Just wanted to let you know what I’ve been up to. Art, movies, books, birds and more.
Working smaller these summer days, exploring outside and inside.
Going small can mean walking outside with binoculars, ready to see what I can see. Since my artwork is devoted to animals and the natural world the inspiration is limitless.
Here’s a little sketch I’ve been working on for a new painting. Hummingbirds are one of my very favorite subjects. The tiny jewel like birds can only be found in the Americas.
With their brilliant iridescent colors, amazing flight abilities and fearless personality, they are charismatic, popular subjects.
My recent work is a series of small studies where I am blending my realistic and playful styles, pushing and stretching boundaries, seeing what happens.
Next week is hummingbird week for the Cornell Bird Lab and I will be working on this favorite, charismatic subject.
This is Ruby Garden, watercolor & gold ink on watercolor paper.
🌸 Summer Movies & Books
Some movies and books are like old friends. I like to revisit them, getting the uplift each time of the pleasant and familiar.
Audiobooks for studio work and movies to wrap up the day with a glass of wine :~)
Here are a couple of YouTube trailer links for a very special, favorite movie I have always enjoyed; The Secret of Roan Inish.
This classic really captures the traditional oral storytelling that was how folktales and history were passed down. The generational families and their relationships with the land, sea, history.
Stories about stories, about the value of stories and how they unite us. How stories have power and meaning; whether they’re true or not (fairies anyone?)
Here are links to trailers for The Secret of Roan Inish:
Audiobooks I listen to are an eclectic mix including; urban fantasy, romance, mystery, thrillers, sprinkled with biography/real. All are from my local library. I LOVE libraries. There are usually a few nature & art books on my desk just because nothing beats the tactile pleasure of holding a book.
Current beautiful book on my desk is by artist Jackie Morris: The Lost Words. I look at it daily :~)
A few audiobook titles I've recently enjoyed:
The Light We Carry, Michelle Obama • Lassiter, J.R. Ward • "N" is for Noose, Sue Grafton • "O" is for Outlaw, Sue Grafton • Shanghai Girls, Lisa See • Sleep No More, Jayne Ann Krentz • Bittersweet, Susan Cain • Together, Vivek H. Murthy • Chatter, Ethan Kross • Undercurrents, Nora Roberts • The Awakening, Nora Roberts (Dragon Heart Legacy) • Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman • Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman • The Music of Bees, Eileen Garvin • All Single Ladies, Dorothea Benton Frank • Safe Haven, Nicholas Sparks • Lucky, Marissa Stapley • Moon Called, Patricia Briggs • A Court of Mist and Fury, Sarah J. Maas, • A Discovery of Witches, Deborah Harkness
Beautiful Tucson sunsets. Extreme heat, thunderstorms in the late afternoon, sometimes leading to intense quenching rains - and rainbows!
