The Federation of Canadian Artists (FCA) has just granted me signature status. What does that mean? Signature Status with the FCA recognizes a high level of excellence achieved by an individual artist. I can now add the letters AFCA (Associate Member of the Federation of Canadian Artists) to my signature.
**************************
Interesting weekend:
I had the opportunity to meet Alba at Gallery 1710 on Saturday April 2, 2022.
She is a Barn Owl, and such a beautiful bird, the feathers around her face are like spun gold. She is a permanent resident of OWL (Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society); a badly broken wing when she fell out of a nest as a youngster has rendered her unable to survive in the wild.
Barn Owl
OWL rep, Colin Iverson, brought Alba for gallery visitors to see, and talked about the OWL organization and their resident raptors.
The Gallery show "Skies and Wings and Feathered Things" has 121 pieces of 2 and 3D art, 43 decorated birdhouses and two showcases containing16 whimsical corvids.
_______________________________________
News from my Studio:
New Watercolours:
Chickadee (graphite)
Raven Watching (varnished watercolour)
unnamed shell paintings: ( both varnished watercolours)
---------------------------------------------
My paintings in Skies and Wings and Feathered Things show:
Chickadee and Raven Watching from above and
The Watcher
Pecking Order (diptych)
We are also selling decorated birdhouses, 40% of the sales will be donated to OWL.
The show name is not inspired by sport but by the Mad Hatter's Tea Party from the "Alice in Wonderland" story.
Since I have spent quite a bit of time recently on this I decided to feature it in this months blog.
The hats were out, in the display and atop heads. Here are a few pictures from our demo day:
This is a top hat I made from papier mâché:
It's always tea time.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland began as a story told to entertain three
little girls on an afternoon trip in a rowboat. One of the three, ten-year-old Alice
Liddell, asked to have the story written down, perhaps she was the inspiration
for “Alice”.
The book commonly called Alice in Wonderland is an 1865 English children's
novel by Lewis Carroll (a pseudonym of Charles Dodgson) in which a young girl
named Alice falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic
creatures. The original book included 42 illustrations by Sir John Tenniel.
Alice journeys down the rabbit hole into a world of wonder where oddities,
logic, and wordplay rule supreme. She encounters characters like the grinning
Cheshire Cat, who can vanish into thin air, the cryptic Mad Hatter who speaks
in riddles and the harrowing Queen of Hearts obsessed with the phrase "Off
with their heads!"
How did the Mad Hatter get his name?
The name the Mad Hatter and the phrase "as mad as a hatter" relate to the 19th century
use of a mercury-based compound in the making of fine hats.
After
long-term exposure, hatters would often develop symptoms of mercury poisoning,
such as tremors or mood-swings: thus they would appear "mad" to
others.
Me (in the hat) and Lea Price and the take home tea we offered:
Who doesn't like small birds, and who isn't tempted to feed them?
Many parks warn people not to feed the birds, but at Reifel Bird Sanctuary they sell suitable seed and encourage visitors to feed the birds. Both the visitors and the birds seem to love it.
The black capped chickadees know a good thing when they see it and eagerly cue up to be fed.
Unfortunately they move so quickly a few of my pictures are out of focus.
The golden-crowned sparrow prefers to retrieve seed from the ground. These birds are very well camouflaged:
The junco is a ground feeder too and quite a shy bird.
The redwing blackbird cannot be described as shy. This fellow below has a spectacular set of epaulets.
They are gorging at a feeder but I have seen them take food from an open palm.
In the photo below the male is in the centre of the picture, the female is off to the right.
Here is a closer look at the female:
and a couple more pictures of the male:
And finally the rufous-sided towhee, a ground feeder and
not so well camouflaged against this background; love the bright red eye.
So you want to feed the birds this winter, what should you offer them?
"Most birds that visit backyards in snowy weather thrive on seeds, since insects and fruit are harder to find naturally during the winter.
The best foods to offer birds in colder weather have a high fat or oil content that will provide abundant energy for winter survival."
