Sparrows, Snow: Farewell February

It wasn't as bad a storm as they made it out to be. More like a storm of slush than anything else.

The mundane aspects of production have taken over as well as the process for making new screens. The drawing continues although relegated to the early morning hours when the house is still sleeping and the girls and I settle in the studio. The new drawings are for a much larger project, one that will take the better part of the year. As it comes to completion, I will show some of the images.

Snow

I've been looking at snow as a compositional element; something that changes the restrictions of format. Winter has never been my favourite time of year but it does offer some wonderful opportunities for viewing "negative" space. Not only that, but the limited colour also intrigues me.

Despite the warnings of stormy weather

in my neck of the "woods"

I hope the week, so far, has been good

for you

Inspiration from my Dogs Part 2

copyright Barbara Di Lella running wolf drawing  2013

This one is a go: I can feel it. Sometimes the work just comes together so right. Like the time has come, it all fits in place and is ready. Don't you just love it when it happens?

copyright Barbara Di Lella running wolf drawing  2013

Laying the ink on with pencil guides. A few corrections; very tiny. Those are Sonee's feet and a combination of her's and Dusty's bodies. The head of course, is wolf.

Inspiration from my Dogs

copyright B. Di Lella 2013

I hope you had a good weekend.

 

The last few days of February...this month has always been the hardest and longest to me. It doesn't make much sense, being the shortest month of the year however, "it's always the darkest before the dawn" comes to mind. March is my light at the end of the tunnel.

As for the Test of Time...well: as you can see

Some new sketches that developed after that post more-or-less eliminated the possibility of that one's chances of surviving. I hit the nail on the head when I said it was stiff. Why I didn't see that before...who knows? But stiff it was.

I remember watching Sonee (and especially Dusty, my first dog, who was incredibly fast) running flat out, low and sleek, in wide circles around me. And I would turn on the spot, watching her (or him), in smooth continuous movement with the background all a blur. This drawing reminds me of them in their younger days, all speed and muscle and complete joy! 

Dusty 1992 - 2002

Four Sparrows

They seem to be getting used to me walking by with the girls. Even the girls know that I'm going to stop and look at them and, if I have the camera, take a few pictures. 

The last weekend of February

I hope you enjoy it

White on White

For a long time now, I've been wanting to photograph this fence. With the snow and the cold it seemed like the perfect time. This is some of the stuff of winter.

 Yesterday when I mentioned that I've been thinking about painting again, it's become more than a consideration. Walking in this  cold Canadian weather I am looking at it with different eyes and photographing textures that will become important reference material later on. I love it when ideas start incubating; it's like an energy that is slowly building in an exciting direction.

Wolf Drawing or The Test of Time

The final stages of the Wolf drawing that I had shown earlier. You might notice some minor changes: that's inevitable.

This image has the tracing paper laid over the previous ink work. I like how it gives depth and tonal value to an otherwise stiff looking image. It really has me thinking about painting again.

Here it is almost complete. Tiny, tiny little things that annoy me.

copyright Barbara Di Lella wolf drawing Feb. 2013

 While I work on other pieces, this will sit with me. If it gets through the test of time (if I still like it after a week or so), I will put it on a screen.

Hope your week has been going well

February can be so endless and grey

but the light is lasting longer

(at least in the northern hemisphere)

and if you look closely

there are little "signs"

Studio Work Space

studio drawing table

Work spaces are such personal territory. People work so differently from each other too. Some are incredibly organized and neat, others, like myself, are very messy. This photo is rather orderly compared to the usual amount of papers, books and supplies that are scattered about. But I must say that I came across in my reading an observation about cluttered work spaces: '...such disorganized messes require a very organized mind.'
And I think it's true because I can always find what I need when the studio is a mess, but whenever I straighten things up, I can never find what I'm looking for.

wolf drawing in progress

Adolphe Millot

Adolphe Millot

Do you know Adolphe Millot?

Over the weekend I came across the work of this Natural History illustrator from France. There doesn't seem to be much information about him other than a small article written after his death in 1921. His work was for Petit Larousse, a French encyclopedic dictionary of which there are many examples;  you can see here. 

I wonder how much 

influence Millot was

for Derian?

Hope you had a great weekend

Wolf Drawing part a

copyright Barbara Di Lella wolf drawing Feb. 2013

Finally it feels like this might be the right one. It's still at the beginning stages (although it has already gone through a fair bit of preliminary stuff), but if the pen work goes well, he may be a keeper. Part of me wants a more vertical composition and I just may keep trying for this, sort of like a companion piece. But I'm just thinking out loud...As always, my signature is embedded in the lines: a precautionary measure, if you know what I mean.

In the meantime there are other creatures filling up pages and pages in my book. Right now I prefer to keep them "under my hat" and show them when they're completed

In Canada we have a sort of new holiday.

Family Day

last year it was a gorgeous day

and the girls and I went for 

a huge walk through

High Park.

My Latest Wolf Drawing

copyright Barbara Di Lella wolf drawing 2013

The latest wolf. 

I've decided to work much larger than I usually do. The drawing itself is 12in. x 18in. (30cm. x 46cm.) Lots of adjustments still need to be made yet. We'll see how far I get. The body is done, though not shown.

My studio is starting to look like it used to when I was painting and illustrating. There are many drawings accumulating and lots of reference materials scattered throughout. And with the reading, I'm learning quite a bit, not just about the animals (a wolf's front paw measures 4.5in. x 3.5 in. (12cm. x 9cm.)and the back paw is slightly smaller: 4in. x 3in. (10cm. x 7.5cm.). Also, they only live to 6 or 8 years in the wild) but also about various wildlife artists worldwide for the last 150 years or so. 

Before I forget

Happy Valentine's Day

to you

Bonnie Murray, printmaker

"Wren" by Bonnie Murray

Bonnie Murray is a collograph print maker whom I have admired for a little while now. I love the textures that she is able to apply to her various birds and animals. Her description of how she works might be better understood than the link above. Not only are her textures wonderful, but see how she is able to manipulate light. This can easily be seen by looking at the wren's underside. So beautifully done.

Sketchbook Pages

 

Because of all the drawings I've been doing, I thought it would be best to keep them together in a sketch book. Mostly they are sketches to familiarize myself with whatever subject I am working on. I also do a fair bit of reading to better understand the birds or animals. This page, although a bit mixed up, shows various features and differences. I knew ravens were larger but I didn't know about the  tail shapes: certainly comes in handy, when you're drawing, to know these things.  

The pages eventually become filled as I don't really like to waste the paper and besides, it's best to keep the notes in one place. Can you imagine looking through piles of paper trying to find a particular detail?

Accipiter cooperii or Accipter striatus

 

Back on Friday I had shown some images of birds that I had taken just before the storm. Quite a broad storm it was too, affecting southern Ontario clear east to the Maritimes  well into the north eastern parts of the U.S.A. I'm sure lots of people are still talking about it, let alone digging out from under it.

Well, the storm brought us a wonderful visitor of whom I only wish I could show better images. But it was a grey and monochromatic day and the snow was relentless.

As best as I can tell, he/she is either a Cooper's Hawk or a Sharp-shinned Hawk. Both have the blue-gray above and the barred rusty orange and white below.

What do you think?

Cooper or Sharp-shinned

Birds Dogs and Patience

 

After hours of working in the studio, the girls and I have a bit of a change of scene. They are so good. They wait patiently while I try to get some good images of the sparrows we always pass. And I have a few that will be good to work from

Have a wonderful weekend

and stay warm

Perfect Models

Incredibly blue  skies and brilliant sunshine.

Walks with the girls are absolutely freezing, not that they notice. For that matter, neither do I when I have

the camera.

Dark and early mornings these days are spent either reading or drawing. I've decided that the girls are perfect models. Although Roxy is a bit of a restless snoozer. She changed position so many times within 20 minutes. Sonee is in the top right corner and an abandoned fox hides behind Roxy. 

Don't you love her huge foxy ears?

Little Birds

copyright Barbara Di Lella sparrows pencil 2013

Just a few quick sketches of some sparrows. With all the reading I have been doing lately on wildlife artists, I was reminded of such names as Thomas Bewick, J. Audubon, Edward Lear, John Gould, Joseph Wolf, John Keulemans and Archibald Thorburn. Some of these names are quite well known, others...

"Yellow Owl" byThomas Bewick, "Bewick's Animal Woodcuts", Dover,2004

There are so many artists from the past that have paved the way to where we are now and so little, if anything, is known about them. I often wonder if I would be somewhere else with my work if I knew of the works of certain artists when I was first going to art classes. Other than Audubon, I had never heard of the other artists I have listed. And for sure, there are those from other countries that are rarely heard of: Bruno Liljefors and Leo-Paul Robert, to name a couple that I have recently come across. Let alone those in Japan, China, Russia...

In the meantime, one thing leads to another and I'm sure to learn more as I keep reading. I have tracked down a few books and I hope to find more.

Enjoy your mid-week

Hope it's not

too cold for you

Animals in Art

Robert Bateman

Yesterday I had mentioned that it would be wonderful to visit The Bell Museum of Natural History. One of the museum's activities is their Sketch Night. Not meaning to continue my rant, but I dare say it should be something that the ROM might want to consider offering as I know they have a lot of specimens behind the scenes.

The National Wildlife Museum of Art in Wyoming would be another on my list of places to visit. And what a surprise too, to see Canadian Robert Bateman's work in the "centre fold" of the Greene Pathways Gallery.
The museum has an amazing collection of wildlife artists, many of whom I wouldn't mind seeing all together. 

Frank Tenney Johnson

Years and years ago there was a monumental show of the world's best wildlife artists brought together at the Royal Ontario Museum's "Animals in Art" retrospective.

Wildlife art has had a long and bumpy history,

depending on geographic location.

Nevertheless,

it would appear that attitudes

are changing

Bell Museum of Natural History

bear display at the ROM

My visit to the museum just a little while ago resulted in, (amongst other things), a bit of a rant about the displays of the animals, in particular. I have since discovered a museum I would so like to visit one day. For those of you living near by: you are so fortunate! 

Moose

copyright Barbara Di Lella moose drawing 2013

Complete with surgery; twice even.

 I was so not happy with what was going on with his head and finally decided (after cleaning up some anatomical errors), that the light and shadow I was doing on the face was contrary to what was going on elsewhere. 

The odd thing is that I was closer to what I wanted with the head near the beginning of all this but the body back then was not quite right. And that can sometimes throw you completely off.

Enjoy your first day of February

and have a wonderful

weekend