A bird in the hand...

I've been keeping a low profile for a while, spending a lot of time in my studio, much of that preparing for a solo exhibition at Shavasana Gallery and Café on Mayne Island. A small, cozy venue in a small, rural community, it made a fitting location for a a show focussed on one of my great passions: birds.

One particular wall in the gallery lead me to create a series of 10 small-scale coloured-pencil drawings of feathered creatures to be found on the island or nearby mainland. 

Included in this selection are these:

Dark-eyed Junco
(Horton Bay, Mayne Island)

Marsh Wren
(Reifel Bird Sanctuary, Ladner)

Downy Woodpecker
(Henderson Park, Mayne Island)

I have also been working on a new technique that allows me to create coloured pencil drawings that can be varnished and presented without glass. It's re-invigorated my art practice as I get to know a different way of using a familiar medium, and experience the associated challenges, surprises and successes.

Perched on a low branch (pictured above left), the only reason I noticed a lovely barred owl a few feet away from my path in Bennett Bay was due to the "mobbing" of the songbirds - robins, towhees, and the like - calling out their danger alert and drawing attention the predator in their midst. The raven (above right) was an early-morning companion at Horton Bay beach just after sunrise on summer day.

Rounding out the exhibition are drawings of other local birds:

Summer's End: Bushtit,
(Bennett Bay, Mayne Island)

I Love Vultures: Turkey Vulture
(Horton Bay, Mayne Island)

Each piece represents a personal encounter and the careful composition of the moment based on hurried, and sometimes blurry photographs that help jog my memory in addition to providing insight into the bird's anatomical detail and posture. The bushtit posed with rosehips (above) was observed in a meadow dotted with wild rose bushes on a late summer day, and in a few weeks' time the change in seasons revealed the remains of a sock-like nest dangling from a thorny branch. The turkey vulture (also above) is a juvenile who roosted nightly with his family in a tree beside the beach near my island cottage.

Bushtit nest

There is one exception in the show, and this little drawing is based on photographs of a bird I dearly wish I'd seen: a northern pygmy owl sighted by a friend-of-a-friend who graciously granted permission for me to use his photos as my reference material.

Northern Pygmy Owl,
(Source photograph: Ron Knelsen)

This palm-sized bird with its fierce expression makes a fitting "mascot" for my show. I look forward to a future encounter with a member of his species and to the other encounters with birds of all sorts that will continue to fuel my artistic passion.