52/52 Painting Challenge: Painting #7- Not Always Green!

As some of you may know I was in love with an Iguana. His name was Father Mulcahy, named after the priest on the hit TV show called "Mash". He was given to me by a priest named Father Lope who had rescued him from an abusive home. When Father Mulcahy got  too big for his aquarium he needed to find a new home and luckily it was with me. He lived with me for 9 months and I never thought that a lizard could have so much personality, charm and intelligence. When Father M passed away I was devastated and made a small intaglio print to remember him. I had wanted to do a better portrait of him in color but time got away from me.

The Green Iguana starts out its life almost lime green. It is relatively small at birth and the green color helps it to blend into its surroundings for protection from predators. It is a strict vegetarian and lives its life in the tree canopy but can also be found on the ground. As the male iguana matures it gets large cheek pouches, a "showy" dewlap under the chin and turns beautiful shades of green, turquoise, olive, orange and rust. Father M was just beginning to mature at 4 feet long and had these amazing colors.

I recently lead an Artistic Adventure Tour to Costa Rica and while I was there I had another encounter with an iguana. He was a very big boy. I would say his body was about 3.5 feet long with a tail that was even longer. He was hanging out by the bird feeder at Selva Verde Lodge looking to steal some bananas that had been left for the birds. I sat and hung out with him for about 20 minutes. He was very aware of my presence. I sat for a while, took some still pictures and then took video clips. It was awesome to see him make eye contact with me.

I decided to do my watercolor above of Father Mulcahy as part of my 52/52 painting challenge after my encounter with Senor Iguana. He reminded me of Father M and I felt a special connection with him. I enjoyed doing the background and adding lots of pigment using a wet on wet technique. I did the detail of the scales in watercolor pencil because I couldn't bear to paint all the tiny details.

I don't know it there is another iguana in my future. I would never buy an iguana. It would have to be another rescue. I love to see them in the wild. They have become disposable pets in the exotic pet trade and in parts of Florida they have become an invasive specie. They should be left in their native habitat, wild where they belong.

This painting is available for sale. If you are interested in it please e-mail me.

52/52 Painting Challenge- Painting #6

The Spectacle Flying Fox is a large sized fruit bat that can have a wingspan of 5 ft. The latin name is Pteropus conspicillatus.They live primarily in the rainforest, but are also found in mangroves and swamps throughout northern Queensland Australia and surrounding islands. Erratic temperature changes in Northern Australia occur during the seasons of the year. This bats uses its wings to control its body temperature so that it can survive freezing and scorching variations. They feed on 35 different kinds of fruit found in the rainforest. They have the ability to eat while they are flying and often eliminate dispersing seeds over the range of their territory. They are key player in seed dispersal. They have a fondness for figs.

This painting is done from my wonderful photography day at the Lubee Bat Conservancy. This particular bat, Sienna is her name,  is the only Spectacle Flying Fox in the Northern Hemisphere. According to Brian Pope, the Director at Lubee, She was found on their doorstep in a cardboard box. She obviously had been someone's pet and for whatever reason, they decided they no longer wanted her. The reason that they know she is the only one of her kind is that it is illegal to have these type of fruit bats in captivity. They are on the endangered list and a special permit had to be acquired by Lubee in order to keep her. She is not capable of being released back to her natural habitat. She is a funny bat with a passion to eat. She enjoys being near people and it was great fun to get to know her.

I am working on 2 more bat paintings for Lubee in hopes that we can use them to bring awareness to the public. I will keep you in the loop as I finish them and let you know how it goes.

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Frogs at The Selva Verde Lodge

During our Bugs,Beasts, & Botanical Tour we have been staying at the The Selva Verde Lodge in the Sarapiqui region of Costa Rica. The trip has been a whorl wind of excitement. Each day we have been seeing so much and learning so much that by 9:00 it is lights out and we are all asleep.

In the tropics the sun rises at 6:00 am and sets at 6:00 pm. One of the really fun things we have been doing after dinner is taking pictures of the Red-eyed Tree Frog. Selva Verde has a frog pond and yesterday it rained. The frogs went wild. We could hear all kinds of chirping and were able to see frogs jumping from leaf to leaf in a chorus of joy!

Photographing in the dark is tough when your camera can't really "see". We have been using flash lights to locate the frogs. So as not to harm the frogs I have been using my zoom lens and standing far away from them. My camera is a Lumix Panasonic FZ40 and has 24X digital zoom. This camera lets me get close enough to get details, but far enough away to not startled the frog. Some of the pictures came out blurry at first but as I got more accustomed to shooting in the dark I was able to get some "good enough" shots to paint from.  There are other people on the tour that have much more elaborate cameras and their pictures are better than mine. I carry the Lumix because it is very light and has macro and zoom capacity. I don't want to carry the heavy lens around. I have art supplies to carry also so I try to travel light. My purpose is take reference photos, not beautiful pictures. If I get a beautiful photo that is great, but my main concern is getting the reference shot.

What kind of camera do you take photos with? Any tips or advice you want to share?
Please feel free to leave a comment. I love hearing from you!

From the rainforest,

Mindy

PS~ I have been working on Painting # 6 of my 52/52 painting challenge. I will post it when I get home. It needs to be scanned. I didn't want you to think I had forgotten!

The Blue-Crowned Motmot

Motmots are a family of New World tropical birds related to kingfishers. They can be found nesting in burrows which they dig themselves into cliffs Most motmots are medium-sized (robin size or larger).They are usually spotted sitting in trees because they sit-and-wait to catch large insects, small reptiles or mammals. They also eat fruits.

The Blue-crowned Motmot is the most widely distributed motmot, and is found from Mexico to Argentina in lowland forests, on up to 1300 meters. It’s fairly tolerant of somewhat disturbed habitats.

The thing that I love most about the motmot is its tail. They have a unique spatulate tail. When a new tail feather grows it looks like any other feather. The only difference is that a portion of the lower section of the two center feathers have weakly-attached feather barbs. The barbs fall off the shaft creating a bare stretch of feather shaft, with a spatula-shaped tip at the end. Males will often pull more barbs off their tails to make a greater display for onlooking females.

Motmots use their tails to  swing like the pendulum on a clock. This behavior is used mostly when a predator is in the general area. It seems that the swaying motion deters rather than attracts the predator.

It was a joy to see these birds in the wild in Costa Rica. The lighting was very dark and I had to use a high ISO- 1600 in order to get enough light to take the pictures. I was also pretty far away and used my zoom lens to 24x. The result is a very grainy photograph. I am hoping that I got enough information and detail to paint these fabulous birds. Maybe I will see them again and get some better pics.

Painting #5- 52/52 Painting Challenge

This Catteleya orchid was a super challenge to paint. The brilliant magenta glowed against the pale and subtle hues of the white petals and sepals. I had to use lots of delicate colors to portray the white and not have it fade into nothingness. To keep my edges visible I used a 2H pencil and then blotted it with a kneaded eraser. This produced a fine pale grey line. Many of the white flower paintings I have seen use grey to create shadows to tone white. I find this makes the white look dirty and dingy.  I decided to use pinks, lavenders, blues and greens. One of the tricks I use to capture white flowers is use paint chips from the hardware store. There are thousands of  "shades and tints" of white paint on the market. The paint samples are free from the manufacturer. I have a whole pile of paint chips that I use to match pale colors. Bright colors are easy for me to reproduce as my tendency is to paint bold. The softer and more subtle colors are challenging. I mix my paints and do a series of swatches to see what they look like, especially when they are dry. The color shift is important because sometimes the colors are too dark. I like to use lots of paint and I can't do this when I am painting white! I evaluate my swatches and dive in. Leaving the white of the paper is essential because the white turns into a color very fast. In this case less is more.

How do you paint white flowers?

Mom to the Rescue!

This morning while we were having breakfast a small baby howler monkey lost its footing high up in a palm tree and came crashing down to hit the concrete pavement. It was a horrible sight to see its motionless body laying on the ground. Many of us got up and went to see what was happening. The staff at the hotel must be used to this kind of thing, because they quickly moved us out of the way so not to crowd around it. The mother was up in the tree and she would not come down to aid her baby with humans too close. We all backed up and slowly the motionless body began to move and the stunned baby was able to sit up. It looked dazed and confused but could hear its mother talking. It slowly made its way to a tree and began to climb it. As it clung to the trunk of the tree, the mother moved slowly and carefully lending a hand so the baby could get to her back and its life in the trees. I was able to stay far enough away so as not to interfere but close enough to capture this little miracle on video. What started out as heart wrenching moment turned into a wonderful ending. Human nature would have been to pick the baby up to see if it was injured but the staff was smart enough to know that the mother would have rejected the baby had it come in contact with humans. Letting nature take its course was the way to go. Here is the video, I thought you would enjoy it. Notice at the end that the baby securely wraps its tail around the mothers tail so as not to fall again!

Painting #4- 52/52 Painting Challenge

Last night I attended the Gainesville Orchid Society meeting. I am a new member and found the group to be very friendly and very knowledgeable. I mostly joined because I love to paint orchids and am hoping to find some local orchid growers that I can meet and who might be open to having me paint from their plants. Each meeting the members bring in their blooming plants and they give out ribbons in the different categories. It was amazing to see the variety of shapes and colors that were on the tables. They have inspired me to start growing them.

Today's painting is a Catteleya. One of the things about buying orchids is that I need to start paying attention to exactly what kind of orchid it is. There are so many hybrids and it is important not only in the orchid growing world, but the botanical art world to know the Latin names of the plants. I am clueless as to what my plants are. I know that this one here is a Catteleya because of it's flower, leaves and pseudobulb shape. Hopefully as I continue to paint orchids my knowledge of growing and morphology will expand. When I meet some more orchid growers perhaps they will be able to identify the species in my paintings.

Painting #3/Week #3 52/52 Painting Challenge 2012

I was visiting a friend in Naples Florida and she had a wonderful collection of orchids. They seemed to be just dripping off the trees and off the side of her house. I was in the midst of such a beautiful range of shapes and colors. It was difficult to decide what to paint. I walked around her property and found a delightful little orchid called the "Pinocchio Orchid". It is in the Lady-Slipper family. Almost 60 species and hundreds of hybrids make up the genus Paphiopedilum, often called the lady-slipper orchid. The Pinocchio slipper orchid is a primary hybrid cross between Paphiopedilum primulinum and Paphiopedilum glaucophyllum.

The reason it is called the Pinocchio Orchid is the stem keeps getting longer and longer and it continues to bloom, one bloom at a time for months.  It was towards the end of its blooming stage, but from my painting you can see how many bracts there were on the stem. Each bract had a ladyslipper flower. It had one large bloom and then 2 more buds that had not yet opened.

My friend was gracious enough to cut the orchid and stem so that I could take it home and complete my painting. Orchids here in Florida are very easy to come by and very affordable. I am in HEAVEN!

I have had people write into to me with questions about how to manage time. One of the biggest complaints I hear is,

"I never have enough time to paint, How do you do it?" 

Do you know where your kneaded eraser is?

One of the first things is to be dedicated. A long time ago when all my friends were getting married and talking about having children I made the early decision not to raise a family and commit my life to being an artist. I never really had the strong maternal "urge". My instincts were to create art and I knew that I would not be able to pursue my dream if I had children to raise. I know lots of artists who have done both; raised children and have a successful art career. For me it never seemed possible to do both. don't be discouraged you can still be focused too even with a family.

So in part to answer the question, "How do I do it?"   I immerse myself in my work. I constantly take and teach classes. I grow and raise my subjects. It seems everywhere I turn there is something that is art related surrounding me.

Of course I have the problem that others have about evil necessities like eating, sleeping, cleaning cat boxes, watching football with my husband and being the caregiver for my mother. Every artist has stumbling blocks. One summer my mother was very ill and it was almost impossible to get any art done. I stopped and thought about how was I wasting my time? My biggest issue was trying to find things…… Where are the scissors? my kneaded eraser, my favorite brush etc…. I was spending tons of energy and frustrating moments trying to find things. As we head into the New Year one of my ways of reclaiming time is to label the outside of all my drawers and storage compartments. I must have a dozen kneaded erasers and I have a pull out drawer that is labeled "erasers". When I clean up, I have a place to put those erasers that have grown legs and walked around the house. When I can't find an eraser I go to that box and viola! there they are, or at least one so I can get to work. Putting labels gives everything a home, a place to return to at the end of the day.

If you are looking to reclaim time so you have more time to create ask yourself, " How do I waste the most time during the day?"

Please leave your comments and solutions so that you can share with others how you "find more time to paint". We would love to hear from you!

I am almost finished with painting #3…….coming on Friday… The Pinocchio Orchid!

Painting #2 of 52/52 Challenge

Rodrigues Flying Fox- "Grace" – Gouache & Graphite; ©2012 Mindy Lighthipe

It is Week #2 in my 52/52 painting challenge. My post on Wednesday was about the Lubee Bat Conservancy and this special little bat "Gracie". Here is her finished "portrait". It is done with my graphite and gouache technique. I find it much easier to paint fur and feathers in gouache. My reasoning for this is that the opacity of gouache allows me to paint dark to light, light to dark, medium to light, medium to dark and so on. This is not possible with watercolor as the basic principle of watercolor is transparency. Gouache covers or partially covers the layer below, where as in watercolor the underlying colors shine through.

I use a great CHEAP brush to create the effect of fur. Many artists spend pain staking time using a 000 brush with just a few tiny hairs on it to create each individual hair on an animal. I use the Loew Cornel Rake brush.

It appears to be just a flat square watercolor brush, but it has a density of bristles at the ferule of the brush and a sparsity of longer bristles at the tip. When used properly it creates fine parallel lines. It is important to understand the anatomy of an animal and how the surface contour of the fur changes with the bone structure underneath. Many types of hair, fur, and feathers have an underlying color, close to the skin. Often the underlying color is dark and then gets lighter as the hair gets further from the skin. Working with opaque layers I am able to do a dark layer and add the lighter layers on top. I work the rake brush in strokes that follow the surface contour. When I get an overall appearance of fur I then come in with a small detail brush and do the finishing touches.

You can find the rake brush at HomeCraftExpress.

This painting is available for sale. If you are interested in purchasing it or a fine art print please contact me for pricing.

More prints and original paintings are available in my Etsy Store.