A Snow Bunting and a Squirrel Problem

Here is the painting I have been working on the past few days. I think it's finished now. This sweet bird visited our backyard a few years ago. I didn't even know what kind of bird it was at the time. It looked to me like a cross between a large sparrow and a bunny. So fluffy! I looked it up and found that it was a snow bunting. I'm glad it stayed long enough for me to take a few photos of him.

I did a previous painting of him but I like this one much more. I hope to have prints and cards available with this image in my shop in the next week or so.

I love birds and have always fed them in our backyard. Having a garden that welcomes wildlife is important to me. I also wanted Emma and Chloé to learn about nature through our garden. From when they were toddlers, I kept bird, caterpillar and butterfly guides near our back door so we could identify our garden visitors. Among the birds that have visited our yard are sparrows (many, many sparrows), chickadees, cardinals, blue jays, juncos, robins, swallows, mourning doves, cedar waxwings, hummingbirds, house finches, goldfinches and woodpeckers. We've had rare visits by a kingfisher, a hawk and a ruffed grouse. Plus the sweet snow bunting.

We have been in our current house for over 16 years. It was a new neighbourhood when we moved in so there were very few trees initially, which also meant that there weren't any squirrels. But there are now! The trees have matured. Now my bird seed isn't just attracting my feathered friends, it is attracting squirrels as well...which would be fine except for Meeko. Meeko is calm and accepting when birds are at our feeders. But squirrels? Oh my. He gets riled up, wants to chase them and he barks...a lot. I try to keep him quiet for the sake of our neighbours and our own sanity but it's hard to do. Last week, Chloé was studying for exams and Meeko was barking incessantly at the squirrels. She suggested that maybe I need to stop feeding the birds or to find another place for the feeder that is not visible from the house. That is such a hard thought for me although she may be right. I'm trying to think of alternate solutions. I thought of placing food on the ground somewhere to divert the squirrels' attention. I've even thought of placing paper at Meeko's eye level on the back door so he can't see them from inside. If you have a brilliant idea, let me know!

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On another topic, I have a few of my prints on sale currently! You can have a look at them here. I've been working on my shop a lot these past few weeks. I now have my art organized by category and theme. I hope it makes browsing more efficient and interesting. 

A Very Special Painting

When I received the message on Facebook this past summer, I remember reading it with my hand over my heart. Andra introduced herself as the mother of a little girl who had recently died of cancer, a day before her sixth birthday. She wondered if I would do a painting in memory of her daughter.

My initial reaction was that I couldn’t possibly do it. It seemed so sad. I thought that doing the painting would make me feel sad. Then I reread her message.

The girl she was describing was a joyous and happy person. Andra listed the colors she liked best: pink, red, yellow, light blue and green. She told me how Helen loved flowers, ladybugs, rolly-pollies, butterflies, birds, the beach and sea creatures. She said that she wanted the painting to include Helen’s name as well as some of her loves.

I realized that this was a very happy painting she was describing.  Helen enjoyed so many of the same things that I do. She was someone who loved nature and who thoroughly appreciated the world around her. The list of Helen’s likes included many of the things I love to paint the most.

I wrote back to Andra and, over a series of emails, we came to an agreement that I would do a painting for Helen. She wanted a painting that was larger than I usually do. After much thought, I committed to doing a 16 x 20 inch watercolour.

Andra was lovely throughout the process. She left the visual side of the painting entirely up to me. I showed her the initial rough sketch I had come up with and then she very, very patiently waited to see the final version. The painting took me several weeks to complete.

My initial rough sketch when I was trying to figure out the contents and composition.

I started by painting the banner and then began adding all of the other elements.

Slowly but surely, I added all of the creatures and flowers.

With most of main elements in place, I started to pull the sky down and behind the flowers.

This watercolour was an absolute joy to work on but it also was a lot of work. Its size, the number of things it included made it one of the most complex paintings I have worked on in a very long while. The detailed sketch alone took me two days. I don’t generally do detailed sketches but this painting required it. By the time I finished the painting, I realized I had looked at almost 50 reference photos in order to be sure that I was being true to all of the creatures and flowers I had included. In my research, I even found a flower that is called ‘Helen’s Flower’ (Helenium). It’s the yellow flower on the left and right (visible in the full view of the painting). The shell, sea urchin and starfish were all from my seashell collection. Some of my garden flowers were used as models.

A detail from the centre of the painting

Details from the bottom of the painting - A snail, mushrooms, a heart-shaped rock and three rollie-pollies playing together on the rocks at the right hand side.

It was so important to me to create something that was not just a good painting but something that was appropriate to and worthy of Helen’s memory. I wanted to create a painting that Helen would have loved.

Do you want to know something? I didn’t feel sad once while working on this painting. I felt happy. As I was working on it, I found myself thinking ‘Wouldn’t it have been nice to have met Helen and then I realized I did. I had met Helen “through” my painting.

After I sent photos of the completed painting to Andra, she responded within minutes:  “Oh, my goodness...It is absolutely beautiful! Helen would have loved it! The painting is soooo Helen…” Mission accomplished. I had created a painting that was true to Helen. I burst into happy tears.

When I asked Andra's permission to do this blog post about my painting and the story behind it, she said she would only agree if people didn’t feel sorry for Helen or her family. She said “Helen was so joyful and happy, she must be remembered that way too.”

My painting was done for a beautiful, joyful little girl who loved the world and all those around her. This painting is a celebration of a wonderful person named Helen.

My Sweet Small Sparrow

The past couple of days I have been holding my breath more than I have been breathing. I have been painting my baby sparrow, the one who was in our backyard this past weekend. I have painted many, many more flowers than I have birds over the years. I painted my little chickadee last year. And now I have a baby sparrow.  I painted a snow bunting who visited our yard a couple of years ago but I won't even show you that painting. I'll have to try again.

I tried to give the sparrow definition at the same time that I tried to retain his fluffiness and softness. I used watercolour with a tiny bit of gouache at the end for highlights. There are some progress shots on my Instagram account. I really hope that you like him.  I feel proud of this one. It's giving me the courage to try to paint more of my backyard friends.

I have a big stack of paintings that need to be converted into prints for my Etsy shop. I think I'm going to put this little fellow towards the top of the pile.

Painting has help me recover from all of the physical work in the garden this past weekend. But now I need to turn my attention back to the garden. There is planting to be done. Some big, black clouds have just rolled in. Stormy weather is actually a great time to go to garden centers (if there is safe cover) as you will find that you almost have the place to yourself.