nature

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Inktober 2021 Day 31 – Risk

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.

Is 60:1

This one is a WIP – I may watercolor it or even add a quote – not sure yet. Also, I will be catching up on the remaining days with pet portraits in the coming weeks..

Photo ref: Kevin Matson – Indiana Birdography

This image is closely tied into my very first picture and the journey I have taken with Inktober this year. We are broken in this life. We suffer loss and heartache, disappointment and betrayal, but we have choice to sink under that or, by taking action, we can rise up out of the ashes of the pain and choose life and love, growth and renewal.

Courage in the face of that risk of leaving the darkness of fear behind will reap great rewards. Always. There is victory in that first step.

Happy Inktober, everyone. It has been a wonderful experience.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater than these.

Mark 12:30-31

And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

Rev 22:17

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Inktober 2021 Day 30 – Slither

This is a quick sketch and a nod to our state DNR (Indiana Department of Natural Resources). I love the work they do to preserve our state resources, so log this under “people doing good things”.

“Unlike many of Indiana’s salamanders, the state-endangered green salamander spends most of its time far from the forest floor, navigating narrow cracks and crevices in cliff faces. DNR biologists have to get into some tricky positions to survey for this species!” – DNR article on Facebook

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Inktober 2021 Day 16 – Compass

Rushing but having fun! I have said for a long time that I want to learn how to be looser with my art. This is going to force that!

This is for all the wildlife rescuers out there whose compass is True North.

This was a fast one with the brush and a few pens. I am needing to catch up!!! This comes from a story that had me laughing and supporting Wild Heart Ranch Wildlife Rescue this summer. A state of the art, new racoon holding pen was breached by the little rascals in rehab this summer. They call it The Great Escape and the rehab director kept us on the edge of our seats with the hilarious antics as they worked to recapture 40 escaped babies.

60 were still in the cage, but 40 sets of destructive little hands can wreak havoc.

4 are still roaming the wildlife center at night, but the others have been safely rehabbed and released where they can live without wreaking destruction. You can’t help but love these cuties tho.

Thank you to all the rehabbers out there giving their life to help wildlife.

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Inktober Day 12 – Stuck (or un-stuck)

Sea turtles are a favorite, for sure!

This one falls under the “look for the helpers” and “good people doing good things”.

I am keen on the work being done to clean up the oceans and sea turtle rescue and rehab around the world. I love the stories of successful releases and find them very encouraging. The stuck part of this is the tendency of sea turtles to get caught in abandoned fishing nets, but the people at various conservancies and rescues do much to “un-stuck” those turtles and rehab them. They also track and protect their eggs on various beaches. What cool work to be involved in!

Here in my land-locked state, we also rescue smaller turtles quite frequently, and that has been a joy to be a part of. So go rescue a turtle when you see one “stuck” somewhere. Just remember, for land turtles, head them safely in the direction they were going and do not remove them from their habitat unless they are injured and need rehab. Our land turtles do not range far and get disoriented easily.

I follow The Turtle Hospital in the Florida Keys, as well as the Turtle Conservancy.

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Inktober 2021 Prep

A project has been selected (a theme), my nieces are prepared and zoom meetings scheduled, content has been collected! I am ready!

In the meantime, I have already started playing around with some of the content and watercoloring it. I may do a different image of the flamingos for October. Let us hope I can keep on task – I keep getting sidetracked into watercolors as I choose my images.

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Watercolor Nature Journal

Practicing snow and shadows with the Mulberry tree behind our house

I did work on the nature journal a bit this past Winter/Spring. I love our birds and critters but this year we did not feed them. There was a scary disease going through this part of the country. Thankfully, I did not see it with our birds, but the DNR asked us to not feed them in case it was spreading.

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Tanuary 2021

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. from the Finding Your Roots (PBS) show

I like to work on a tan sketchbook in January – although I was too busy with nieces and our weekly zoom coaching sessions to do the full Tanuary challenge on social media. We had a lot of fun, even so.

I challenged the kids to use different surfaces, including cardboard pieces and talked about charcoal, pencil, crayon, pen etc. It was good drawing practice for all involved.

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Bandits

This is Notch – I think she may be a first time mother. She has at least 2 babies so she got bold enough to come up to the deck. It seems they get hungry about this time of year. I also see them in the deep winter when the snow is thick. Otherwise, they only visit at night. How do I know? My tomatoes growing on my second story deck keep disappearing.

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Rose-breasted Grosbeaks

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The Rose-breasted Grosbeak’s have been plentiful this season. I have my own photos, but a friend, Steve Bradley, took one of a male that truly inspired me. I used his photo for my painting and one of my own for the female.

First I practiced drawing them since their big old beaks were a new shape for me.

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Then I tried the male on my Mom’s Mother’s Day card/letter. I decided I liked that so well, I did the couple in my nature journal (the first image above.)

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Nest Building

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I watched a Cooper’s Hawk wrestle with a huge stick that had a smaller one hooked to it.  When he finally got them untangled, he ended up with the short stick and appeared quite disgruntled about it. He tossed it down and left, at that point, and went up into the tree and started wrestling with another branch. It was very entertaining.

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