Ahh, la Turk

City in a Forest

As I reviewed my stuff, I was surprised to find so many "wildlife" images in the works. I'm not a wildlife artist.

After all, I was a newsroom denizen for decades. Summer in the South ... speaks for itself. Who's ideas was it to combine Florida AND summer? Excessive, to say the least. Florida's winters last only a few months. So a lot of my waking time was/is spent indoors.

The reason so many of those critter paintings occurred to me is that our town is inhabiting a forest.

Go to the top of our highest buildings and you'll see a few other tall buildings and a lot of church spires sticking up out of a solid carpet of pines, oaks and and magnolias.

The city's practice of building holding ponds for flood control has set up wildlife oases all over town. And I've been lucky to live in a few neighborhoods that were very supportive of wild species.

The neighborhood we live in now has a network of ponds and runoff streams that feed to a large prairie lake (during a drought it's a prairie; in a wet pattern it's a lake).

Our lot also backs onto a 100-year flood plain. Sort of like Pooh's wood but much smaller than a hundred acres. Those woods regularly have deer munching their way through. The ponds are regular wading grounds for egrets, storks and whooping cranes. Early Bird specials.

Hawks, kites, owls and bats abound. All of this in a typical modern middle-class high-density suburb. I see these species regularly as I walk Mattie. And I'm usually knocked out by the sight of them. Naturally (no pun intended) the images become paintings.

The one above, "Blue Rondo a la Turk," came to me because Wife saw wild turkeys in the back last winter. She grabbed the camera and I wished her luck. I've heard stories again and again from photographers about how hard it is to get good turkey photos.

Well, the girl did it! Came back with several usable frames. And generously allowed me to paint from one. The one above, obviously.

The painting's title is also borrowed. Dave Brubeck wrote this wonderful composition with a fast, choppy beat that I though of as I worked on all the foliage and even the bird. That was fun.

We in this town are fortunate to have this Southern forest around us. So much so that a neighborhood evening's walk is like a walk in the woods.

I'll be posting more of the local wildlife paintings.