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About the Motmot
Exploring the natural world with pencil and paper from high atop a one-story bungalow in the middle of Oklahoma.
Category Archives: archeology
Painting from Plein Air Drawings, Part 2
The routine: door closed, music cranked up, paint brush moves to the beat. Time flies agreeably as a painting takes shape. Yesterday’s soundtrack: Warren Zevon, Talking Heads and the ever-energetic Rolling Stones. These are places of rich history. The beautiful ruin of an apple-cider mill on … Continue reading
Posted in archeology, architecture, Art Studio, bird art, Culture, Diversions, Environment, field sketching, Harvard Forest, history, landscapes, Music, natural history, Nature, New England, painting, Petersham, plein air, Pop culture references
Tagged 19th Century American History, art, cider mills, drawing, History of Cider, industrial archaeology, life drawing, music, natural history, Nature, oil painting, plein air painting, Rolling Stones, Talking Heads, Warren Zevon, water powered mills
9 Comments
Sketch of the Day: Art, Babies, and Beer
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek is a Copenhagen museum founded by the Carlsberg brewing family, with sculpture being the main attraction, but they also have great French Impressionist paintings, a tropical garden in the main rotunda, a nice cafe, and today, a surprise choral group in … Continue reading
Posted in archeology, Art, Artists, Copenhagen, Culture, Denmark, Diversions, Drawing, Exhibits, figure drawing, history, museums, Sculpture, Sketching, urban sketching
Tagged Antiquities, art, babies, Copenhagen, Denmark, drawing, figure drawing, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, sculpture sketching, sketching
2 Comments
Sketch of the Day: This wasn’t drawn in France
Posted in Adventure!, archeology, Art, Copenhagen, Culture, Denmark, Diversions, Drawing, museums, Sculpture, self-indulgence, Shopping!, Sketching, travel, urban sketching
Tagged Air France Strike, Arles, art, Camargue, Copenhagen, Denmark, drawing, European travel woes, figure drawing, France, history, Lure horns, Montpellier, Royal Copenhagen Shooting Society, sketchbooks, sketching, South of France, Urban Sketching, watercolor
1 Comment
The Best of 2011, A Motmot’s View
1) Best Rediscovered Antique Food: Apples and Cider. If there’s a characteristic product of New England, it’s not maple syrup, it’s apples and cider. In drawing the ruins of cider mills, I obsess over apples, modes of milling them for … Continue reading
The Artist Emerges
After many months, I just looked up and realized just how late it’s gotten- while I was busy, the forest changed from a symphony of green to an arboreal fiesta of reds and yellows. People are stuffed into coats and … Continue reading
Posted in archeology, Artists, Drawing, Environment, history, Nature, New England, Petersham, Wildlife
22 Comments
Drawing at the Edge of History
Oh the chimney’s fallen down and the roof’s all caved in Lettin’ in the sunshine and the rain And the only friend I’ve got now is that good old dog of mine And the little old log cabin in the … Continue reading
Posted in Adventure!, archeology, Art, Artists, birds, Drawing, Family, field sketching, history, New England, Petersham, plein air
12 Comments
Earth Day 2011: Trees and Other Necessities
White-throated sparrows are singing in cold, blustery Petersham. Back in Oklahoma that would have announced the onset of winter. Here in the north it ostensibly heralds spring, which at this point is a mere promise; I’m still dressed in down … Continue reading
Posted in archeology, Art, Drawing, field sketching, Harvard Forest, history, Nature, New England, Petersham, plein air, Sketching, Weather
15 Comments
