forest melodies inspire creativity

A spurt snuck in again!  A sketching spurt to be precise!  I have not put pencil and paint to paper much over the last few weeks and when I did recently with the coyote and cormorant, it ignited the fire within to get back at it.  Being under this heat dome in Calgary has given me the desire to be inside during the hottest part of the day.  I have been keeping cool while keeping my cool trying to replicate these colourful stars of the show!  I checked back through my photo albums from the past couple of months, and I found what I was looking for.  While I have many photos of birds that I like, these four tugged at my heart strings a little stronger!  

Baltimore Oriole:  It was the bright orange and the wide open beak that appealed to me. It's unique song echoed throughout the Park and he was easy to find by following his song.

Lewis's Woodpecker:  This Woodpecker was the talk of the town during May.  I was fortunate to see it during two outings and both times I had close up views.  It has long left the Park and we all wonder where it went.     

House Finch:  Male House Finches are plentiful in the city but it was this young one that captured my attention.  It stayed put on this branch while I was able to approach and get a great photo.  Being so fluffy and tilting his head made for the perfect muse.

Western Tanager: You could not miss this bird as it flew throughout the trees.  It was a flash of brightness!  They stayed local for a couple of weeks and I was fortunate to spot them on a few occasions.  The colours remind me of a two scoop ice cream cone I had one time.  

These are my photos that I used as references.

When I decided to do water-colour paintings of these four birds, my intentions were to make something useful from them.  This was what I came up with through a company I used before to make postcards from two of my paintings.  This is a five by eight coiled notebook with forty lined pages. The notebook I have been using to brainstorm my painting ideas in, is about three quarters full.  If I keep at this painting craft, I will soon be in need of another notebook.  Here it is!  It should arrive in a couple of weeks!

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