Indigo Bunting ~ Grackle Update

Indigo Bunting
9x12 acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas/profile 3/4", not framed

I posted a grackle 6"x6" mini for Canvas by Canvas for the Neil Sperry Show and it has been purchased by an artist art collector. Thank you Dee. Yesterday I painted at the Upstairs Gallery with some CBC members on our new collaborative work and then on this personal work from a grackle photo.
When finally getting to my recliner and opening the Fort Worth Star Telegram, I see the grackle has made the front page and it wasn't receiving very good press in an article written by Anna M. Tinsley. My fellow CBC member, Connie, consulted her book "A Guide to Field Identification - Birds of North American" and tells me it looks like an Indigo Bunting and since I am an intuitive painter and not in the least interested in painting a photographic rendering I will call this grackle an Indigo Bunting. For the bird watchers who may read this and find the discrepancies just let me warn you that I'm not painting a specific bird but these are my bird symbols.
Some points made in the front page article:
1. Two falconers, with hawks, Kujo and Blackjack, will hunt roosting grackles.
2. Hawks are rewarded with mouse meat before a grackle meal.
3. Grackles are known as "downtown's feathered menace."
4. Grackle damage and nuisance is unacceptable to the public.
5. A new attitude of "No Grackle Left Behind."
6. Grackles are loud, messy and unafraid of people (I know some people like that)
7. Some people defend the bird because the grackle eats mice and insects, such as crickets and roaches. But others say their mess outweighs any positive points.
8. I will follow this story to see if the falconers will have any luck and I'll keep painting grackles or an Indigo Bunting and let others do the grackle hazing.

Later in the evening, I watched a "tivoed" "Steel Magnolias" (1989) and find that Drum (Tom Skerritt) was in conflict with removing the birds from his trees before the wedding. In the process, he manages to cause Ouiser's dog to suffer emotional distress and lose hair, because of his methods. The tag line for this movie "The funniest movie ever to make you cry." It's a good story of female bonding and how unbreakable that bond is between true friends and about dreams being built and burnt and about bird hazing.
One of my favorite lines uttered by Olympia Dukakis as Clairee "The only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorize." So according to Clairee maybe we do have some shared character traits of the grackle.

Grackles ~ Opportunity Calls ~ Frames by Mail ~ About.com ~ Art Blog

$80.00
11" x 15" Watercolor on 140 lb. paper

Grackles are a nuisance bird in some Texas cities. They are an iridescent black with purple and bronze close up but at a distance they appear just to be a black bird but an interesting bird to paint for artists. Usually straight black out of the tube is a no-no for watercolorists as a more exciting black could be made to mix it from other colors. I like the freedom to use arbitrary color..what ever color strikes my fancy at the moment. In this watercolor I’ve left some unpainted places on the birds, sparkles. Some purist watercolor painters approve, some don’t. So paint how it pleases you.

If you want to learn more about painting and try it out for yourself, there is an excellent tutorial and information at About.com. If you want to learn to paint and have any time at all, I would encourage you to begin your journey by reading THIS article.

There are color tips here also.

Color Mixing Tip No 5: Don’t Overmix
If, when you mix two colors together on a palette, you don’t mix and mix until they’re totally, utterly, definitely combined, but stop a little bit beforehand, you get a far more interesting result when you put the mixed color down on paper or canvas. The result is a color that’s intriguing, varies slightly across the area you’ve applied it, not flat and consistent.

Read these tips for creating black..

Choose a painting medium and if watercolor as these grackles are, paint your first painting, and then for your first show, order a simple metal frame, white matt, and plexiglass from the largest collection of Custom and Ready Made picture frames on the Internet, Frames by Mail. They have a simple process set up for measuring your art and adding the dimensions and figuring your cost; however, I allow a smidge more area than the 1/8 they suggest. That is playing it too close in my book. Another suggestion would be to frame a painting is wait for a picture sale at a local hobby store, buy a sale item and remove the print and place your original in its place.

Now go have fun. Paint your own black grackle in glorious colors. And if you want to learn to paint, just do it while reading all you can about painting. Start a sketchbook and paint in it. I’ll talk about choosing a sketchbooks on another day.

Other blogs where I post:

http://artistfoodnetwork.blogspot.com

http://canvasbycanvas.blogspot.com

http://myspace.com/nancystandlee

TO PURCHASE PAINTINGS: Go to Paypal on http://nancystandlee.blogspot.com

Eat Well ~ Paint Your Food ~ Laugh Often