…the parks in London are a sanctuary for birds, especially waterfowl








Category Archives: birds
Birds at the Cottage
I’ve always had a lot of hummingbirds attracted to my feeder at the cottage. This summer I purchased a bird feeder that I can put bird seed into. In the first week I didn’t see any action and I thought that I had placed it too close to the cottage.
Last week, while we were sitting outside, I saw my first visitors to the feeder. They were mostly chickadees. Perhaps they are not as fearful of humans as other birds.



Chicken – 365 Days of Art
….day 144
The assignment from Carla Sonheim this week was to find a photograph of a chicken and draw the outline with a black Sharpie and then with a finer marker make some detail marks and lastly take a pencil and add some shading. It was optional to add colour with some light coloured markers.
I think I will try this again but use lighter markers or no colour at all.
Developing More Characters
….days 141 to 143 of 365 Days of Art
Over the long weekend I was totally engrossed in creating these collage characters made from art papers. The first thing I had to do was create more art paper because I had left my collage papers at home. Out came the watercolour paper and my watercolour set and I went to town. 
Once they dried I cut out random shapes in different sizes and then I started to play. Here are three more ‘characters’ that I created from the cut out shapes.
Character Development – Collage Bird
…..day 140 of 365 Days of Art
Over the long weekend I worked on Carla Sonheim’s assignment, Character Development. We had to take art papers and cut them up into random shapes….large, medium and small. Then the fun began.
I looked at all the pieces and looked for shapes to create an animal. The idea here was not to go with the first creation but continue to move pieces around and change them until you saw something that you really liked. Here is my little bird, duck, chicken going through different stages.
…..here is my final bird
Birds, Birds, Birds…..
….days 125 to 128 of 365 Days of Art
Carla Sonheim prompted us to use four different colours of markers and/or pencil crayons to create new colours by layering the colours. Then we were to take those colours and create a series of made up birds.
I did this assignment in the evenings at the cottage when my light was not the best. It’s interesting how varied the colours are in different light. The colours I used are at the top of each page. You can see the original colour in the little square in the upper right hand corner.
From a Doodle to Flowers, a Bird and a Bee
….day 124 for 365 Days of Art
Using watercolour I added colour to a doodle that I had made last week. This time I looked for shapes and found a bird and a whimsical bee. With other shapes I created some abstract flowers. Here is the doodle before paint.
Here is the finished piece with watercolour and some extra Micron pen detail.
Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge – Words That End in ‘ock’
Cee’s Which Way Photo Challenge – A Gift at the End of the Road
……thanks to Cee for hosting the Which Way Photo Challenge
Now that spring is finally here, I’m back out for my walks. I headed towards the parks west of my house to see what kind of damage the recent wind storm had caused. Fortunately most of the debris and downed trees had already been cleared away.
As I continued toward the pond I was treated to a wonderful gift.



Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge – Close-ups
…..thanks to Cee for hosting the Black and White Photo Challenge



















