I didn’t think I was going to have a new piece to show you this week, but I rolled out of bed at dawn this morning and did this Dove study. I have a couple projects coming up and the first one is a workshop I’ll be doing at the Ali Gray Gallery at the end of July. It’s geared for tweens and teenagers, so I thought tissue paper, collage and paint markers on sheets of cardboard keep it from getting too precious. Given that, I intend to create several examples of what one can do with one or all of those supplies. The Dove started with charcoal and gesso, followed by a black ink brush pen. I loved it so much, I jazzed up the cardboard with a metallic gold colored pencil background. I can’t wait to play with tissue paper and cut up magazine pages, I envision feathers galore. Maybe that will be next.

In the meantime, Facebook reminded me that it’s been 15 years since I washed ashore in Provincetown and spent that first summer living in this cabin. There’s a certain bird that starts to sing at 3am in the spring and summer and stops before the sun comes up. I believe that bird is a Robin, which so far, I haven’t painted yet. They have a rather syrupy chirrupy song of several notes, a brief pause and those same notes again, ad nauseam. I know, since not only did they wake me up every night in the cabin, but they’re doing it now as well even when the windows aren’t open. I prefer the complex, lyrical call of cardinals, or the chatter of a hoard of sparrows hidden in a hedge until something spooks them and they scatter en masse to the safety of a nearby tree.

And yesterday, I followed this magnificent blue-faced turkey on a main road in town. I’m not sure why he was alone, they’re usually in a mob scene gaggle, and he was so handsome. Ok, on with the day - until next week then.