On another topic, more art than nature study, I have a question for you: do you have any tips for drawing/painting white flowers? We're trying to draw these flowers with watercolor pencils right now. In the past, I've drawn a background behind, and left the white. Any other ideas? It's hard!
I did some experimenting and found a way to easily include white flowers in your nature journal. Using a watercolor wash and then putting the white flowers on top is one solution to the problem.
Steps:
Make a watercolor wash on your page and then let it dry.
Sketch lightly with pencil your flower's leaves, stem, and blossom.
Use watercolors and paint your leaves and stems.
Use white watercolor paint and very little water to fill in the white flower, keeping the paint very opaque.
Let your paints dry and then go back to add darker details and shading.
I use tube watercolors with great success.
We made a short video tutorial for you to watch.
I really like this book and even though it says it is for use with acrylics, I find it perfectly applicable for watercolors as well. If you click the Amazon.com link below, you can preview the pages inside. I love the visual index at the end of the book.
Many families wait to offer watercolors from a tube to their children. In our family, we found these watercolors to be a lot of fun and the boys learned early how to only squirt out a little at a time. I gave each one their own set along with their own palette and brushes. With a little training, you can offer these paints in your family as well.
Popular fascination with Napoleon’s military aristocracy, the two dozen or so assorted sons of small tradesman and junior army officers of the old regime who rose to Marshal’s rank, riches and titles on the back of Bonaparte’s campaigns, shows no sign of diminishing. The individual qualities and personalities of these men are perhaps less the focus of interest than the phenomenon of exponential career advancement that they represent; indeed military historians generally consign them as a group to the ranks of the second rate.
One or two however stand out, among them Jean Lannes (1769-1809), Duc de Montebello, one of the few among Napoleon’s underlings who proved competent as an independent commander-in-chief as well as in a subordinate role to Bonaparte himself. Lannes was also the first of Napoleon’s marshals to die from enemy action. He was struck by ricocheting shot on the field of Essling outside Vienna on 22 May 1809. His shattered leg was amputated by Dominique Larrey, surgeon-in-chief of the Guard, but septicaemia set in some time later and on 30 May Lannes expired after three days of delirium and agony.
The Wellcome Library holds a collection of Larrey’s letters home to his wife Charlotte, one of which, written from Vienna on 1 June, describes the last days of Marshal Lannes in some detail:
"I spent three nights and three days at his side without interruption. I tried with all my care, energy and skill but still he died. The blood lost before the operation and the shock to his entire system had weakened him fatally. On opening his body the ventricles of his heart were found to be entirely devoid of blood. I lost him on the 9th day after his injury … his death has upset me a great deal".
Part of the reason for Larrey’s discomfiture was the loss of Lannes’s advocacy on his behalf as he made his career in the cut-throat world of Napoleonic army politics. Not only did one need all the high-placed friends one could get, it was also no doubt unsettling to contemplate failure to save the life of one of Napoleon’s favourite marshals. Larrey was on tenterhooks of expectation of a barony, which had apparently been promised but somehow had not yet materialised. However, always alert to turning events to his advantage he was soon negotiating with the director of the Louvre for a part in the proposed monumental painting of the death of Lannes.
The Wellcome Library’s Larrey manuscripts, along with other relics of the Napoleonic wars, were formerly part of the renowned Bibliotheca Lindesiana, the collection of Alexander William Crawford Lindsay (1812-1880), earl of Crawford and of Balcarres, and his son James Ludovic Lindsay (1847-1913), the 26th earl of Crawford. Towards the end of the nineteenth century financial pressures led to the dispersal of much of the library; in 1900 all the manuscripts apart from the French revolutionary and Napoleonic documents were sold to Mrs Rylands and are now in the John Rylands Library of the University of Manchester. The remaining material was finally sold at auction by the 27th earl and several lots were acquired by Sir Henry Wellcome for his collection.
Larrey’s correspondence is catalogued as Western MSS. 5316-5320 and can be consulted in the Wellcome Library’s Rare Materials Room.
The all important social networking is vital in a large city. A crisis is a cell phone with a flat battery. Many of the black cabs now have panels in them that enable you to recharge your phone, whatever make it is.
This week there are a lot of birds to choose from in your challenge. We have three of them that visit us in our yard at various times of the year so we have plenty of past experience with all but the chickadee.
This is a great video showing chickadees and a downy woodpecker eating out of someone's hand.
Amazing. I would love to be able to do this someday.
Additional downy woodpecker videos on Cornell's website: Downy Woodpecker
I also like this video of the spotted towhee because it shows the sort of scuffling behavior I see under our bird feeders. I have even seen some towhees scratch away a few inches of snow to get at the seeds on the ground underneath. It is an interesting behavior.
This video is sort of long but you get the idea after watching the first minute.
Inside Preparation Work: 1. Read in the Handbook of Nature Study -
Pages 70-74 about the downy woodpecker (Note the illustration of the woodpecker’s feet.)
Pages 68-70 about the chickadee
Pages 65-68 for the white-breasted nuthatch
2. Read in the Handbook of Nature Study the section on bird’s feet, pages 40-42. You may also like to look up this website: Types of Bird Feet http://fsc.fernbank.edu/Birding/bird_feet.htm
“The feet of birds are shaped so as to assist the bird to get its food as well as for locomotion.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 41
3. Read in Backyard Birds pages 36-43 on black and white birds: woodpeckers, chickadees, nuthatches, and towhees. Make sure to note each bird’s field marks and to practice making the bird call for each bird as well. You can follow the links above to All About Birds and click on the button to listen to a recording of each bird call. If you are keeping a list of bird calls (see challenge 5), you can add this week’s birds to your list. 4. Peterson Field Guide: Look up and read about the woodpecker, chickadee, nuthatch, and the towhee. The best way to learn to identify birds is to study about them ahead of time. You may not see any of this week’s challenge birds at this time, but you very well may do so in the future. Be prepared!
Outdoor Hour Time: Spend a portion of your outdoor time this week looking for birds but if you are not successful, keep this challenge in mind as you go through your weekly activities. You might be surprised when and where you see your next bird. This week we will try to observe some birds and their feet. This might be a good week to visit a duck pond and observe a duck’s feet up close. For any birds you do observe during this challenge, remember to note the general shape of the bird, the size, the beak shape, and the habitat. These observations will all be helpful in learning the identity of the bird.
You could also plan a trip to a pet store that has a variety of birds to observe. Our local pet store has a parrot or two, some parakeets, doves, and usually some other kind of small bird. This would be a good way to compare the different feet and how they are designed to be used.
Follow Up Activity for the Woodpecker, Chickadee, Nuthatch, and the Towhee Each of these birds uses its feet in a special way. Make a journal entry featuring each bird’s feet. Downy woodpecker-clinging to a tree trunk Chickadee-perching, clinging Nuthatch-clinging to a tree trunk, creeping Towhees-hopping and scratching
You will find a coloring pages for all the birds in this challenge in Cornell’s bird coloring book: Feeder Birds Coloring Book.
Follow Up Activity For Other Birds Observed: If you are using the bird pages from Notebooking.com, you can complete a page for the feet of the bird. You can also use your Peterson Field Guide to help identify your bird. Just for Fun: Play a game of Guess Who? One person picks a bird and then gives clues one at a time to see if the other person can figure out what bird they are describing. For instance for a chickadee you could list the following clues one at a time: Small round bird, black and white, short beak, acrobatic, eats seeds, flies fast, black cap.
If you would like some ideas for attracting and feeding birds in your own yard, check out my Squidoo page: What Do You Feed Birds in Winter?This page is applicable to all seasons.
I am still encouraging you to purchase All About Birds-Basic Study set from NotebookingPages.com, here is the link.
Here are the field guides we are using for this series of challenges. Please note that you will only need to purchase one of the field guides, either Western or Eastern.
The gateway to London, actually I think there were several gates into the city of London, however this one stood on what is now the dividing line between the Stand and Fleet St. The old gate, known as the Temple Bar, had a prison above it and if you upset the king you'd have your head lopped of and stuck on a spike from the top arch of the gate. For a variety of reasons but mainly to widen the road, the gate was taken down and put into storage. In its place this statue of a griffin was erected. Don't be surprised if its eyes are miniature security cameras. Over 120 years later in 2004 the gate has been re-erected at Paternoster Square
As always on Fridays be sure to visit other skywatchersaround the world.
With two #1 hit singles, a platinum album and a talent and persona that have made her pop’s new princess, Lady Gaga appears to have come out of nowhere to grab the zeitgeist of the moment. (For the full backstory click here.)
One clear indication of this is the number of Lady Gaga tributes on YouTube - and having not done this for a while, I felt it was past time to do another of our tribute round-ups. This time to Gaga’s 2nd hit “Poker Face”.
Comments, please, on the one you like best! (Not counting the original above.)
And last, if you're not completely sick of the song, a highly alternate live version from the real Lady Gaga showing that none of these pop successes are accidental. There's real talent here.
The house sparrow and the mourning dove are our constant companions. The song of the mourning dove is easily recognizable and we have a pair that perch in a certain spot on the telephone wires around the corner from our house.
We have several kinds of sparrows in our yard but the most prevalent is the white-crowned sparrow. In the winter, we have scores of white-crowned sparrows that come to our feeders every day. They prefer the platform feeder or to clean up under the birdfeeder...aren't they helpful?
The other brown bird that we see in large numbers at certain times of the year is the cedar waxwing. I especially like this bird for some reason. It reminds me of a brown cardinal and is easily recognizable by its set of field marks. We had a flock of around sixty cedar waxwings in our tree one time and it was so much fun to watch them.
“Birds do most of their singing in the early morning and during the spring and early summer months.” Handbook of Nature Study
Another brown bird that we have in our neighborhood that we can recognize by its call is the California quail. This bird has an easy call to remember...he says "Chi-ca-go!" Click the link to the Cornell site and you can find the button to hear his call.
Here is a video I took last year of a quail in our backyard. The video is not very exciting but you can hear his call.
The California quail is our state bird and in our area they are abundant. We enjoy watching this bird scurry along the ground with his top feathers bobbing up and down.
By the way, have you noticed that Cornell's bird site has been updated and improved? I am loving the new look and the organization of it so much better. They provide such a great service to all of us amateur birders.
Okay, one last brown bird (at least the ones I see are mostly brown) that we have a lot of in our area. The wild turkey is not the most beautiful bird in the world. The photo on Cornell's website actually makes him look quite elegant but in real life the turkeys we see are scrawny, blue faced things that usually end up in the middle of the road trying to look elegant. The males will fluff out their feathers to impress the ladies from time to time but for the most part the wild turkey is just a nuisance to the rest of us. Here is an entry I wrote awhile back about our turkeys: Silly Turkeys
I think that about wraps our brown birds for this challenge. We have a few more but this entry is already too long. I will save the other birds for another time.
If you can find this book at your library or purchase it used on Amazon.com, you find it is a great beginner's book on birds. It is a picture book and each page is a watercolor painting of a common bird with its name. I would definitely use this book with preschoolers or grammar stage children.
We have this little guy on the shelf in our living room. Frequently someone will get him down and play his call. He happens to be my favorite of all the Audubon plush birds.
Titled 'History of Medicine in Motion', the project aimed to "showcase and explore digital media presentations of the History of Medicine. In piloting new formats for delivering scholarly content and offering training in their development, the aim is to provide a platform for discussing the opportunities, problems and challenges that these media may hold for the dissemination of scholarly research".
'History of Medicine in Motion' utilised the knowledge of Prof Shigehisa Kuriyama, Harvard University, a skilled advocate in both using such resources in his teaching and in his encouragement of his students to do the same.
The project's concluding workshop, reviewed clips on the History of Medicine, submitted through an online competition.
The standard of the clips was extremely high, and given the content freely available from the Wellcome Library, it wasn't surprising that our resources featured heavily. Indeed, first prize went to Harriet Palfreyman's 'Picturing the Pox: A (Very) Brief History', which consisted entirely of images from our collections.
The workshop was a clear success, and all the clips that were submitted are worthy of attention. (Though twoclips in particular, catch the eye of this blog).
If you are working on the Outdoor Hour Challenges for birds, you must click over and watch the videos!
Topics include: Size and Shape Color Pattern Behavior Habitat
These are going to be helpful to a lot of families. Do not miss these. Make sure to bookmark the videos if you do not have time to watch them all today.
Pointing a finger or pointing the finger can mean different things, depending on culture, race, creed and maybe your mood of the day. What does it mean to you? This finger? It belongs to Neptune, or at least I think that is who it is. He is pointing at the water below. The statue is in front of the Royal Academy of Arts, in Piccadilly. Maybe someone can tell me more about it as I'm having difficulty finding any information.
Apparently Mr. Linky is having server issues. He is working hard to get the service back up and running again but until then you will need to leave your links in the comments section. I think we wore him out with all our links!
The problem with Mr. Linky has made all the Mr. Linky links disappear in every challenge, but I hope that they will appear again once the problem is fixed.
The Dutch photographer Hugh van Es, who died this week, became justly famous for this one picture of Americans leaving Saigon, on one of the last helicopters out, on 29 April 1975, the day before the city was captured by the North Vietnamese army. At the time he was working as a staff photographer for United Press International.
The simple futility of the mathematical equation - number of people in line ÷ space in helicopter - made this a symbolic picture then, while the composition of the curved line of desperately waiting people, the outstretched hand of the person trying to help, elevated it into one of those of photographs for all time. Extraordinary moment x elegant composition = iconic picture.
The photograph has usually been assumed to be of the US embassy, but in an article in The New York Times a few years ago, Van Es wrote: "If you looked north from the office balcony, towards the cathedral, about four blocks from us, on the corner of Tu Do and Gia Long, you could see a building called the Pittman Apartments, where we knew the CIA station chief and many of his officers lived. Several weeks earlier, the roof of the elevator shaft had been reinforced with steel plate so that it would be able to take the weight of a helicopter. A makeshift wooden ladder now ran from the lower roof to the top of the shaft. Around 2.30 in the afternoon, while I was working in the darkroom, I suddenly heard Bert Okuley [a UPI staffer who escaped that evening] shout 'Van Es, get out here, there's a chopper on that roof!'"
Van Es grabbed his camera and dashed to the balcony. "Looking at the Pittman Apartments," he said, "I could see 20 or 30 people on the roof, climbing the ladder to an American Huey helicopter. At the top of the ladder stood an American in civilian clothes, pulling people up and shoving them inside. Of course there was no possibility that all the people on the roof could get into the helicopter, and it took off with 12 or 14 on board ... Those left on the roof waited for hours, hoping for more helicopters to arrive. To no avail."
After shooting about 10 frames, Van Es went back to the darkroom and prepared a print for his regular 5pm transmission to Tokyo. It took about 12 minutes to send a single print with a caption but, as he laconically put it: "Editors didn't read captions carefully in those days." The picture was erroneously described as showing the embassy roof and, after years of trying to put the record straight, the photographer gave up. "Thus," he said later, "one of the best known images of the Vietnam war shows something other than what almost everyone thinks it does."
We have some sweet pea vines in our front yard but they are not blooming yet. There is a spot where they are growing wild alongside the roadway nearby so we were able to get a small piece of a vine with blossoms and buds to observe and then draw into our nature journals.
"The sweet pea has some of its leaflets changed to tendrils which hold it to the trellis. Its flower is like that of the clover, the upper petal forming the banner, the two side petals the wings, and the two united lower petals the keel which protects the stamens and the pistil." Handbook of Nature Study, page 589
Want to see a demonstration? Here is a very short video we made showing the different parts of the sweet pea flower.
"In nature study the work begins with any plant or creature which chances to interest the pupil." Handbook of Nature Study, page 5
The above sweet pea sketch is from Amanda's nature study from many, many years ago. She is a flower girl and her journals have always been filled with colorful blooms of all kinds.
I love the delicate colors of this flower as it matures and blossoms.
Can you see the flower parts there between the wing petals?
The sweet pea is now safely recorded in our nature journals. This was a perfect study for this morning in the cool air in the shade. The afternoons are getting hot so our nature study is going to be limited to early morning and the evening hours from now on.
I copied the poem about sweet peas from the Handbook of Nature Study section on sweet peas. I think it describes this flower perfectly.
In other garden news.......
The garden is growing in this hot weather.
Our sunflowers are growing at an incredible rate right now.
The sweet smell and taste of ripe strawberries are a daily occurrence. Lovely, just lovely.
So a little late today for my entry but we have been busy with finishing up term exams and deciding on unit celebration plans. Please feel free to study any flower you have on hand and share your results on Mr. Linky so I can pop over and check it out. You can also just leave me a comment if you wish.
If you want to see our original list of flowers with links to all the entries, here you go: Wednesday Flower Study
Our family has one more Wednesday Flower Study to complete next week and then we will be focusing on something else...not sure what yet but something close at hand. :)
Thanks to Lee Pfeiffer at the always terrific Cinema Retro, I’ve just seen the first advance trailer for Sherlock Holmes, due Christmas Day from Warners (so how many previews will this generate between now and release date? --- for all I know, there may be a half-dozen teasers to come). Robert Downey, Jr. plays Holmes. He will be my primary, if not sole, reason for seeing it. The star system thrives as long as this man works. Downey got me through Iron Man. He’s the only actor outside of George Reeves to uplift superheroes from boring and/or silly. Now they’ve made an Inverness-caped crusader of Sherlock Holmes, and I suspect it will be Downey’s burden to push panic buttons installed by writers ramping up noise in lieu of coherence (that excess of volume having banished me from theatres long ago). I found its trailer as stressful as Sherlock Holmes likely will be. There are multiple explosions and what’s at stake is no less than the end of the world itself, a mere theft of crown jewels presumably unworthy of CGI effects brought to bear upon such a filmic leviathan. Fear does have a distinct aroma, as witness big bangs spent in opening thirds by shows lacking narrative confidence and hollowed out by committees looking to protect this job or secure the next. Too much corporate money rides on event movies for them to turn out any good. I envision an army of C.C. Baxters assigned the task of introducing kids to Sherlock Holmes during run-up to Christmas. He’s another of those icons we figured would be around forever, though I’m wondering how many Warner publicity youths resorted to Wikipedia cheat-sheets upon learning that Holmes was the Yule product they’d be selling. Greenbriar readers might assume everyone knows SH and I’d guess WB to be counting on that as well, but I’d hate to have my studiopaycheck hanging on the outcome.
So who is Sherlock Holmes? I’ve not read the Doyle stories, having squandered life so far just watching movies, though teen years chose Basil Rathbone for my role model, so impressive was his carriage and diction as Holmes. That’s an aspect that makes me optimistic for Downey. He speaks well, when they’re not making him run about with swords and dive out windows (please Warners, don’t cut his dialogue when you tighten Sherlock Holmes to a brisk 155 minutes). Downey’s detective is an apparent devil with women, so no more sexual ambivalence as was explored to United Artists’ eventual (and considerable) loss byBilly Wilder in The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes. There was for years a presumption that Holmes was at best asexual, due as much to programmer movies rushing through six reels with little time for mush. Maybe it was that oversight that got Wilder interested, even if audiences didn’t follow suit. Love found Holmes in days when studios saw not the need to discard romance in favor of sleuthing. John Barrymore and Clive Brook adapted the role to existing personas, with leading ladies accorded status equal to that of deerstalkers and confrontation with revolving Moriartys. To these actors, it was just another impersonation, Holmes not having been around long enough to become sacred text (though Barrymore did apply himself to serious study of the Doyle character and even designed sets for Holmes’ Baker Street digs). The 1922 Sherlock Holmes arrives on DVD in July from Kino. It was/is/always will be profoundly disappointing for those who fondly imagined what Barrymore in his prime might do with such opportunity. A mess of a surviving print figures into the letdown. Kevin Brownlow found that in the early seventies and did a reconstruction. William K. Everson (who participated) said it was like a giant jigsaw puzzle. My own interest had piqued sooner when Bill published the tantalizing above still of Barrymore’s showdown with Gustav von Seyffertitz in The Bad Guys. To finally catch up with Sherlock Holmes is to endure and dutifully mark it off a long-standing must-see list. I wish the film were as fascinating as its rescue. Brownlow could have entertained me better with an 85-minute account of how that was managed. What’s left is still a privileged glimpse. It’s honestly enough (for me) sitting there and regarding William Powell’s screen debut if nothing else, but there is also Moriarty in and out of torture chambers and trap doors (too little of that) along with location shooting in London and surrounding environs. To enjoy Sherlock Holmes best is to expect the worst. Savor its nibbles but don’t expect any bites (and enjoy outstanding music composed and performed by Ben Model).
The 1922 Sherlock Holmes was a daylight rescue performed openly and applauded by media. DVD credits recognize Hugh M. Hefner and The George Eastman House (but where’s Brownlow and Everson’s credit?). With no copyright to worry about, there’s not the secrecy necessary when studio ignored backlog is salvaged despite owner indifference to it. Heroes of such enterprise go quietly about missions to put treasures aboard underground railroads to a collector market all out of patience with dilatory conglomerates. I went subterranean after Moriarty’s own fashion by following Kino’s spiffy DVD with a dark cousin acquired by post from a firm less constrained by strict application of rights restrictions. My bounty was Fox’s Sherlock Holmes circa 1932, with Clive Brook as the master sleuth. This one’s almost never been shown legit. It circulates largely among dealers in robber mask. I wonder if Fox even knows they own it. There was limited (and I do mean limited) television exposure when that company included Sherlock Holmes in its Golden Century syndicated package beginning in September 1971 with other early talkers. That venture went floperoo with single-digit station sales and prints largely pristine for not being used. The latter got liberated during warehouse dumps years later and wound up with 16mm collectors, the DVD’s being booted off these. If 1932’s Sherlock Holmes had a champion, it wasAlex Gordon, who worked for Fox during the late sixties and saved much of their vintage library despite then bureaucratic resistance. There should be a statue erected of Alex at 10201 W. Pico Blvd, but I’ll not hold my breath waiting for it. His handiwork that is Sherlock Holmes requires digging amongst DVD contraband to find, and though I’d give much (well, at least the price of a Fox-label DVD) to own an authorized copy, chances are remote in view of the company’s recent backing off classic titles. I wouldn’t expect Fox to ride Warner coattails and release a disc in tandem with 2009’s Sherlock Holmes, though they did finally get Man Hunt out in response, it’s said, to Valkyrie, and that was a UA pic, so hope springs eternal. The 1932 Sherlock Holmes may actually be one of the best all-round Holmes adaptations, being briskly directed by William K. Howard and crisply played by Clive Brook and model Moriarty Ernest Torrence. It’s a must-see SH that too few have seen, and I’m reminded of another obscurity, this one from Paramount, The Return Of Sherlock Holmes (1929), which also featured Brook and has been tied up in rights quagmire for many decades. Just try locating a pirated DVD of that (come to think of it, I don’t know of anyone who’s even seen Return).
Currently exhibiting the work of the Bechers, this is the first room you walk into when entering the Fraenkel Gallery.
One of the most impressive photography sites in San Francisco is the Fraenkel Gallery at 49 Geary Street. Now celebrating their 30th Anniversary, the gallery pretty much sets the bar on how to do things with the utmost refinement, quality, and care - as you will see from all these pictures. I'm not sure that the early masters of photography could have even envisioned something like this - multiple galleries and private showrooms, busy staff, a level of finish you would expect to see only when looking at old master paintings. But Fraenkel have not only grown but thrived - and the secret of their success, I believe, is a passion for the work they show and the environment they create for it. Whether in their gallery, or in the cards and catalogs they print, or when they do an art fair there is a level of perfectionism that puts them in a league of their own. Follow me ...
A second gallery leads to yet another room.
In every room, the sight lines into the next room are carefully thought out.
Here, Richard Avedon's portrait of Robert Frank.
In the back office, a wall of invitation posters from previous shows.
Gallery registrar, Claire Cichy at her desk. Note the poster of a great image I had never seen before - Lee Friedlander's "The Topless Bride" from 1967.
A framed group of photo booth portraits taken at the gallery's 25th anniversary party. Click to see how many photo notables you can identify.
A work in progress - a maquette for the gallery's booth at next month's Basel Art Fair.
A Friedlander and an Eggleston in one of the private rooms.
A large Sugimoto movie theater and a smaller Robert Adams.
In the same back room a specially constructed table flips open to present smaller works.
An Adam Fuss and an Idris Khan.
And last but not least, gallery director Frish Brandt, our guide on the tour.
