Tag Archives: pigeons

I Don’t Keep My Visions to Myself

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All you Stevie fans, (and I know there are a lot of you), forgive me for sort of quoting her.  But it’s true, I talk about my visions far and wide!  Sometimes, I even draw them.

I don’t get many visions, in fact, only two that were truly spontaneous.  Once, while meditating, I got the image of a glowing white cloud.  I know I couldn’t duplicate it, and still show the feeling it gave me.  So, I elaborated.

Going even further back, while I was in high school, far more years ago than I want to think about, I spontaneously saw a flock of birds flying upwards.  The picture I drew was this, but I didn’t catch the movement.

It’s not that bad. As a matter of fact, I ended up doing a yuge, I tell you,  yuge mural of it, while I was in school.  I often wonder what ever happened to it.

But back to pigeons, which in a group is called a ‘kit’.  I think everyone knows that a group of crows is called a “murder’, but I didn’t know this about pigeons.  They can also be a flight..or more prosaically, a flock.

Later, again to many years for me to admit, I saw a kit in flight, similar to my vision.  I tried once again to capture it tonight, so I did this.  It’s very loose to imply the movement of flight.  It’s also small, 7 by 5 inches.  I don’t think it would interpret well in a large size.  I figure if you don’t like it, it would at least make a good fabric design.

The Bird is the Word…

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As I work on the crow picture, I’m reminded of Alfred Hitchcock and
“The Birds”.  I’m doing a number of crow, flourishing of course, in a limited color palette.  Now, how do I not make it look like this?

SONY DSC

It’s unfair to crows, which are a dignified, intelligent species of bird.

To be fair, it’s not too hard to make a good picture of birds….I’ve done many in my life.  An example is this…IMG_0148.jpg

And going back even further in time…

mural

A Blast from my high school day

Anyway.

Happy New Year’s to Everyone.  May you have a wonderful 2017.  And tomorrow, in my longstanding tradition (of two years), I will present my worst drawing of 2016.  Easy choice this time.

Flourishing, not Surving

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So, as I think about getting through the winter once again, I remind myself that certain species do very well in the cold, dark time of year.

It used to be that in Connecticut, there were all sorts of winter birds.  There were titmice, chickadees, and lots of cardinals.  I’m not sure where they are now, probably climate change has affected their migrations.  They’re happily snuggled perhaps in Maine, where it really does get cold.

But what remains of birds?  Plenty of crows.  They’re around all year, and they’re stubborn.

So, I’m putting together in my mind, a drawing of my admiration of crows.  I did a drawing of crows last year, but that was mostly incidental..this one I intend to be a full out celebration.

Speaking of crows, back in New York City…they give the pigeons a run for their money, too.

jan

This drawing was “Making Peace with January”, from nearly two years ago. This year, the difference in my art is not the “Making Peace”, but joy to be found in the dismal.