Happy New Year!

Male Pine Grosbeak

Female Pine Grosbeak

Male and Female Pine Grosbeak

Happy New Year! I hope that 2009 will be one of joy, peace, and happy painting for each of you!

It has taken just over a year of blogging until the inevitable happened: I have been comment-spammed. It really bothers me that the people who visit and read my blog could be affected by the spamming, so I have changed my comment section slightly to protect all of you. From now on, when you make a comment, you will be told that it will be posted after my approval. Please know that this is only to prevent comment-spammers from making comments and leaving behind a link which will take you to a site where their product is being touted. I for one do not have time to be linking to advertising or worse, to sites which may have content I find offensive. So, with the screening of comments before they are posted, I can eliminate those spamming people... Arrrrgggggg....

Now - to the photos you see above - these are the most brilliantly colored birds we get in the winter. They are Pine Grosbeaks, and the beautiful red one is the male. They are fairly large birds - about the size of an American Robin. They have a song which is like a dove in many ways, and when they all get in a tree (30 - 50 in a tree at one time) and they are all cooing it sounds quite amazing! 

We have a deck off the back of our house which has clear tempered glass between uprights of white aluminum. We put this kind of deck in so that we could see the view down to the valley below us without any interruption to our line of sight. It is great - but not always for the birds who come to the feeder which is outside our kitchen window. If the glass panels do not have frost or snow on them in the winter, or water droplets on them in the summer, the birds who swoop down to get the spilled seeds on the deck can try to fly away through the glass, which means injuries.

A female Grosbeak bonked her head on the glass a few days ago, and was sitting in the snow a bit stunned. I was able to go out and pick her up and hold her to keep her warm. She laid her head on my finger and just rested, closing her eyes and relaxing in my hands. It was so fantastic to be able to examine her feathers and colors up close, to stroke her incredibly soft body and talk to her. I kept her warm, feeling her strong heartbeat under my fingers. After a few minutes, I placed her up in the feeder, and came inside to wash dishes while she sat in the feeder. As I was doing the dishes, I kept looking out to see if she was okay. I was not sure if I should go back out and hold her again to get her warmed up, or to see if she had died where I placed her.  The next time I looked up, she was gone! Yeah!!!

We have strung rope in front of the glass to show the birds there is something there - it hits the glass in the wind, but on occasion we have bird accidents. I have held a couple of different kinds of birds now, and actually brought them inside the studio to recover. One time one of them recovered so quickly that it got loose in the studio and flew around until finally it landed on the screen in front of a window and we were able to capture and release it outside. That was several moments of pandemonium, believe me!

Living in the country has many advantages, and seeing different kinds of birds up close is certainly one of the joys of being here. I would say that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages of icy roads in the winter and the distance of 60 kms. round trip per day to travel to work. 

I hope each of you experiences many joys throughout this year, in spite of the difficulties and hardships which the economy may present. Isn't it true that when times are tough, the things of true value and importance are much easier to identify?  Family, friends, simplicity, home, and certainly, painting. :-)

Happy New Year!

Awe-some Chinook Sunset

I got my camera back - no major problems (*big sigh of relief*) and they were able to download my pictures of the most amazing sunset I have ever witnessed. (* bigger sigh of relief*)

I stood outside in my front yard and literally shot for about 15 minutes  as the sky constantly changed color and the clouds thickened and moved all around me. To give you some idea of the immensity of this display of color,  the evergreen tree is at least 35 feet tall, and is on a hill. You can see our neighbor's house in one picture, and the tree is a bit further down the hill while their house sits at the top of the hill. 

I cannot describe to you the incredible sense of the magnificent glory of my Creator that this evening gave me. My senses were so filled with the brilliance of color and the immensity of the sky that I quite simply could not continue to take pictures even though the sunset had not  completed its show. I was literally overwhelmed deep in my very being. I have never had that sensation before...

I absolutely am painting - but I just HAD to share these pictures with you. I have not altered or touched the photos in any way other than to put my signature on them. I hope the colors show on your monitor even half the intensity of the photos.

 

Troubles and Roses

 

Some time ago, my husband bought me a grouping of varied beautiful roses. In the late afternoon sun, I placed them in a sunny window and began shooting with my camera. 

(Click on each photo to see enlarged detail)

I love the peachy orange deep in the base of this pale pink rose. It was not really noticeable until I placed it in a position where it was backlit.

This rose had such gorgeous two-toned petals! It had an amazing fragrance as well.

And then there was this beauty... perfect in form and color. The edges of the petals waved and curled in such a flowing rhythm - I wished I could preserve it like this forever.

It is so much fun for me to take photos, especially when they are visually unique or striking. This week I took some absolutely fantastic photos of the sunset on Chinook clouds. Most people think of Calgary as getting Chinook winds in winter, but we can actually get these winds in all seasons. In the winter, the Chinooks melt the snow, and change the temperature as much as 20 degrees Celsius in a matter of hours. 

For those of you who don't know what "Chinooks" are - they are dry warm winds that cross over the western side of the mountains where they dump their moisture, and then rush down the eastern slope of the mountains, bringing warm dry air and what we call a Chinook Arch. The Chinook Arch is a band of clouds which are pushed ahead of the Chinook winds, and form a line across the sky. This is a Chinook we had last week, and the sunset that glowed on the arch in the western sky. What a glorious sight!

 

(click on each photo to see enlarged detail)

My trouble is that I cannot get my camera to download the pictures onto my computer... which means I cannot take a picture of a painting and post that either! I had taken the camera in to a camera shop on the weekend to purchase a filter, and the guy was fiddling with it, cleaning it, and showing me some cool things to do with the camera. I had taken a lot of lake pictures on Saturday, and the Chinook pictures tonight, and now I can't get them off the camera. So I will have to go back to the shop to see if the guy can figure out what is wrong. It is probably something simple, but I can't find out what it is. *sigh*  Anyway, I hope you enjoy these pictures until I can get my camera fixed and post a painting. Hopefully it won't be too long!