Mrs Blue Bird

by Phil Chadwick

Title

Mrs Blue Bird

Artist

Phil Chadwick

Medium

Painting - Oil On Canvas

Description

A colorful bird is perched on a bare branch against a blue background. The bird's plumage features vibrant shades of orange, blue, and brown, and there are delicate brown twigs with small buds in the backdrop.

I have constructed several hundred Peterson Blue Bird houses in my time. There were always construction scraps to turn into something useful. Waste not and want not. The northwest corner of King Township and the Greenbelt has most of those boxes but there are still a hundred within the Singleton Sanctuary.

All varieties of birds enjoy the Peterson Blue Birdhouse design. When my workshop was functional with lots of house construction scraps to work with, there would be twenty or more Peterson boxes in construction. There were jigs set up to make every cut perfect. The reward was to see several broods emerge from each Peterson Blue Birdhouse every summer. With climate change, the bluebirds are now year-round residents at Singleton Lake. They seem to survive on the cones of red cedars. Bluebirds have been known to live for a decade so the birds that inhabit the sanctuary know us well.

Female birds are less brightly coloured than males. The colour patterns are similar and there is no noticeable difference in size.

This is another image taken by my friend, John Verburg, a naturalist and terrific photographer. John provides a tremendous source of inspiration during the winter when the windchill encourages me to stay within the Singleton Studio. While in the comforts of the Studio, there is the freedom to paint as long as you wish on a painting. The temptation is to make the work "perfect". The goal although admirable is misguided as too many brush strokes can steal the life out of the subject. I try to make the portrait painterly and breathing like a live subject.

It is a challenge to keep up with the changing climate. Nature adapts much faster than the maps. The purple year-round shading of the above graphic needs to be adjusted further north to include the areas northeast of Lake Ontario and Singleton Lake.

Uploaded

April 23rd, 2024

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