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After watching a David Lobenberg "California Vibe" watercolor demonstration during a recent Zoom meeting, I've been having fun playing around with his colorful and loose technique. I'll use one of these experimental portraits to give you an idea of the inner speech that typically accompanies my painting process.   I start every painting with optimism: I love the underpainting! It's so fresh and clean! I love how the colors have blended! The first layer: I've tried to be bold with the hair, but did I go too dark too fast? I'm pretty happy with his features at this point. On the other hand, the face looks a little creepy. I [...]

I was pretty excited when I first learned about the active heronry in southwest Missouri. Read on for the continuation of my spring discovery story featuring my favorite Great Blue Heron pair. [...]

My first glimpse of the heronry. The weather forecast looked beautiful for late March, so I was heading down to our condo on Table Rock Lake; I knew it was the time of year that Great Blue Herons begin nesting. I have occasionally visited a couple of heronries on Lake Taneycomo (the more generic term for "heronry" is "rookery"), but they were not easily accessible and have declined in recent years.   I decided to ask the "experts" on the Missouri Birders Facebook page if there were any heron colonies in the Branson area. They did not disappoint! I was thrilled to learn that [...]