This week mating season has started for Mockingbirds in northeast Texas. Mockingbirds mimic over 120 bird calls, and I’m guessing there are a couple of frog calls in the mix too. Really interesting, and a sound I love hearing when outside doing yardwork.

Guanacaste Trees, Costa Rican Grasslands, 11H x 14W inches oil pastels on paper. Part of the Paper Places series, all have white double mats and white custom built wood frames with crackle finish, total size 22H x 26W inches.
The unusually wide umbrella-like shape of the trees look cartoonish, but with a few textures I think the issue is resolved now.

Guanacaste trees have such presence! Costa Rica is not well known for its open grasslands, but north-west and central areas of the country flatten out a little, with mountains of rain forests and volcanoes on the horizon. Guanacaste trees look entirely different growing in the rain forest than on the open grasslands.

The Great Ocean Road, east coast Victoria, Australia, 11H x 14W inches oil pastels on paper, framed with 3 inch white double mat, brass title plate, and white wood frame with crackle finish, 22H x 26W inches total size. Sold.

My Valentine’s roses needed a fresh cut and a few petals removed. The landfill sights are sweeter this past week, I bet.
I dried a few of the roses, and adorned the doves nest in the back-door wreath.

 

Palo Verde tree in bloom at a nursery in Ajijic, Mexico

* The acrylics/mixed media painting Polypore Fungi is accepted into VAST Arts 40th Annual Visual Arts Exhibition April 10- May 29, 2008

* The Heart Shapes in Nature photographic series are available as 3 x 4 inch framed prints, matted white or black with black frames – $7.50 each or 3 for $20 at Studio 2600, 2600 Hibernia, Dallas. http://www.studio2600dallas.com/

* The Oil Pastel work Eastern White Pine is showing at the AVAA 32nd Annual Regional Juried Art Exhibit in Arlington, Texas February 15 – March 28, 2008

Graphite drawing, scanned and detailed with digital pen.

Even if we think nothing is happening…it is. Today I went for a walk through my favorite park in Coppell, and my peripheral vision noticed tiny ant-highways up and down a few trees, so I stood and admired them for a while.

While sorting through and attempting to downsize the maze of photos on my desktop and in ‘documents’ folders, I could easily spend months on the computer doing just that. My sister-in-law in Mexico has a prolific female Budgie. Here, her chicks about seven days old – April 2007.

Even the trees are bored with winter!