into the forest I go

While I love wide open vistas, I have come to enjoy going deep into the forest and experiencing all the good that has to offer.  I dabbled with sketching and painting trees of all kinds through all seasons, some looked good, others so-so and many were blah. Recently, I got in deep, into learning to paint a proper tree-filled forest.  These paintings are the outcome of many hours spent being lost in the forest!  

🌲The top left forest was made by painting many vertical widths with a variety of brown shades.  I then added horizontal lines on the majority of the vertical widths to give them a tree-like look.  Between each tree, shades of grey were painted to give this a night time look.  The final touch was adding the shadows.   

🌲The bottom left forest was more complicated to produce.  Vertical widths of various sizes were made with white acrylic gouache.  This preserves those spaces keeping them white.  Then wet on wet, shades of blue, black, grey and purple were mixed and painted across the entire page allowing the colours to blend making it appear to be night time.  Black thin vertical lines were painted to give depth.  Next the gouache was peeled off and each white space was painted to make it look like a tree.

🌲The right painting shows the rays of the sun shining through the forest.  Hues of blue were painted at an angle leaving white spaces.  The blue trees were painted in full and then I lifted some paint in the white sections.  The black trees are in the forefront to give depth.  I saw sights like this many times while hiking and it always captured my attention and drew me in further.  

Forest time seemed to be a theme this past week!  Being tucked in between the trees provided shelter and afforded me many bird sightings.  On this bitterly cold windy morning, a walk through the Birth Forest offered up plenty of sweet sights.  I remembered it was this time last year when the Great Horned Owl moved in. As luck would have it, it's back again this year!  

Now that I have just under 200 kms left on my Conquer 2022 Virtual Challenge, I am motivated to get out there!  Deja Vu - on this bitterly cold windy morning it was a trudge through the snow hiking up to the forest on Nose Hill.  As I neared the end of the wide open section, I saw a flock of something flying my way.  I aimed for where they landed.  It wasn't until I was closer that I realized I was experiencing a "lifer"!  It was my first time seeing a Bohemian Waxwing and not only did I see one, I saw about one hundred.  I spent the next thirty minutes or so in the forest watching, listening and photographing these colourful birds.  These birds migrate to the city in winter after spending the summer in boreal forests. 

The Inglewood Bird Sanctuary offers up a beautiful forest to seek shelter.  While it was cold and windy and frosty on this morning, there was an abundance of activity to distract me from the cold.  The Juvenile Bald Eagle watched me as I watched it.  Two Male Mallard Ducks performed their morning grooming routine.  The Merlin was watching over, I wondered was it looking for breakfast.  The Black-Capped Chickadees will now become a main attraction as they settle in the sanctuary for winter while other species have gone south. 

On this morning I sought out shelter in the forests at Carburn Park and Beaverdam Flats.  It was a very entertaining few hours with loads to watch. Here's the line up in the top photo: Male Common Goldeneye, Trumpeter Swan, Canada Goose, Trumpeter Swan, Male Mallard Duck.  On my way from Carburn to Beaverdam flats, two Adult American Bald Eagles did a fly pass.  I watched three coyotes check out the ducks from a distance. One had success while the two others watched on.  This one soon joined in on the feast.  Both the White-Breasted Nuthatch and Black-Capped Chickadee stay local for the winter.