Dec 12

A Day at the Merced Wildlife Refuge…. the first half of the day

By Administrator Painting, Photography, Events and Adventures 4 Comments »
With our friends G. Dan Mitchell, Patty Mitchell, Michael Frye and his wife Claudia Welsh.

 

Dan contacted David and Michael regarding meeting at the MWR, the three of them decided on a morning to meet.  We’d all met at the refuge last winter but Patty wasn’t able to attend so it was nice to have all of us together.  Dave and I were hoping for fog and thought perhaps we weren’t going to get any until we reached Merced and started hitting patches of fog.  The further we drove from Merced to the refuge, the denser the fog became.  By the time we pulled onto the refuge it was hard to see the road but you could look up at the night sky and see the sliver of moon and stars between the moving gaps of fog.  We didn’t have to wait long before the rest of our group arrived.  The morning was a chilly 40 degrees when we started driving the auto route.  David and I parked on the west side of the ponds where the trees and vegetation looked interesting and waited for the sun to rise, hoping for a red disc in the fog.  The fog was too thick to see the sun so we continued on the auto route with Dan and Michael somewhere ahead.  David noticed this scene, I photographed it too.

8:00 am

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There were a lot of cows being pastured on the preserve.  8:27am

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The geese were in the upland where the cows were pastured, lots and lots of geese.  8:41am

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After watching/photographing the geese for a while we took a restroom break.  On our way back to the geese we could barely see a large group of pelicans on a pond in the fog.  9:29 am

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This flock was reorganizing as they landed in a line.  9:54am

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A tiny area of the pasture. 10:51 am

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Geese taking flight.  10:54

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Noon.  A portion of the pasture with geese. Note that the tree in the distance is the same tree in the above photograph.

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Noon.  David photographing the geese.  This is an auto route preserve, you don’t leave your car unless in a designated area.

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Noon.  The direction David’s looking.  Dan’s car is up the road and Michael is a little further.

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Noon.  The geese begin flying to the area by Michael’s car.  Claudia is sitting out the window videoing.  You can see a viewing platform in the distance.

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We re positioned our car closer to where the geese were landing.  This is the area to which the birds are relocating that’s near Michael’s car.  I enjoyed the landscape in the distance.

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Birds flying towards the area of Michael’s car.

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A couple of quick sketches in my notebook and one reference pastel.  I will work from these later to remember my feelings and what caught my interest.  There are 3 small reference sketches on half of the first page, one sketch on half of the next page.

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The pastel is 5 x 6 inches.  It’s not much but it’ll jog my memory.

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Sun!!  We decided it was time for lunch while checking out the views from the viewing platform.  A large group of geese took flight from the pasture while we were watching them.  1:09 pm.

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Looking another direction from the viewing platform. 1:11 pm  Time to go to lunch.

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End of Part 1

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Feb 11

February 8th’s Merced Wildlife Refuge Visit

By Administrator Painting, Photography, Events and Adventures 9 Comments »

Last Wednesday David and I left the house at 5am to be at the Merced Wildlife Refuge before sunrise.  Our agenda was to meet up with Michael Frye , Claudia Welsh and their friend Kirk Keeler at sunrise,  Dan Mitchell would join us late afternoon.  The MWR is a driving tour with a couple of viewing platforms where you can get out of the car.  There’s also a short walking trail near the back viewing platform.

The drive down to the San Joaquin Valley held a sky of bright stars and a full moon.  It was looking as if the sun would rise to a clear and boring sky.  When we reached Merced I detected light ground fog, David wasn’t seeing it and doubted my judgment (he was busy driving).   After we drove through Merced to highway 59 and then began heading south we hit the fog.  I watched the foggy moon and landscape most of the way to the preserve until it disappeared into the dense fog.  I took this photograph through the windshield while David drove on Sandy Mush Road.  This is the moon, not a street light.  6:27am

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The fog was too thick to see the sunrise.  While we were photographing on this part of the auto tour,  Michael and Claudia Frye arrived.  They continued on to a spot they had in mind.  David was photographing birds and landscapes, I was looking for possible future paintings.  It was so foggy I wasn’t bothering to photograph birds.  6:53am

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A little further along the auto route we came to this area where the Ross’s Geese were close to the road, close enough for me to take a couple of photographs.  I was enticed by the fog induced soft lighting that was muting the birds’ silhouettes and I liked the graphics of the plants and the bird’s reflections.    7:51am

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And then they decided to leave.

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The Lesser Sandhill Cranes are very shy and don’t get very close to people.  This group was almost completely shrouded in fog and close enough to the road to try photographing them.  I think of this picture as the  ‘Ghost Birds’.  8:34am

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We arrived at the area where there’s usually a lot of Ross’s Geese and they didn’t disappoint us.  The fog was slowly burning off.   8:50am

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About a half hour later the fog was gone in our area but still lingered towards the west.  Mid morning Michael and Claudia left to run errands.  David and I had snacks and drinks so we remained at the preserve.  9:15am

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We continued taking photographs, ate an early lunch, David read his book and napped and I made a couple of quick rough field notes with pastels.   6×10” MWR Sketch 2MWR FieldNotes1

While David was dozing and I was taking pictures out the car window, the geese suddenly ALL took to flight.  It was fascinating to watch to entire flock wheel around, changing colors with their banking turns.   To watch the video I took, go to my YouTube Channel.  The videos aren’t very good quality but I hope they give you a sense of what it’s like being there.  The videos in this blog are the first I’ve ever published, I know I need practice.

11:45am

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We continued watching the birds all afternoon.  There is a lot of hawk activity and lots of cotton tail bunnies.  I took 600+ photographs, it wasn’t easy to limit my choices for the blog.  I’m jumping ahead to the evening.  Michael and Claudia have returned and Dan Mitchell has arrived.

The evening light makes the birds glow with warm light and gives the water such pretty hues.   Slowly the geese have been leaving from the pond in groups, flying to the field behind us.  The world is tinged with a rosy color from the setting sun.  The geese look like white paper falling from the sky as they land in the field.

As each group flies over there’s a familiar sound all around me that’s almost disguised by their raucous calls.  It doesn’t register at first and then I realize it sounds like rain.  Miraculously I’m not being hit by all the bird droppings.  Dan was the most popular target of the group.  I believe he registered 3 hits, Michael was also targeted.   To view a video taken during this time, click here for my YouTube channel link.    5:14pm

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The sun has almost set.   5:24pm

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The sun has slipped below the horizon, the birds are gone….to the field behind us and in the air all around.  The air is filled with their calls, darkness has almost completely descended when the birds suddenly take flight in an unbelievable mass.  As far as you can see more groups are arriving from all over the valley.   Here’s a link to watch the video I made on my YouTube Channel.Feb8 MWR15.jpg Feb8 MWR16

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Feb 05

Saturday at the Merced Wildlife Refuge, My Creative Side

By Administrator Painting, Photography, Events and Adventures No Comments »

Not only are the birds interesting, fascinating and a challenge to photograph, there are wonderful compositions of the the landscape with which to play.  I’m always searching for painting references.  The golden afternoon light was lighting the tops of the cattails.  The distant plants had lovely texture and color.  The sky color lying on the water made the reeds look as if they were floating in air.

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The sunset colors on the water were, if I may say, yummy.  The graphics of the reeds and birds weren’t bad either.

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Ghost birds.  It was so dark my camera was struggling to capture images.  I liked the crispness of the foreground, monotone colors and blurred birds.

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The distant coast range.

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A Great Horned Owl silhouetted against the sunset.  A barn owl flew into the trees behind us shortly after this photograph was taken.  Bunnies started hopping around in the under growth and a pack of coyotes were singing in a distant field.  With the smallest amount of light on the western horizon and almost total darkness above, the sky above filled with a mass of Sandhill Cranes circling in a pleasant cacophony of cries.  It was magical!

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Feb 05

Saturday Afternoon at Merced Wildlife Refuge

By Administrator Painting, Photography, Events and Adventures 4 Comments »

We took a last minute Saturday drive down to the Merced Wildlife Refuge to meet up with  G. Dan Mitchell and his lovely wife Patty.  The deck thermometer was reading low 50’s but the car read 57 degrees as we pulled out of the driveway at 2pm.  After a short stop in Merced for a Starbucks, the temp a very warm 68 degrees, we headed to the preserve on Sandy Mush Road.  My turtleneck, wool sweater and wool vest were rather warm attire for the beautiful valley day.  The four of us had a fun afternoon of bantering and laughing while watching the birds.  It’s so reassuring, and humorous,  when the guys accidentally forget to change camera settings in the excitement of bird activity.  There may be hope for me yet regarding photography.

The back platform held a view of a pond filled with geese, though there weren’t as many as our last visit.  We stayed at this platform from late afternoon till dark.  In this blog I’m sharing photographs of the same  trees with various crops from slightly different views throughout the visit, with exception of the first photograph.

View of geese at 4:01pm.

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5:13pm  The sun is on the horizon.

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5:23pm

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5:28pm  The sun has set but it seems to get lighter as the light bounces off the clouds overhead.

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5:48pm  It was fairly dark at this point.

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5:58pm  A Great Horned Owl is perched in the tree.  The next blog has a closer picture.

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Nov 20

Silk Screening Workshop

By Administrator Painting, Photography, Events and Adventures 4 Comments »

 Sierra Art Trails sponsored a 2 day silk screening workshop last week.  Sierra Art Trails’ current special exhibit, ‘Our Wild Lands’, included a beautiful serigraph by Alan Works, the instructor of the silk screening class.  I’m not sure if ‘silk screen’ should be one word or two, I’ve seen it written both ways.  The class was held in the Stellar Gallery with the ‘Our Wild Lands’ exhibit surrounding us.

I had never seen the silk-screening process so I was fascinated and admittedly confused at times.   Below is Alan’s serigraph hanging in the ‘Our Wild Lands’ exhibit.  If you don’t look close enough you’d swear it’s a photograph.

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Alan brought the screens of one of his serigraphs to demonstrate the process of creating a serigraph.  Each screen lays down a different layer (colour) of paint.  Alan was an excellent instructor.  His passion for his craft made you want to experiment and learn the craft as well.  David and I would love to delve more into this medium if it weren’t for our tiny house and zero storage.

Photograph:  Alan holding one of the screens at his printing table.

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Left:  A table of Alan’s prints with 2 or 3 layers of paint.  Right:  Carolyn Hartling cutting paper for our printing.

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Gloria Garland finessing her image she’ll use for silk-screening. 

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Unfortunately Carolyn and myself were the only two of 5 participants who had the privilege to print our images.  Carolyn drew a beautiful image of a woodpecker.  The image is then printed on a clear plastic transfer sheet.  The silkscreen is painted with the purple coloured light sensitive emulsion, in a darkroom setting.  The clear sheet with the image is placed on the silkscreen, then exposed to light.  Since we didn’t have an indoor light strong enough to expose the image, Alan tried to use the sun as a light source, which would have worked great if mother nature had cooperated.   We each successive screen exposure the sky grew darker.

Once the image is exposed onto the screen it’s then washed off in the darkroom setting revealing the unexposed imprint of the image.

Below:  Carolyn’s woodpecker and Jon’s semi-failed image.

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Carolyn’s inked image.

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Carolyn pulling a print with Jon’s help.

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Carolyn’s prints filling up the table.

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This is the original image I chose to work with.  I took this photograph last January at the Merced Wildlife Refuge.

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I thought I could print two graphics of different colours.  First I would print a background colour for the sky and water.  Then the image below for the middle ground, followed by the image for the foreground.  In Paint Shop Pro I posterized the foreground, then made a negative out of the background to create the two strong graphics that initially attracted me to the subject.

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Below:  This would be the 3rd and final layer with the darkest colour.

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 The two transfer sheets sitting on a manila folder. 

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 The silkscreen with the two above images and a rectangle for the background colour.

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Here I’m mixing the paint and consulting with Master Alan about mixing the colours.

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Alan guiding me as I print the background for the images.  Carolyn is observing the process.

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The final print!!  I was very happy with the results.  Silk screening is NOT easy.  There are many processes and it’s very time consuming.  This was out of my comfort zone but such a wonderful experience.  I have found myself looking at landscapes much differently, for the better.  It’s good to step into a foreign area and see the world differently.  Pastels are SOOOO much easier!!!   Thank you Alan for sharing your knowledge and helping us grow as artists.

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Feb 11

February – Painting and Wildlife Preserve

By Administrator Painting, Photography, Events and Adventures No Comments »

I finished this painting today.  I began this last November during Art Hop at Williams Gallery West, I finally felt motivated enough to finish it.    This is painted on Art Spectrum paper.  The color is a warm brown.  I really like using Art Spectrum papers.  It comes in many colors and has a tooth that fits my needs.  ‘Tooth’ is the ability to catch and hold the pastel, the texture of the paper.  I paint with Art Spectrum pastels, Sennilier, Great American, Rembrandt, Nu Pastel and a few others that I can’t remember right off hand.  This was a very frosty morning in the 20’s.  The Aspens are along a river with mist rising from the water.

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We had our Yosemite Western Artists Photography meeting last night.  These are the photographs I shared with the group.  I took them on our Merced Wildlife Refuge outing last month.  The day was foggy and very cold.  I liked the composition and colors of the first picture but then also photographed it vertical.

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This guy was shrugged down as if trying to stay warm.  I love the three bands of colors and textures below him with the dark bare stems layered over them.

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