The Fellers … WIP

I’m continuing to work on the painting for the forestry education art auction. Here is the latest update. The inking is done and I’ve cleaned up most of the pencil lines. I find the pencil lines are very difficult to remove once the paper has been soaked. 

The paper has been soaked and stapled onto the frame. Now mounted, it will be ready to paint as soon as it dries. It looks a little mottled from the moisture, but that fades as the water dries.

Nothing left to do but splash a bit of color on it!  Hmmm? I wonder how the competition is coming along. Gee, I wish Mary, of Sneaking Bliss, would give me a little hint!

Forestry Friday … Art Auction Time Again!

pen and ink, vintage logging art, logging art

Circa 1940’s, loggers use a two-man chainsaw to fell a large Douglas-fir. Pen and ink.

It’s time for Mary and me to create a piece of art for charity once again. Every year we do something for the Sierra Cascade Logging Conference Forestry Education Auction. This pen and ink is my exploratory drawing for my painting. I like the direction it’s going. The tree and the background still needs some tweaking.  I was helped out by the Forest History Society. They have an excellent photo library of vintage logging scenes and were kind enough to allow me use it for art reference.

Last year at the auction Mary and I each provide a piece of art. To liven things up we competed against each other. It was a big success. You can read about it here on Mary’s blog, And The Winner Is!  In fact it was so successful that we are going head to head again this year. We’ll both be working on our paintings this weekend. I can’t wait to see the competition this year.

 

 

Wild Wednesday … Waiting For Fish

 

 

bald eagle

Scanning the Sacramento River, this bald eagle is fishing for breakfast.

I saw the eagle perched near the boat ramp scanning the river. I couldn’t get a clear picture that wasn’t full of branches. I slid down the bank next to the water. Slid being the operative word, since I almost took a morning dip. I had a clear view for this shot. The eagle never gave me a look. I wasn’t a fish!

bald eagle

Perched in the tree tops beside the river waiting for a fish.

Forestry Friday … Canyon Live Oak

Canyon Live Oak, Oak, acorns, pen and ink

Canyon Live Oak acorns in pen and ink.

Canyon Live Oak, Quercus chrysolepis, is an evergreen oak of the California Sierra Nevada and Coastal Range. Its full range stretches from Mexico and Arizona north to southwestern Oregon. These trees typically prefer shallow soils like those found in steep canyons common in the low and mid elevation mountains.  Hence the name. These sites are normally poor soil quality and aren’t the best locations for growing commercial timber. Canyon Live Oak is not considered as a commercial species. Its main commercial value is as firewood. However, it has a high intrinsic value as a species important to wildlife. In forest management it is far more beneficial left on the landscape providing food, nesting and roosting habitat.

Wild Wednesday … “cat without a grin”

Bobcat The big male bobcat slinks away.

I had to go to the mill on Monday to do log inventory. It was a holiday and there were only a few folks at work. It was unusually quiet. I drove around the backside of the log deck only to have a large bobcat cross the road in front of me. Immediately, I stopped and grabbed my camera. Standing on the seat and door handle I had a great view of the cat. He’d stopped and was looking back at me. It was perfect ….. except, I had my SLOW camera. By the time it went through its agonizing start-up cycle the bobcat crept off. I managed only one picture before he slipped away toward the river, fading like the Cheshire Cat.

`All right,’ said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone. –  Alice In Wonderland 

Golden Retriever Bliss

Golden Retriever, Bliss, pen and ink, pen drawing, drawing pet portrait

Golden Retriever Portrait of Bliss in pen and ink.

We took a walk around the property on this blustery day. Here’s a gallery of our pack. Just click on a picture to enlarge.

Wild Wednesday … White-Crowned Sparrow

WhiteCrownedSparrow001

Just for fun, here’s an old sketch fit for “Throw Back Thursday.”

Forestry Friday … How to Tell When You’re Stuck in the Snow

As a public service to my fellow foresters and any interested civilians I present this video. Watch and you will see how to tell if your vehicle is stuck in the snow.

It took about two hours to dig out.

Wild Wednesday … Book Ends

bucks-014

Two black-tail bucks looking like a pair of bookends. They were browsing just across our fence.

Wild Wednesday … Don’t Even Breathe!

black bear,black tail deer, pen and ink, drawing, wildlife

Fawns are often killed by black bears in the Spring. Right after birth, fawns know instinctively to lay perfectly still. They have almost no scent. If the fawn doesn’t move a muscle and the bear is up wind it my not see the little deer.

I have you folks to thank, or blame for this pen and ink. It’s the third version of this fawn. You can see the two previous versions in the post Wild Wednesday Fawn Redo. First was a sweet vignette, which Mary told me was lacking. So I added more detail and asked if you all preferred the simple vignette of the more complete fawn. I received lots of great feedback and the majority liked the additional detail. If more detail is good then a lot more should be great. Truth is, I kept adding more and more because I had a vision. That’s when the bear came along to add some drama. The first rendition was lackluster. Now it tells a story, so thank you Mary and all you folks who commented before. Listening to a good critique only makes us better artist and writers. Even if I grumbled about it at first.

On a side note, if I’d known it was going to morph into this final drawing, the composition would have been different. However, I think it works okay. What do you think?