visiting students to their next destination, but they were running 20 minutes behind schedule -- there was a waiting area with a window through which I could see the building next door, and of course I had my travel art kit with me:

I'm also trying to do more landscapes.  Last week I did this pen drawing of a view from the boat house on the UW campus:

This seemed a tad simplistic, so I added more detail and shading:

I liked this fine as a pen drawing, but couldn't help wondering what it would look like with color added -- and hey, I had this nice photo to remember the pen drawing by should I ruin it!  So I took my watercolors to it:

I like the sky, the water, and the brush; the boathouse could perhaps use more work.  I'm still pondering that.

Coming up this Sunday the 15th is the next urban sketchers outing, which will be at the Burke Museum.  Excellent choice, and I'm looking forward to it (and hoping it won't be as crowded as last month's outing!).  

Last Saturday at the Fill (with bonus adorable Truman photos!)

At the Montlake Fill this past Saturday, there was more evidence of busy beavers at work:

I thought about hiring them to remove the unattractive Douglas Fir in my back yard.  Probably cheaper than the tree service that quoted me $1500.  Luckily, when I returned home, one of the neighbors was busy having a tree removed by a different company, who suggested selective limb removal to make it look nicer instead.

Okay, back to the Fill:  I spotted the first Common Merganser of the season, a stunning male in full breeding plumage:

Alas, the other birds were not as cooperative.  Every time I've been there for the past few weeks, there have been Yellow-rumped Warblers flitting about, and I've tried really hard to get a good photo of one, but the dang birds will NOT sit still.  And their flitting movements among the branches are utterly unpredictable, and the few times they DO stay put for more than a second, those same branches are in the way.  So I took about 30 photos of a warbler on Saturday -- and not one was good enough to post.   Oh, well.  Even worse was a Golden-crowned Kinglet, who is not only smaller than the warbler, but moves twice as quickly.  Forget about it!

So I took photos of an extremely cooperative dachshund instead:

Truman is definitely not prone to flitting about.

On our way out, we discovered a plant sale being held right there at the Urban Horticulture Center that runs the Fill:

I didn't buy anything.  And finally, we paused to admire the perennial gardens:

I must remember to return there when more things are blooming, to do some sketching.  It is a truly lovely little garden.

The Unexpected Expedition (with birds)

On my office bulletin board, prominently displayed, is this postcard:

And sadly, it is so often true, which is why I am antisocial and introverted and A Highly Sensitive Person who disdains travel because when you go to most places, they have Other People in them, and besides, in the immortal words of Homer Simpson, "What's the point of going out?  We're just going to wind up back here anyway."

Thus, we come to Saturday's Unexpected Expedition.  It was 60 and sunny and Michelle and I decided to take Winston and Truman to the beautiful beach with the stunning views at Golden Gardens Park.  Alas, when we arrived, the parking areas were a madhouse -- jammed with sports cars and young people and all sorts of stuff that seemed to be a car show.  There was no chance of going to the beach, and we were most disappointed.  And we had dogs who were bored.  Michelle suggested continuing down the road a couple of miles to the Ballard Locks.  Neither of us had been there for probably twenty years and goodness, it was lovely!

We first wandered along paths through a botanical garden (not much in bloom but still very pleasing) to wear out the dogs before going to the locks proper to watch boats pass through and a train cross the bridge.  Then on the opposite shore, we discovered a Great Blue Heron rookery that must have had 35-40 nests way up in the trees:

I'd been vaguely aware of this via Tweeters, our regional birding listserv, where someone usually reports on the rookery maybe once or twice a year, but had no idea it was so big.

Nearby, a woman was tossing bread to the gulls, so I snapped a few over-exposed shots to practice taking photos of birds in flight as they came in to get food:

So we wound up having a perfectly nice walk with the wonderful bonus heron nests, thanks to those odious people filling up Golden Gardens Park.  Later, I found out they were there illegally as part of some ridiculous group that modifies sports cars to be incredibly low to the ground and other bizarre things, and they had no event permit, and just made a practice of taking over parks for their meets.  On one of their web sites, the meet at Golden Gardens was cited, and one comment read, "It was great until the cops turned up."  !!!!!  And they've been gathering there every first Saturday in March since 2010 -- I was incensed, and wrote a scathing email to the parks department.  Scathing, I tell you.  

I await their reply.