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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: Nature
What do Toucans Really Think?
Morning ritual in Panama: take coffee cup to the chair at the back door landing, open the sketchbook, raise the binoculars. The forest patch behind the house looks like a life-sized diorama of a jungle scene. A Nance tree blooms right outside … Continue reading
Posted in Adventure!, Animals, Art, birding, Diversions, Drawing, Environment, field sketching, life drawing, natural history, Nature, Panama, rainforest, random speculation, tropics, Wildlife
Tagged animal behavior, art, bird watching, drawing, fieldsketches, life drawing, Panama, rainforest, sketching, Toucans, travel, tropics, Wildlife
3 Comments
Earth Day with the Motmot
Greetings from Gamboa, Panama. Ant Man and I rented a house for six weeks on a hill above the Panama Canal, with a view of cecropia and palms and fruiting miconia trees attracting every known tropical and neotropical bird that’s … Continue reading
Posted in Adventure!, Animals, architecture, Art, bird art, birding, birds, Boats, Drawing, Environment, field sketching, life drawing, natural history, Nature, Panama, plein air, rainforest, Scope sketching, travel, tropics, Watercolor, Wildlife
Tagged architecture, birds, Earth Day 2016, Gamboa, motmot, Panama, Panama Canal, sciart, sketching, tropical ecology
9 Comments
2015 flutters to a landing
It was a year when plein air painting got a lot more fun, which I think is worth noting, and when I found new beauty in old and familiar places. I had a decent year of painting, exhibiting, teaching, drawing, writing, and learning how to breathe … Continue reading
Posted in Adventure!, Animals, Art, bird art, birds, Drawing, natural history, Nature, plein air painting, self-indulgence, Sound clips, Uncategorized, Wildlife
Tagged bird art, birds, drawing, life in review, Nature, New Year's Resolutions, pastels, pensive ruminations, plein air painting, sketching
4 Comments
Pastel Gallery is up and running
For anyone who’d like to see more of the Fall Pastel Collection from last week’s California run, the page is up and running. I was generously hosted by the Elkhorn Slough Foundation and Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, who … Continue reading
Catfish Weather and Voodoo Lilies
We’ve had two feet of rain this month. Yesterday, an early morning storm arrived with a tornado warning that sent me and Gizmo splashing down into our flooded basement. Our yard may be squishy, but some of our neighbors could raise catfish on their lawns. That’s a real … Continue reading
Posted in Adventure!, garden, Nature, Oklahoma Weather, plants
Tagged botany, catfish, Dracunculus vulgaris, floods, gardens, natural history, Oklahoma, rain, severe weather, strange plants, Voodoo Lily, weather
5 Comments
