Catching Up

RAVEN with GRAPE - 12x24" acrylic painting (c)Pat Dolan

I finally completed the two larger paintings that I worked on during the ART STUDIO OPEN HOUSE a few weekends ago. The Ravens, when painted on a black canvas, look wonderful, but I find that the contrast of the Raven on a white canvas offers a different kind of emphasis. I like both and will do more of both!

GREAT BLUE HERON in FLIGHT - 12x24" acrylic painting (c)Pat Dolan

My love of Great Blue Heron's began about 40 years ago when we were living on the Susquehanna River in Bradford County, PA - up at the top of the state. That was when I first met them and have admired them ever since. They can appear awkward one moment and ultimately graceful the next. It's all in the timing!

Both of these paintings were done using Wendy Davis' excellent photographs for authentic source material. Wendy is an amazing photographer of wildlife, particularly birds. And she lives in British Columbia, Canada. We "met" on Facebook when I saw her amazing "Your Daily Raven" photographs and then contacted her. She's a wonderful photographer, sells her photographs as well as yearly Raven calendars on line.

Painting, Traveling, and Celebrating

Painting, as usual, but also doing a bit of traveling to our Grandson's Hartwick College graduation where he graduated magna cum laude and with departmental honors - he majored in both biology and chemistry! It was also a family reunion, with all the grandchildren and twin great-grands in attendance.

This is our grandson with his parents, our son and his wife.

Here are the girls playing on the practice track with other pre-schoolers during the 3 hour long, outdoor graduation ceremonies.

The scenery in upstate New York is similar to the mountainous regions of central Pennsylvania - however they have lakes, which we do not have. We have creeks, streams, and a few rivers, but very few lakes of any size whatever in the state.

We stayed at Lake House Lodge in Richfield Springs, NY - a somewhat primitive establishment, originally built in 1834. I think the last room renovations may have been in the 1940-50's! But, as you can see below, the spot was incredibly beautiful and a great place for a family reunion. By the way, the geese had 15 goslings trailing between and behind them!

Everywhere you looked, there were glorious nature scenes to enjoy!

As you can see, the youngest generation had a delightful time and entertained the rest of us. Never a dull moment!

There was Miss Neat and Tidy eating her ice cream quite delicately. And there was Miss Enthusiastic eating hers with great gusto. Not a drop was left behind, I assure you!

Now we're back home again, but looking forward to a Memorial Day Weekend visit from the twins and their mom.

Open Studio - Spring 2017

Two paintings begun on Saturday morning - a Great Blue Heron in flight from a wonderful photograph by photographer, Wendy Davis of British Columbia. And a Raven, also from photographs supplied by Wendy to me for painting.

Last Saturday and Sunday, the Art Alliance of Central Pennsylvania sponsored an Open Studio Weekend for artists in Centre County, PA. It was a dull and showery weekend, so gardeners and bird watchers were out to see what artists were up to this spring. Each artist demonstrated throughout their open house periods, answered questions, talked about their work, and so much more. Whole families came together - I had one family of three generations of bird watchers come on Sunday afternoon with lots of questions. The elder of the family showed me his wonderful bird photographs taken the day before at an Ohio Marshland area as they were on their way to Centre County for a visit.

Raven with a Grape:
Stage 1:

Stage 2 - 4 or so as I forgot to take more photos!

Stage 5ish: and still incomplete

Great Blue Heron in Flight:

Again, I forgot to take more "in process" photos...

Neither of the above two painting are, as yet, complete. There are some finishing touches to be made, some color changes here and there, and a signature to be added.

Here are two more Ravens (also from Wendy's photos), begun on Sunday as I waited to see what improvements I wanted to make on the two begun the day before.

Stage two:

Stage three:

As with the other paintings, these are still works in progress. Stay tuned for further updates to comwe!