“Orchids” Transparent Watercolor and Time-lapse Video
I haven’t done a purely botanical painting in ages. I think the last one I did was of Fringed Polygala back in 1999! I’m always painting plants as backgrounds for insects and birds, so they aren’t foreign; they just haven’t been the main attraction. I had enough fun with this one that I might have to do them more often.
The Greater Lansing Area Orchid Society Show is held annually on MSU’s campus. The opportunity to enter a piece in their art show inspired me to create this. The orchids in the painting include a mix of my plants as well as photos of show specimens from previous years.
My Uncle Joe is an absolute aficionado of orchids. Trips to his house often feature a tour of his greenhouse, which is packed full of spectacular, almost unimaginable specimens. In the bleak, frozen tundra of a western New York winter, it is always amazing to see the vast array of incredible flowers thriving in his house. He has green thumbs, fingers and possibly even toes!
I have always admired orchids, but for ages I was afraid of investing in plants I was likely to kill. Eventually my wife and kids bought an orchid for me. After a lot of online research and expert advice from my uncle, I now have a few that are thriving.
For this painting I wanted to do something really different. I did some botanical illustration when I was in graduate school for Medical and Biological Illustration. I’ve also illustrated a good number of mosses and moss peristomes. While those are interesting, I wanted to move away from a strict illustrative approach of a single specimen or holotype. I get enough of that with my day job doing medical illustration.
I was hoping to experiment with colors and shapes using magnified, almost abstract, details of various flowers. I also wanted to include a few full specimens to give a sense of context while avoiding the traditional image of a full plant with greenery and roots. To use a meal analogy, I basically wanted this to be “all dessert” and no main course. I played with designs for a few days, considering a design with an explosion of colors similar to my “critters” paintings. In the end I decided to go in a completely different direction.
Circles can make for interesting compositions. Most often I design within rectangular formats of some sort. A few years ago I spent a fair amount of time designing images for medals and coins. For those I had to balance text and bas relief images on an independent, three-dimensional object. When designing logos, I’ve often used round formats. With those experiences percolating in the back of my mind, I set about planning this painting. I wanted to do a bunch of related circle designs as well as arcs of color in a (hopefully) compelling design. I almost never work on white backgrounds, but that seemed to be the right choice for this piece of art. Most traditional botanical illustrations are done on white, so this is a nod to that history, though with a dramatically different tack. To break up the white areas, I added some arcs of color. This ties the other circles into each other while playfully keeping one’s eye moving through the painting. At least that’s how I see it. Let me know what you think.
Flamingo Transparent Watercolor and Time-lapse Video
This flamingo painting is based on photos I took at the fantastic Toledo Zoo. I’ve been going there for more than 20 years. My second trip there was probably the most memorable. I was living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the time and was long-distance dating Liesl, who still lived in Cleveland. We agreed to meet in Toledo. I’d ride my bike down, and she would drive over. I left before dawn with a pack full of food, a few water bottles and a map. Taking the scenic route and unexpected detours, avoiding highways and busy roads, and finding places to grab snacks and bathroom breaks meant that the ride would be about 75-80 miles.
I rolled in to the zoo parking lot about 20 minutes later than I anticipated. I was hot, covered in road grime and my clothes had crusty salt stains from evaporated sweat. I searched the parking lot a few times. Liesl was nowhere to be found. This was long before the invention of cell phones. We both had agreed that if anything happened, we’d call Dan, my housemate back in Ann Arbor. The prospect of turning around and riding the whole way back to Ann Arbor wasn’t so appealing. The shortest route possible route was another 65 miles or so.
Fortunately, Liesl rolled in about an hour after I did. Her 80’s era Volvo 240 had been overheating on the highway with a stuck thermostat! She was driving with the heat on full blast to cool the engine a little, occasionally pulling over to let it cool further so it wouldn’t overheat. That makes for slow progress, but she made it! We put my bike in the trunk, had a great visit at the zoo, and then slowly made our way to Ann Arbor. Things sure were less predictable in the days before cell phones, but everything ended up working out.
Numata Longwing Butterfly Transparent Watercolor and Time-lapse Video
The Numata Longwing Butterfly is native to most of South America. Its yellows, orange and black contrast really well with the dark greens of the leaf and background on this painting. Macro views of butterflies take a long time to render, but they are a blast to work on. This is another watercolor based on a photo I took at Hershey Garden’s butterfly house.
Malachite Butterfly Transparent Watercolor and Time-lapse Video
It’s been about 18 years since I last painted a butterfly. At that time I created several to decorate our infant daughter’s bedroom. I used to paint them life-sized, but these magnified views posed more of a challenge. Those tiny facets on the wings took a long time to render. Lepidoptera, which means scaled wings, is the scientific name for the order of butterflies and moths. They certainly live up to the name!
Black-and-white Warbler Transparent Watercolor and Time-lapse Video
This painting of a Black-and-white Warbler was based on photos I took at Magee Marsh Wildlife Area in Ohio. I think the first one I remember seeing was at Shaker Lakes in the Cleveland area. In my mind I thought of it as the “woodpecker warbler.” It was like a tiny little zebra working its way up the bark of a tree.
About thirty years ago I was living in University Circle while going to art school. My girlfriend Liesl, now my wife, and I went on a lot of nature/birding walks for dates. That was time doubly well spent. Our favorite locations were in the metroparks surrounding the city, namely North and South Chagrin. Those were a bit of a drive, so sometimes we’d hit Shaker Lakes, just 10-15 minutes away. “Lakes” is a bit generous; they really were large ponds. Given their proximity to the city, they had a ton of wildlife. A pair of Snapping Turtles there were—and still are—by far the largest I’ve ever seen. One’s shell had a huge divot in it from an injury it survived. With the amount of car traffic in the area, I wonder if it had been hit.
During migration we regularly saw good warblers at Shaker Lakes, and in the summers Black-crowned Night Herons hunted there. That was also where I first spied a Brown Thrasher.
The metroparks surrounding Cleveland really were amazing. I had never lived in a city as big as Cleveland and was totally out of my element. When the weather was decent, I’d escape the crowds and get out to the country by saddling up on my bike and riding out to one of the metroparks, usually North Chagrin. The ride out of the city and suburbs was 15 miles each way. Once out there, I’d be treated to less crowded roads before heading back. At the time mountain biking was legal at North Chagrin, so I’d often ride the trails there before heading home. It was a blast: hilly, twisty narrow paths with big drops down to gorges the streams had cut through the hills. On weekends it wasn’t safe with the number of people on the trail, unless you were up really early. After about a year and a half, the park system outlawed bikes from all trails and only allowed them on the paved paths. I was disappointed but totally understood why that happened. It was fun while it lasted.
On one mountain biking trip at South Chagrin, Liesl wiped out on a patch of gravel and came up with a huge gash on her arm. I was pretty sure we were headed to the hospital. She popped up and looked it over… no screaming or crying. All I could think was, “Man, she is tough!” She rode for a while to get back to the car, and then we packed up the bikes and wrapped up her arm. Since the bleeding had stopped, she wanted to go for a walk. We ended up birding and tipping rocks looking for salamanders. That was a nasty wound, but we still had a fun and memorable day.
Indigo Bunting Transparent Watercolor and Time-lapse Video
I rendered a bunch of Indigo Buntings in a previous painting but had never done a painting with one as the main subject. Last spring I captured many serviceable, close photos of a cooperative male that came to our yard in the spring. Unfortunately, he had less than perfect, spotty, molting-in plumage that hinted at how spectacular he would look in a few weeks, when all his new feathers came in. I liked the poses I got, so I used those photos and patched up the spots that weren’t yet a beautiful blue. It was a little like restoring a vintage car with some Bondo and a respray.
I was a little at a loss of what to do with the background. I was between some busy work projects and just wanted to get something on the drafting table that I could work on if I had a spare half hour here or there. Lately I’ve been trying to get a little looser and washy in the backgrounds, so in the end I decided to go with a light, misty pink to grey-blue fade in the background to contrast well with the brilliant blues of the bunting.
I’m way behind on posting paintings and sketches. I have six more finished paintings that I want to share as well as a bunch of sketches. It was very busy for a while, but I hope to be better about posting now that things have slowed down a bit!
Caribbean Flamingo Pencil Sketch p94
Flamingos are spectacular, but strange. This sketch is from photos I took at the fantastic Toledo Zoo.
Magnolia Warbler Pencil Sketch p93
Magnolia warblers make for beautiful subjects. I’ll never tire of looking at them. This sketch is from photos at Magee Marsh in northern Ohio. That was a quick sketch of a pose you seldom see drawn. Now that I’ve stepped back from it for a while I see a few things I’d like to change. With some revision this could be fun to paint.
Numata Longwing Butterfly Pencil Sketch p91
Here’s another sketch from photos I took at the Hershey Gardens’ Butterfly House. I look forward to painting it! This butterfly is native to most of South America.
Sandhill Crane Transparent Watercolor and Time-lapse video
Sandhill cranes are gorgeous birds, and their eyes are almost hypnotic. In between trips and a crazy work schedule I was in a hurry to get something painted, so I went with a quick and simple portrait. I got great photo references of two incredibly cooperative cranes at Kensington Metropark here in Michigan.