Warblers, Painting and Tern

Suddenly the skies over my local gravel pits are full of Swifts, Swallows, House Martins and Sand Martins. Setting out before 8am, for a circuit of five local pits brought an exciting haul of summer visitors and passage migrants and the best view of a Lesser Whitethroat I've had since I was a child.

A good morning for undergoing the annual process of re-tuning the ear to identify Warblers by song: Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Blackcap, Garden Warbler, Reed Warbler, Sedge Warbler, Cetti's Warbler, Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff all heard (and mostly seen too) in one morning.

The crazed arcade-game song of a Nightingale pierced the hedgerow around the Main Pit.

Because I first learned to identify these songs in childhood several of them have children's TV mnemonics for me: the Blackcap song includes a distinctive phrase that reminds me of The Clangers' 'oh bugger, he's broken it off again". The Reed Warbler sounds like the mad inventor from 'Catch the Pigeon' reciting an incessant list of unintelligible syllables selected at random from a vast vocabulary of squeaks, whistles, churrs and rattles, pinging about its vocal register like an enraged bluebottle in a jam jar.

The wistfully downbeat, descending song of the Willow Warbler; the explosive exclamation of a Cetti's Warbler; the slap-dash, carefree chiff-chaffing of a Chiffchaff; the Garden Warbler's liquid song like a stream running through pebbles but with some nasal scratchy phrases thrown in... all go to make a pleasant morning's birding.
At Woolhampton I found a Yellow Wagtail, and  Common Sandpiper.

The tree where the Cormorants habitually perch was host to an Osprey for a few moments earlier in the month (I didn't see it). But seeing this scene reminds me of my painting of that tree from 2010, which is still in my studio and needs a home.

'One for Minnow, Two for Koi" oil on primed paper, 2010

A Common Tern, spotted at great distance, settled on a sign board in the water.

Walking-Birding-Thinking

Another sub-zero morning. The snow that fell over the weekend is still laying, compacted and icy but there is a thin bright sunlight and another opportunity to stretch my legs; taking the St Swithun's Way out of Winchester for a mile or two along the western edge of Winnall Moors. Birds are easy to spot against the whiteness of the landscape and show themselves easily as they busily search for food. 

The track past the allotments and desirable north Winchester residences leads to a footbridge at a farm gate. Beyond this the path is narrow between fence and stream. Un-gloving my hands I make a quick sketch of the northern end of Winnall Moors.

The fingers are too cold to allow more than a sketchy impression. A magnificent Buzzard quarters the field to my left, close enough to see the colours and patterns on its broad variegated wings and fanned tail. 

I'm reflecting on my studio output - not enough for my liking - and wondering where my work will take me next.

I have made some charcoal and oil 'paintings' on primed paper experimenting with observational drawing/layering and surface.

Quick drawing in charcoal, achieved with a few strokes of the charcoal stick over an old piece of letter-press, primed with acrylic primer and washed over with oil washes, diluted with turps.

(From overhead, a female Sparrowhawk flies down the hedgerow and settles in a tree about 80 metres ahead. She is looking at me. I am looking at her).

I used a similar approach in the red painting - then layered over the top some text and drawing in crayon - based upon images from the '15-day process' project and woodcut/letterpress work.

An experiment with superimposing monotype-drawing onto an oil-painted canvas, again there is a debate about surface and what comes in front of what. Conventional wisdom would suggest that blue should recede and the warmer orange should advance but this is reversed here. The type of line and application dictates which colour appears to be 'on top' of the other. 

The next monotype over a dramatic painted canvas took this idea further. 'GREENWOODPECKER' Has been a constant companion for a few months. Once the time has been invested in carving letters for a woodcut block it is hard not to use them everywhere. In this case I reversed the text onto a photocopy and then drew onto the back of the canvas, laid over almost-dry relief ink to impress the letters and drawing onto the surface of the canvas.

(I think Long-tailed Tits are among my favourite birds. Matt Sewell has described them as 'tiny clouds in track-suits'. In the winter they hang around in gangs and are constantly on the move. A bunch of them is feeding close to where I stand.)

There is a long way to go in  thinking-through my creative process. In the last three months it has taken-in aspects of the random to generate compositional strategies selecting elements by random numerical process. I made some progress when I tried to scale this up to a room-sized installation.

This brought together a lot of the ideas into one place. I need to extend this to bigger work and also to extend the vocabulary of my mark-making to emphasise and contrast the variation between fine-drawing and gestural painting, clean lines and dribbly splashes of colour. I was pleased when I took the sheets of paper off the wall that some stood up as compositions in their own right. 

Reminiscent of Freud's work 'on dreams' - the image is made up of disparate, unrelated elements.

(Returning across the playing fields, onto the Wildlife Reserve, a Water Rail is squealing in the snow-draped sedge-bed. Although I have seen them elsewhere, I have never set eyes on a Water Rail on Winnall Moors. I hear it often but it's just about being in the right place at the right time - and being there regularly helps increase the chances).

I am really pleased that this random-process drawing and the small monotype on canvas will be included in an exhibition in Bracknell, in February - about which more later. 

The other thing I am contemplating is how walking and experiencing the landscape influences and informs my work. There is a conference in Sunderland this summer that looks at this subject. I want to investigate this more closely and integrate my outdoor and studio work.

(39 bird species found in a two-hour walk, not bad - but several obvious suspects are missing - House Sparrow, Starling, Reed Bunting, Rook!)