House Wren on Black

House Wren on Black / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 includes shipping

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WELL, MY BIG NEWS is that I now have my very own Zoom Room. I don't know how to use it yet, though I am learning on my own, and also have a tutorial scheduled. I have participated in a number of Zoom meetings, and that's been fun in a sort of Brady Bunch kind of way. 

I've been giving free painting workshops on Facebook Live on Saturdays at 1 p.m. (there will be one this Saturday, if all goes well), and I'm going to be doing a short series for the Academy for Lifelong Learning this fall. I want to keep doing the freebees, but I also want to start some for-profit workshops and demos - and what else? 

I've already thought of online painting parties, for kids and adults. I've thought of private lessons. I've thought of a series of lessons that I record and you take at your own pace. I've thought of paint-a-thon fund-raisers (What does this mean? How would this work? I have no idea, but I think there's a kernel of something there). I would like to take a painting trip at some point, and would do live plein-air demos from far afield, if I can get (or bring) a wifi connection. 

What ideas do you have? What would you like to see me do online, from my Zoom Room? I'd open to all thoughts and musings - and they don't have to be for-profit. Now that I have this thing, I'd like to have fun with it! 

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For Today

"I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again." 

- Eric Roth

Hummer by Hanging Flower

Hummer by Hanging Flower / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

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THE DOGS, my marvelous, celebratory, loving dogs, have been driving me crazy this week. The reason is the overabundance of golf carts that the weekend people insist on driving up and down Bayview Avenue. 

Dr. Cooper and Lulu have a passionate hatred of golf carts, and bark ferociously whenever they go by. The bark and bark, and snarl, and the hair stands up along their backs, and sometimes, they get so riled up that the turn on each other, growling and snapping and looking for all the world like wild dogs. 

It's not only the barking, which has been blistering and unending, but it's also their latest and related endeavor, redecorating the living room.

When the couch is in the right place - where I, the HUMAN, wants it - the left-hand arm of the couch is where you see it in the photo below. 

But. 

See the little table? Before I took this photo, Doc and Lulu had managed to move the couch so that the left-hand arm was snuggled up against the table where it is in the photo. Of course, they had moved the table, too. 

They do this by pushing off from the couch, with their considerable muscle and vigor, as they leap to the bench under the window to bark ferociously at the passing golf carts. 

At first, I thought I was losing my mind. The couch was in a different place, I was sure it was. My neck was killing me as I watched TV! But then I realized what was happening. 

So this is just irritating, and while blame the dogs for it, I really blame the darn golf carts.

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A Final Thought

"Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, 

still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings." 

- Victor Hugo

Mr. Blue

Mr. Blue / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

THE BIRDS DON'T KNOW that there's a pandemic. They pay no heed to social distance. They crowd the feeders, gather in big flocks on the lawn, string themselves side by each by dozens on the telephone wires. 

And if someone tells you that you eat like a bird, they probably mean to say you don't eat much, but they would be so wrong. The birds at my feeders are pigs! And I love them for it. They come back 100 times in an hour. They stuff their beaks full. They toss the seeds they don't like to the ground so they can get at the ones they do like. And they fight the other birds for food, and for the best spots at the troughs. 

It's how we are in our deep, dark souls, isn't it? 

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For Today

The Pasture

I'm going out to clear the pasture spring;

I'll only stop to rake the leaves away

(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):

I sha'n't be gone long. - You come too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf

That's standing by the mother. It's so young,

It totters when she licks it with her tongue.

I sha'n't be gone long. - You come too. 

-Robert Frost

Two Wrens

Two Wrens / Oil on cradled beech / 3x9 / $48 including shipping

These birds have flown! Sold!

THIS PAINTING IS A DEPARTURE for me on several levels. First, it's on wood - a box-like structure of beech, called "cradled beech." I usually paint on canvas, but saw this in the art-supply store and decided to try it. It was fun to paint on, but a little small, and deeper than my regular canvases. So I probably won't be doing a whole lot of paintings on this support - though it would be nice for a small, vertical floral. 

This is the first of three (so far) paintings of birds on plain black canvas. Those of you who have followed my painting for years know that I am often entranced by images at this point - on the black canvas, without color or pattern. I often want to leave them like this, because it highlights the images so strongly. But I have found that many people don't like the black. 

So - if you love the image but don't like the black, I will paint over it for you, with a color or colors of your choice. Or, if you'd like me to decide and paint whatever background I think would work, that's OK, too. Just let me know! 

And maybe you will like the birds on the black background. We shall see. 

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A Final Thought

"I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird 

and not enough the bad luck of the early worm." 

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Hummer by Purple Flowers

Hummer by Purple Flowers / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 includes shipping

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IN THE MIDDLE of the unpronounceable tropical storm, and in the midst of the even-stronger straight-line wind that blew through a few days later, hummingbirds showed up at the feeder. 

How is it that a wind that can break giant limbs off ancient trees can't keep a hummingbird quiet? 

I found an explanation of sorts from Science Daily, which described an experiment being conducted (this was 2010, so it's probably already done) at the Extreme Fluids Lab at Los Alamos National Lab. 

Hummers' wings move in a sort of figure-eight pattern, so they get lift on the upstroke and the downstroke. Other birds' wings don't move this way. The figure-eight oscillation gives them a huge lift, and allows them to hover. And they adjust the angle of the wing-stroke constantly, to let them weave their way though huge winds. 

But another article, from Backyard Wildlife Connection, said that scientists put hummers in a wind tunnel, and found that the little birds couldn't fly in wind stronger than 27 mph. But I saw them out there! Maybe they were flying just in the lulls between the big winds. 

Here is a cool video about hummingbirds and the way they fly. You have to scroll down in the page a little to find it.  https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/64201/how-do-hummingbirds-hover-rain-and-wind

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For Today

"By the way, did you fellows know that a hummingbird weighs as much as a quarter? Do you think a hummingbird also weighs the same as two dimes and a nickel? But then she asked a question of her own: How do they weigh a hummingbird?" 

- Calvin Trillin

Puddle Gulls

Puddle Gulls / oil on black canvas / 8x10 / $88 includes shipping

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WELL, I GUESS I took a week off last week. It wasn't planned, and there really wasn't anything wrong - I simply lost my momentum. 

And how much of life is really about that? I think a fair bit - at least of my life. 

While I do love starting things - projects, days, exercise regimens - I find sustaining them far more difficult. And finishing things? I am a Grade-F finisher. 

The Bird A Day project is one of my more well-sustained ventures, probably because it makes me so happy. I still love making the bird paintings, and I love it when you all buy them. The whole thing is very positive - and is a giant help to finding my way in life, post-Peter. 

So here's to the unscheduled week off, the chance to catch a breath in the hot August Confinement days. I recommend it. 

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For Today

I'VE BEEN ENJOYING making limericks this week, for reasons I can't understand or explain. But it's fun! Why not try one, or 100? (It's a little addictive). 

Your standard limerick is five lines, with the rhyme scheme AA/BB/A. The rhythm is anapestic, which means two unstressed syllables are followed by a stressed one. 

The first and second line each has three anapests - da dum, da da dum, da da dum.

The middle two lines have two anapests each - da da da da dum, da da da da dum

And the final line goes back to three anapests - da dum. da da dum, da da dum

Of course, there are minor variations, squishing, squashing, etc. Limericks are supposed to be fun! 

Here's one that I made up to go with the painting above. Please add yours in the comments below, or email them to me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com

There once was a gull with a thirst

Who looked for a fountain, but first

He found a small puddle

His joy wasn't subtle!

And in no time, his thirst was reversed.

Thurston Owl the Third

Thurston Owl the Third / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 includes shipping!

YES, MY CULTURAL LEXICON includes "Gilligan's Island"! In fact, though I can barely remember what I did yesterday, or what I am supposed to do tomorrow, I can sing you the entire theme song of "Gilligan's Island." 

I would also more or less brag that I could tell you stories of the episodes, but first off, that would be a lie, and second, it would be more or less meaningless, since, as far as I recall, each episode went pretty much this way: One of the marooned people figures out a way to get off the island, Gilligan flubs up the plan, and they remain marooned. 

I've heard people my age (and even myself!) look at the current youth culture and rue the fact that today's teens and 20-somethings will one day run the world. I can bet that my parents looked at my brother and me being entranced with "Gilligan's Island" and had similar misgivings. 

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For Today

The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale

A tale of a fateful trip

That started from this tropic port

Aboard this tiny ship. 

The mate was a mighty sailor man

The skipper brave and sure

Five passengers set sail that day

On a three-hour tour

A three-hour tour

The weather started getting rough

The tiny ship was tossed

If not for the courage of the fearless crew

The Minnow would be lost

The Minnow would be lost

The ship set ground on the shore of this

Uncharted desert isle

With Gilligan, the Skipper, too

The millionaire, and his wife

A movie star,

The professor and Mary Ann

Here on Gilligan's Isle

That's all I remember! Or at least, that's all I thought I remembered, but "no phone, no lights, no motor car/Not a single luxury" did resonate. So the same tune recurred with new words on the closing credits. Here's how that part goes: 

Now, this is a tale of our castaways

They're here for a long, long time

They'll have to make the best of things

It's an uphill climb

The first mate and his Skipper, too

Will do their very best

To make the others comfortable

In their tropic island nest

No phone, no lights, no motor car

Not a single luxury,

Like Robinson Crusoe

It's primitive as can be

So join us here each week my friends,

You're sure to get a smile

From seven stranded castaways

Here on Gilligan's Isle! 

 - written by Sherwood Schwartz and George Wyle