…spring from night into the sun.”
-Robert Hunter
Month: January 2015
Somebody is singing somewhere
But in this room lies silence painted in watercolor.
Shake the dreams from your hair.
The pile of sketches from the last few days keeps falling off the speaker cabinet in the corner of the room. The bass vibrations send them toppling down to the floor. Water color paintings and pencil sketches taking a brief flight to the paint stained rug beneath. Flight seems an appropriate word as many of them are hawks. Screenshots from my own dreamscape television program. Caught in the echoes. No sense seen in turning down the music. For it’s this moments bird with its talons still grappling my imagination tight. Caught on the wing in my childhood, they still never fail at carrying me away.
But I all ready wrote her that poem.
If I knew the way…
I would take you home.
The other day I heard a friend of mine was having some health problems. I said a prayer in my head as I set out on my bicycle to admire the beautiful piece of the planet I inhabit. As I thought of this good for my friend a Red-shouldered Hawk flew right over my head from a tree behind me. Moments later I came across another tree with a pair of Red-shouldered hawks looking down to me on my bicycle. The smile that brought fueled me further and moments later I was face to face with another Red Hawk. I’m not here to preach to you about anything other than the good that is the natural kingdom, but I will say those hawks brought me good hope on their wings. An experience well timed, I am grateful for. Whatever unfolds down the line from here I am forever grateful to be here to draw birds for you on our planet Earth. If that’s all I’ll do then that’s the best I’ll do.
Thank you.
Watercolor and pen on paper.
Acrylic paint on plywood.
Portrait of a ghost train.
Hypothetically speaking mind you.
Beautifully Broken.
Playing in the backyard again today.
On the wing
A defining moment I can still see clearly after the years. When I was 9 my Dad took the family to Oregon to visit our Aunt. That was my first time on an airplane. I remember looking out the window at the clouds underneath us. It dawned on me then, that even on cloudy days, the sun was always shinning somewhere overhead.
That’s something I try to remember on the days when my piece of mind is cloudy or things just aren’t lining up.
Cheesy? sure, but just go look out the window.
A drawing made beneath the windowsill tonight.
Again (again).
“Begging your indulgence, We’re going to do yet another song in the key of G”
-Bob Weir, The Grateful Dead
And so begging your indulgence I’m going to do yet another drawing in the key of Owl.
Thanks for bearing with me yet again while I move around the lines on the page.
And sometimes you have to sit on a chair miles away from a rainstorm and hope to see lightning strike the same place twice. With that stubborn persistence, it will. Tonight my personal case-in-point. I put pen to plywood again and got another Great Horned Owl that gave me chills like the one I met in Tahoe some years back.
The one is a map to the other.
Great Horned Owl
I’ve had this one on my mind for a while. Until recently I never saw on the page what I did in my mind.
With the help of field time, some great literature, a stack of sketchbooks, and zero social life, I have found a foot hold on the uphill battle that I call owl portraits.
Sketches of Spain…except owls….and I was watching cartoons and I misplaced my Miles Davis CDs.
Like a lead in a detective case. While I’m far from having the nuances of the owl captured, I’m off to a good start. This is the motivation I hoped for going into a new year.
Elbow room
With out a doubt, my favorite part of mountain biking is the access it grants me to the areas around. In this case California’s central coast.
I do my best thinking with my feet off the pavement. These day trips help me put together thoughts and drawings on the page as well as sort a plan to be the best person I can.
farnco illustrations 