Wednesday, November 10, 2010

blue jay

young blue jay, at  you

The young blue jay looked over from the lilac bush just beyond our deck.  I get this look from blue jays when they are looking around at me, as if to say "where are the peanuts that you usually put out?"  Does this young one already know about the peanuts?

This is my third small painting of the blue jay.  Two of them didn't work.  The challenge was getting all the detail of the markings and a sense of the bird in motion, stilled for a moment.  Details can so easily take over the view.

M showed me a poem by E.E. Cummings about blue jays.  A phrase, "hatred of timid," struck me as too strong, too jarring.  But the rest of the poem was wonderful.  Now I think I will look again at the poem and see if my view has changed.  Maybe you would like to see the poem too, with all its phrases, all its details!

No comments:

Post a Comment