When Bloggers Collide

Two Birds of a Feather

Just chillin’ with my homey over here at the Rancho Motmot; TR came by for some liquid beetle juice. Nothing like cochineal on the rocks with a twist and a lifer black-and-white warbler to get your mojo going.

TR: “Motmot serves the best beetle juice in town and a wicked platter of wild birds and Zick dough“

M: “Don’t forget the fresh mozzarella- I slaved nearly half an hour over that!”

TR: “Didn’t know you could get fresh mozzarella in Oklahoma- you’re about to embark on a third career- they’re going to be lining up to get their gums around this stuff”

M: “What exactly are you saying about Oklahoma dentistry, pal?”

TR: “My dentist is still in New Mexico”

Where Did I Go?

I went all sporadic on you again, sorry! I’ve been in Reduction/Organization/Creation mode, no time left over for much of anything else except for doing my taxes. Not that I haven’t thought about you- honest- everything reminds me of a blog post. Remember my little remark about cochineal beetle juice the other day? I just happened to be sipping my favorite new apertif, Campari and Cinzano With a Twist on the Rocks, enjoying the very interesting warm red color of the drink, as well as the peculiar bitter aromatic flavor with an underlying nuttiness, and looking at the ingredient list on the Campari bottle noticed that the only thing specifically mentioned was Natural Carmine Color. The rest of the ingredients, apparently, are a closely guarded secret. Only Mr. Campari knows for sure, or something like that. So I looked up Natural Carmine, and sure enough, it’s cochineal beetle juice. Who knew? I feel even closer to the splendors of nature drinking this stuff, and now I have something else in common with paint.

Think I’ll call this drink The Painted Bunting

Current art projects include a logo for OU’s Darwin celebrations (Darwin turns 200 next year- lots and lots of candles he’ll be blowing out), some new drawings, a pastel of a resting bison-see above-and a new commission of a pair of Australian Black swans. That’s a going to be a post all in itself. Do you know what I had to go through to get my reference material?

Q:Where do you find Australian Black swans in Oklahoma in the dead of winter?

A: You find them at the Jasmine Moran Children’s Museum in Seminole. Silly question.

Q: Are Australian Black Swans nice birds?

A: No. Swans are mean and will hurt you. Australian Black Swans will hurt you the hardest.

Oh no! A swan! Run like hell!

About the bison picture at the top of this post: the background was an experiment that turned out very well. I’ve been hearing all about pastel washes: you draw on the pastel and “wash” it with turpentine or turpenoid, in my case. Works real nice. You use as many colors as you want in the dry medium, get the colors where they look good, then brush on the turp, mooshing up and dissolving all the colors , smushing them around and into each other. When it all dries you can go over it again with more dry pastel. And turp it some more. As far as I know there’s no end to it. The pastel sinks into the tooth of the paper and stays there for good (I’m using Rives BFK heavyweight). Part of the beauty is that the paper doesn’t buckle, dries fast and flat when you saturate it with turpentine as opposed to water. Just don’t light a match while you’re waiting for it to dry, and use some ventilation, for God’s sake.

Pastel wash on Rives BFK, still wet.

Once you have your pastel washed paper, you can draw right over it, and add more pastel color on the drawing. Try it- it’s fun and easy!

My Own Little Backyard Rarity

Pine Warbler sucking down suet dough from my backyard feeder

Well, it’s not a real rarity; according to the OKBirds Wiki, the Pine Warbler is a regular winter resident in Oklahoma, but it’s sure never come around my backyard before. Normally we get plenty of Yellow-rumped warblers all winter but nothing fancier than that. I was surprised, therefore, when it appeared here on the Solstice and I’m amazed to see it’s still coming by, three weeks later. It has taken a liking to the suet feeder and the suet dough, the recipe for which is here. No guarantees you’ll get your own Pine warbler if you put some of this magic stuff out there, but you’ll get all kinds of other birds, I’m sure. I’ve managed to get some photos of him (I think it’s a male from the brightness of the coloration), none very good but, then, that’s why I’ll stick to drawing. My sketches are in focus as long as I wear my glasses. But by holding up the camera lens to my scope, a crude form of digiscoping, I’ve gotten the little critter in the act. Check it out.

Oops, that’s a Purple finch sketch I’ve snuck in here. These guys are colored like crushed raspberry parfait, and this has also been a good winter for Purple finches, yum!