Winter Watercolours III
January 14, 2022
It seems to be just a very human thing to anthropomorphize whatever we come across–give everything from fish to insects to birds to apes to dinosaurs to pets a human personality. We even do it with cars and ships. Growing up, I was read the Thornton Burgess stories, like “The Adventures of Grandfather Frog” and the adventures of “Sammy Jay”. You may, rather, have been read “Winnie The Pooh” or “The Tale of Peter Rabbit”. Every animal in them was cast in human likeness.
And then came along the biggest anthropomorphiser of all time, Walt Disney:
There’s a downside to creating animals in our own image–they don’t get to be entities on their own terms, self-definers of their unique life force and world and surroundings. One filmmaker who decided to take it to extremes was Alfred Hitchcock, whose film ‘The Birds‘ cast them as human haters who couldn’t wait to swoop down and become feathered masters over anyone walking around on two legs. Seeing all those crows on telephone wires, silently waiting for the signal to begin wreaking destruction was the very definition of creepy.
All these ravens want in this painting is whatever can be gleaned from a long-before harvested crop of corn:
[still available for purchase, contact weisserlance@gmail.com]
Winter Watercolours II
January 8, 2022
Seneca Park in Rochester, New York, was sledding paradise in the 1950s. Only the James Dean wanabees–cigarette-flaunting attention-starved teens–did Dead Man’s Hill: a rocky, tree-stumpy, pretzel-twisted cliff-face down into oblivion. The story went that some guy ripped the Red Flyer from a little kid and went down it standing up and got squashed against a blue spruce. What we all did was the one right beside it–Pine Tree Hill–with its rollercoaster steep drop, and triple-humped finish, ending nearly at the edge of Seneca Park Pond.
“Come home when the snow turns blue,” was our only caution before heading off–that magical time when the sun turned orangey-gold and dropped just below the fir tops, the shadows going from light grey to a rich cobalt. By the time we schlepped home, there were yellow lemon reflections over the deep violet yards beneath everyone’s dining room windows, and we knew we were just in time for supper.
Happy Thanksgiving
November 25, 2021
Here in Canada, our Thanksgiving is a rather lowkey meal held mid-October–lowkey, that is, in comparison with the American extravaganza on the fourth Thursday of November. Ours takes the form of a harvest celebration–a fitting end to Summer’s seasonal bounty. And while there is usually a turkey dinner–and yes, it is often family celebrated–no one is going to insist on anyone flying in from any of our three coasts in order to eat it. Nor will there be parades featuring gigantic floating Pillsbury Dough Boys or any loud, beer-laden watching of football. In fact, many in my circle have a modest restaurant version along with a friend or two: a glass of wine, the roasted bird entre, pumpkin pie, coffee and conversation–and then home again to peace and quiet and a spotless kitchen.
That said, having been born and raised in the good ol’ USA, I know exactly how to produce a Thanksgiving card imbued with the Yankee spirit of throwing Kraft Miniature Marshmallows and pineapple chunks into an already sweet, sweet potato dish, as well as cramming oysters and chestnuts (and anything else) into turkey stuffing.
…..wait for it…..
BAM!
It’s my pop-up card version of a Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade (without a helium-filled Bullwinkle).
A Very Happy American Thanksgiving to all!
Masters of the Trick or Treat
October 28, 2021
Just waiting for something tasty to fall out of a small goblin’s pillowcase….
[sold]
Spring Thaw
March 21, 2021
Around here in British Columbia’s Southern Interior, while the mountains boast of a more than normal snow pack (which ultimately brings water to our homes), our city of Kamloops has experienced a warmer and drier Winter than usual. While there’s still a little snow in the higher portions of the city, where we live it has been a very gentle and lamb-like entry into the first day of Spring.
by Lance Weisser
when micro = macro
January 12, 2021
The largest bird on earth is–no surprise here–the Ostrich. Only the Emu comes anywhere close, and in N. America, our experience of the bird world (aside from some water birds and raptors) is most often an encounter with a species that is generally quite small. (Of course, after writing such a declarative sentence my mind’s eye gets filled with Ravens, Magpies, Embden Geese, Roosters and Pileated Woodpeckers, lol.)
Songbirds in particular are relatively tiny, thus lending themselves well to tiny portraits, which, when I was still a member of a Gallery, sold quite steadily and well.
Try A Little Tenderness
January 1, 2021
Daring to re-write Otis Reading’s hit song for this brand spanking New Year:
“A word soft and gentle makes life easier to bear,
You won’t regret it, people won’t forget it–for love is our whole happiness
And it is all so easy. Try a little tenderness.”
by Lance Weisser
Wishing you a more tender, gentle, and forgiving 2021.
Aerosols
June 19, 2020
‘. . . in meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of minute liquid droplets suspended in a planet’s atmosphere . . . ‘ [wikipedia]
Watercolour is absolutely the perfect artistic medium for tackling the effervescent quality of–ahem–aerosols.
It being a rather challenging subject, more paintings featuring clouds are about to be attempted, and the results posted here in days to come.
Yay! Aerosols!
Sibelius Park detail…..
June 11, 2020
Trying to fit a very rectangularly-wide picture inside the borders of a wordpress blogpost forces one to shrink it to fit. So here is the completed painting, divided in half in order to provide more up-close detail:
Your many comments through this painting progression series are such a tonic and encouragement. Your blogs are a daily boost to my spirits, and certainly to all who read them.
Painting Completed: Jean Sibelius Square Park, Toronto
June 10, 2020
The Finnish composer, Jean Sibelius ” . . . is widely recognized as his country’s greatest composer and, through his music, is often credited with having helped Finland to develop a national identity during its struggle for independence from Russia. . . “
Quite probably, his most recognizable contribution and gift to us was ‘Finlandia’, the tune from which many of us have come to know as the melody for the well known hymn, ‘Be Still My Soul’:
Music is, for me, like a beautiful mosaic which God has put together. He takes all the pieces in his hand, throws them into the world, and we have to recreate the picture from the pieces.
~ Jean Sibelius
The visual objective in this commissioned project, was to infuse the painting with the mood and the tenor of those 1970s years when I and my dear friend, Doug Todd, were living near The Jean Sibelius Square Park in The Annex of Toronto.
Those were challenging years, when we were actors in the ensemble known as Creation II, living communally in a large Victorian red brick Annex house. The experience permanently altered our lives, as what began as an altruistic experiment in communal living and performing, gradually descended into becoming a cult.
Therefore, this painting is meant to embrace the feelings of those times, and bring back the memory of a one acre oasis in the midst of spiritual confusion and personal ambivalence.
The completed work depicting a drizzly November morning, includes the emblematic red brick Victorian homes which surround the square, and a pair of Toronto’s ever-present pigeons to help bring animation to the solid silence of the memorable and remembered Jean Sibelius:
watercolour on treated art board
commissioned by Douglas Todd
by Lance Weisser June, 2020
[note: the rectangular size of this painting, 7″ x 13″, is preventing it being inserted here without undergoing distortion.]
It’s All In The Name
February 21, 2020
While some drivers get distracted by eating or talking–or what the latest fight in the backseat is all about–I, in my dotage, am beyond all that. Those distractions are way too sophisticated for me because I get distracted by street names. If they ever have to use the jaws of life on me it’ll be because I was mulling over the origins of ‘Puhallo Drive’ or ‘Sahali Terrace’.
The same goes for the names of birds. ‘Where does ‘Junco’ come from?’, I’ll ask out loud to an indifferent spouse. (It originally means ‘bush’ or ‘shrub’, which is where they hang out.) ‘And what’s with the name Grebe?’ (No one–much less my spouse–seems to know its name’s origins–just that it’s a diving waterbird.)
So it was with a bit of embarrassment that I discovered the reason Barn Swallows, Tree Swallows, Cave Swallows and Cliff Swallows are called ‘Swallows’
watercolour on Arches Hot Press 140# Paper
3.5″ x 5″
by Lance Weisser
SOLD
It’s because….
…..they ‘swallow’ alot of insects.
The Long Wait
January 17, 2020
Two days ago I left the house at 9am. Between then and returning at noon, our pipes had frozen. It was -23C (-9.5F). On the coldest day so far in 2020–with pipes freezing all across Kamloops, B. C.–the search for an available plumber was on. Four tries later, I snagged one just finishing up in our neighbourhood, and an hour-and-a-half –and $165– later, we heard that lovely sound of water bursting out of multiple taps.
“The Long Wait”, 10″ x 8″, watercolour on art board
by Lance Weisser
Seeing our rescuing plumber to the door, I saw we’d gotten some mail. It was our first-of-many, colourful Spring Seed Catalogs.
Midnight snack
December 21, 2019
My first real encounter with an owl took place in the middle of Toronto in the 1970s. It was a normal mid-summer night and I was at an inner city, tree-lined neighbourhood intersection, when suddenly I heard this unworldly screech above my head, a tremendous rush of sound–like wind in a leafy tree–as though something unknown above me had collided with another object. Then, right in front of me fell from the sky and onto the road a rolling, jumbled ball of feathers, violently jumping and heaving about, me not knowing what on earth was happening, nor able to visually make out anything other than this great confusion of feathers and screeching.
And then I saw an owl’s head very swiftly rise up from the feathery pile, stare at me for a split second before shifting its body and letting me see how it had a struggling pigeon in its grasping talons. A few more jabs with its beak and the owl lifted off the pavement, its wings widespread and powerful, the pigeon weighing it down, as it climbed upward and out into the urban night to search for a place to finish its meal of squab.
The whole business only lasted but a minute, if that. So violent and sudden was it, that I’ve always understood since that day why songbirds and doves always appear wary when at our feeders, and rarely do anything if not in a protective grouping. Woodpeckers seem unaffected by much of anything going on around them, so I presume owls don’t consider woodpecker a delicacy.
‘Barnie’
watercolour on Arches 140# hot press paper
The Gathering
December 7, 2019
Ravens differ from Crows socially. Whereas Crows are given to form large groupings and congregate together socially–whether roosting for the night or for protection–Ravens are more solitary. Adult Ravens, once successfully mated, remain paired-up and together for life.
It is known that teenage Ravens, prior to mating, do in fact form in groups in order to be more effective in their newly-developed hunting skills. So when one teen Raven buddy discovers food, they all pile on, everyone benefiting from the find.
[source: ‘Ravens In Winter’ by Dr. Bernd Heinrich]
‘The Gathering’
watercolour by Lance Weisser, 8″ x 11″ on art board
for The Small Works Show, Kamloops Arts Council, November 24 to December 24
Old Courthouse, Kamloops, British Columbia
Small Works
March 15, 2019
In my city of Kamloops, British Columbia, our Kamloops Arts Council hosts a number of different painterly events throughout the year. One of them was called ‘The Small Works Show’, an annual fundraiser whereby the artist gets half the proceeds and the Arts Council gets the other half.
Unlike most art shows, this one allows patrons to walk out the door with their purchase rather than wait till the event is over. No little red dots on title cards here!
Participating artists are allowed up to fifteen pieces, and if/when one piece is purchased, another is immediately put in its place. So I contributed twelve paintings, and was pleased to have sold seven of them.
This little piece (rather crudely photographed before being matted and framed) was given a new home, and as time goes along, I’ll post others which were also purchased.
I am very grateful for the commitment and dedication of those heading up our local Kamloops Arts Council.
Life Partners
March 7, 2019
Ravens take around two to four years to mature and before finding their mate, hang around in teenage gangs according to some research, but once they do mate, they are monogamous and establish a territory for themselves.
I most often observe Ravens in our Interior British Columbia setting in pairs, unlike their crow cousins which gather in huge numbers.
by Lance Weisser
“The raven is symbolic of mind, thought and wisdom according to Norse legend, as their god Odin was accompanied by two ravens: Hugin who represented the power of thought and active search for information. The other raven, Mugin represented the mind, and its ability to intuit meaning rather than hunting for it. ” [https://www.whats-your-sign.com/raven-symbolism.html]
Here a ‘chuk’, there a ‘chuk’
March 2, 2019
Sometimes our guests awaken in the morning and come in the kitchen looking confused, ‘what is that strange sound coming from the back of the house? It sounds like a bunch of chickens being strangled.”
There are a number of birds named after their call–for example, the Whip-poor-will, Bobwhite, Killdeer and Chickadee. Now add to those the Chukar Partridge, which populates our back mountain ridge and does this: “Chu-Chu- Chuk-Chuk-Chuk-Chuk-ChukCHUKCHUKCHUK!!!!”
This is always the male progenitor of a brood (known as a covey) of some dozen or so chicks who often is announcing their collective descent down the ridge to wreak havoc in our vegetable garden. All one needs to do then is saunter down the back steps to suddenly frighten them to death as they go up in a giant, dreadful whir of feathers and squawking, after which the male will scold at me from atop the biggest rock, his ego bruised.
Native to Eurasia and Asia, including, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, along the inner ranges of the Western Himalayas to Nepal, Chukars were also introduced to Europe and N. America. [wikipedia]
Lance Weisser
They are to me one of the strangest creatures I’ve ever come across.
They are either brazen as hell, or scared out of their freekin’ minds. Their markings are as odd as their call, their mannerisms are as odd as their habits (in our garden their choicest morsels are the tops of our onions–I mean, who eats the tops of onions?)
When you google them as a subject, you usually find sites generated by hunters in the ‘Lower 48’ who are on the prowl for ‘the illusive Chukar Partridge’ all decked out in camouflage. I’ve yet to hear of any hunters in our area on the prowl for them, but believe me, we’ve got Chukars and they ain’t illusive.
Here’s one in action, for your listening pleasure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q09GNpev6sk
The Old Rookery
February 21, 2019
EVERY SO OFTEN I go truant and abandon my blog, but at least this time around it hasn’t (quite) been an entire year (!) I might be alone in this, but my temptation is to spend so much time daily exploring the interesting posts of fellow bloggers that I end up spending less and less time actually painting. My solution to this apparent addiction is to leave my own posts in limbo until enough progress has been made to once again continue.
In any case, thank you for your patience and understanding, and here is my latest painting entitled ‘The Old Rookery’, depicting a scene from my imagination, drawing on the spirit of book illustrators from the days of my youth:
Thank you for reconnecting with me and I hope your Winter is going well for you!
‘Raven Nights’
February 20, 2018
In keeping with my fascination over trying to capture night in watercolour, here’s another attempt at mood and texture:
‘Raven Nights’, watercolour on Saunders Waterford Hot Press 90 lb. paper, 9″ x 10″, Sold
Finished Painting: ‘Raven Winter’
February 16, 2018
It is snowing again, and is likely to continue through today and tonight and into tomorrow. As my friend Shiela says, snow today is water tomorrow, meaning we live in a characteristically arid part of British Columbia (our backyard mountain ridge has many cacti plants) and so every source of water is cherished. The snowmelt from the mountains is crucial to ensuring our lifeline, the Thompson River, is of normal size.
Around here, many people kind of roll their eyes and sigh when learning we’re getting another ‘dumping’, but I’ve always delighted in snow and can now sadly envision a day when there won’t be any. Our living situation is such that I can handle clearing the driveway without much effort, otherwise I might be joining one of the eye-rolling crowd.
Here is the painting ‘Raven Winter’ that is now framed and ready to be presented to my friend Patricia Kellogg as a possible choice in our painting exchange deal:
‘Raven Winter’, watercolour on treated art board, 9″ x 12″
Stage Two: ‘Raven Winter’
February 14, 2018
The painting for my friend Patricia Kellogg is taking shape. The treated surface of the mat board I’m using to paint on was/is achieved by applying a product by Daniel Smith called ‘watercolor ground’. It comes in a jar and is painted onto any surface one desires, instantly turning it–once allowed to thoroughly dry–into one which can be painted on using transparent watercolour. So, glass, metal, wood, masonite, anything of the kind can basically become a surface with the characteristics of watercolour paper.
Stage One: ‘Raven Winter’
February 13, 2018
My watercolourist friend Patricia Kellogg [https://www.facebook.com/Patricia-A-Kellogg-357357001050096/] and I are doing a painting exchange. I acquired one of hers of an artichoke plant in late autumn–that expressive form plants take when frost renders them lifeless, yet beautiful even so. And because she has a couple of mine with ravens in them, she wanted one more and so here’s the first stage of it.
The surface for this painting is treated mat board and the medium is transparent watercolour. It is a 9″ x 12″ piece. Once it is finished I will enjoy taking it over to The Red Beard Cafe where we have our monthly coffee and seeing if she likes it. I’ll also bring a couple of others with me to provide a choice.
Stage Two: Waxwing Watercolour
February 5, 2018
1) They are named Waxing because they sport red wax-like accents on the tips of their secondary feathers;
2) Although they eat insects during Summer months, they thrive on berries the rest of the year and, in our part of British Columbia, go about in groups to feast on Mountain Ash berries;
3) If there is a cluster of berries hanging from the tip of a long branch that only a single bird can reach, sometimes the rest of the group will line up and pass berries beak-to-beak down the line allowing each bird the opportunity to feed.
Audubon Print
Its fondness for the small cones of the eastern red cedar is why this particular Waxwing is called ‘Cedar’ Waxwing. (My first post is mistaken in assuming they are not found in Eastern N. America. They are–but I just wasn’t privileged to spot any when growing up in upper New York State.)
Cedar Waxwing watercolour-in-progress, Saunders Waterford Hot Press Paper 140 lb.
[above facts gathered from Cornel Ornithological and Wikipedia websites]
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Work in progress: ‘An ear-full of Waxwings’
February 2, 2018
As a child there was probably no bird I wished more to see than a Waxwing. In on-location photographs they just looked so exotic and intriguing–their colouration and little tufted crowns–the whole package was and is so appealing.
In those days we lived in Eastern N. America where Waxwings aren’t found and so it took many decades–after I’d moved to British Columbia–for my chance to encounter these birds. And it happened as I stood at our front picture window looking out at the Red Maple just beyond the glass–a tree which had nestled within it a deserted Robin’s nest.
Suddenly there appeared a large group of birds I’d never before seen, Cedar Waxwings, darting about the nest, examining it animatedly and calling to one another. I watched in fascination as they systematically began dismantling this Robin’s nest, their little bandit’s masks seeming very appropriate to their deciding to make someone else’s home theirs for the taking.
‘An Ear-full of Waxwings’ — work in progress — Saunders Waterford Hot Press Paper, 140 lb.
A grouping of these birds is known as ‘an ear-full’ almost certainly because they go about in bunches and are constantly chattering in a distinctive, rather conversational voice that is more insistent than melodic or song-like, yet charming even so.
Robber Baron
January 20, 2018
From the Cornel Lab of Ornithology:
“. . . A large, dark jay of evergreen forests in the mountainous West. Steller’s Jays are common in forest wildernesses but are also fixtures of campgrounds, parklands, and backyards, where they are quick to spy bird feeders as well as unattended picnic items. . . ”
‘Steller’s Jay’, watercolour on Saunders Waterford Hot Press 90 lb., 4″ x 6″, Sold.
When we moved from Quebec to British Columbia and went camping, it was startling to hear this loud, rasping, strident taunting from high in the trees. Startling, because it was so like a Blue Jay, yet not–like a Blue Jay with the flu. And then this amazingly blue-black jay bounded down to the ground, looking up at us as though wondering why we were occupying its picnic table.
After returning from swimming, we found three of them pulling at the packaging of wrapped food and helping themselves to whatever they managed to expose. These are Blue Jays on steroids.
“. . . Steller’s Jays are habitual nest-robbers, like many other jay species. They’ve occasionally been seen attacking and killing small adult birds including a Pygmy Nuthatch and a Dark-eyed Junco. . . ” [Cornel Ornithology Lab]
But wow–how beautiful, how handsome, yes?
weisserwatercolours 