Here’s what’s been hanging around the beaches and forests this winter – besides me. And my camera.
Blue Heron and photo bombing gullA juvenile Bald Eagle still with a brown head. They develop their distinctive white heads around the age of 5Mom and DadTurkey Vultures on the tallest snag in the forestHeron perched high in a cedar surveying the neighbourhood – far from its usual hangout at the beachPileated WoodpeckerI have heard it said that if you are watching an eagle sitting on a tree through binoculars and see it poop, you should grab your camera because it’s about to fly. This may be true.
It’s Owl nest season and the guy in Indiana with the Barred Owl nest cam is up and running again this year. The owls get zero privacy as the cameras run 24/7, one inside the nest box and another camera focused on the outside of the nest. The female is incubating 2 eggs this year, leaving the nest only for a few minutes at a time to stretch her legs. Hatch watch is in about 12 more days. The male drops by from time to time to bring her snacks – you can see him coming and going from the outside camera. From time to time they hoot at each other:
She: “Who cooks for you” “How’s it going out there?”
He: “Who cooks for you back” “Ok, I’ve almost got one.”
She: “Who cooks for you” “Good. Getting a wee bit peckish in here”.
A week ago the early iris started blooming, the first signs of spring for a winter that had been mild and snow free. For the first time the camellia bush had been flowering continuously since November and all winter I had been stepping over fallen pink petals as I crossed the patio to The Bunkie every day. All and all I was enjoying this most mild of winters. I heard all about “The Polar Vortex” descending on the continent east of us reminding me that even as I was rejoicing in our good fortune I was always very much aware that it’s only February and the shoe can drop at any time.
And it did.
February 10th
Number 2 Son Mike, deep into Ontario winters, says that he gets a certain sense of satisfaction whenever he sees that there’s snow out here on Vancouver Island. At which point I felt compelled to tell him about the pink flower petals I’ve been stepping over.
Last September when the rains came to end our drought and fires, I retreated into The Bunkie to paint. Summer guests were long gone and it was time to morph the guest house back into a studio. Fall and winter are my painting seasons. The rest of the time I’m outside.
My first painting of a season is in the nature of a warm up. Just a physical, get started exercise. Get the body moving, pushing the paint around and playing with colours, all the while thinking about what I feel like doing. This year, using acrylics and special pouring medium, I decided to pour paints onto a panel – just to see what would happen. My one-off warm-up exercise.
Acrylic pouring works like this. You mix whatever colours you choose to play with into an acrylic fluid made specifically for this technique, then you lay a panel horizontally, and, using different techniques you pour the colours over the panel, tilting and moving the mixture in various ways and see what happens as it flows. As they mix and mingle on the surface extraordinary shapes and colours reveal themselves.
Unfortunately the camera is limited and can’t capture the multiple layers of transparent and translucent colour that the human eye can peer into, but here’s a taste of it…
Chaos
I was hooked.
I spent 3 months pouring paint – learning how the colours interact, how different pigment densities and paint viscosities affect the pour, learning how to manipulate layers of pour, trying to affect outcomes. How to control what is not controllable – to let loose and see what happens.
That single warm-up exercise became 3 months and 58 panels of experiments. I kind of got carried away, you could say…
This whole project was a complete blast but eventually Christmas rolled along and I packed it all up to transform The Bunkie back into a guesthouse for Steve and Rosie the Dog. Then a few weeks off for festivities, the annual 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, a week on the couch with a great big cold reading my Christmas presents and planning the summer. This is shaping up to be a great travel summer with a first-time-for-me visit to Newfoundland, another of what has become an annual stay at the cottage on Quadra Island and a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Great Bear Rainforest to see grizzly bears. (I now consider all trips to be once-in-a-lifetime trips).
Meanwhile I’m back in The Bunkie with a new painting project (a polar opposite to the fall season’s paint pouring) and watching the snow fall late afternoon – real snow getting deep and actually looking quite gorgeous.
