out of winter for a week

sandhill cranes

Three Sandhill Cranes walked into the back yard while Mother and I were having lunch last Tuesday at her house in Florida.  Last Thursday also, after lunch, I saw two Sandhill Cranes meandering in the back yard of Mother's neighbor Pattie. 

This sketch of Sandhills I did two weeks ago, up here in my northern Midwest studio, after leafing through a wonderful book, On Ancient Wings: The Sandhill Cranes of North America by Michael Forsberg.  How wonderful then for me to see these cranes in Florida when I was there, so soon again, and, you know, real!

I was in Florida for a week, the week when the Midwest and much of the rest of the country got blasted by snow and ice and winds and cold.   I suppose it is fitting then that my previous blog entry, the small painting of a blizzard, stayed as the current image on view here at Ai-jane during that week of icy storms.  Still, I like seeing cranes at any time, and this sketch of cranes, though simple, has a bit of the softness and stalk-iness of cranes coming through the charcoal strokes.  The simple view of cranes, in the midst of still-immense winter, pleases me.  You too?