Category Archives: Garden/Furniture

Garden/Furniture

Parrots in the Garden

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Unscheduled, but welcome, guests

Hummingbirds and parrots-I think they are very exotic. Probably because I didn’t grow up with either. We have hummingbirds all the time in our yard. We don’t have a feeder, they love all our flowering plants.

There is a company of wild parrots that routinely flies over our house. We have heard they are pets that got loose. Apparently they fly around the county, raiding fruit trees.

One morning recently, about 7AM, I heard a terrible racket. We have heard this sound before, I knew it was the parrots. I guessed they were in our backyard, and it sounded like more than the usual 3 to 8 birds. I grabbed my camera and slipped outside. Over 20 parrots were overhead in our sycamore-grooming, fussing and screeching. I took as many pictures as I could before they took off in a wave of squawks, leaving one beautiful green feather behind.

If anyone knows what kind of parrots these are (they all look the same), or any more information about the companies of parrots in San Diego, I would love to know.

If you enjoy parrots, or a good story, I highly recommend The Parrots of Telegraph Hill. It is a wonderful documentary film about a homeless man who took over the care of a wild company of parrots in San Francisco, and how they changed his life.

 

 

Design, Garden/Furniture

Oooops, part 2 of 2

Finishing the cats

Once again, I had drawings done and no idea how to transfer the designs to the driveway.

I was worried that using a pencil or chalk would interfere with the paint sticking to the concrete. Instead, I used a steel nail to transfer the designs. I got a stiff detail brush at an art store to paint them on.

Here they are.

First photo: Cat fish in their natural environment

Second and Third: Tuxedo cat fish

Fourth-Eighth: Maine Coon and black cat fish

 

 

Design, Garden/Furniture

Oooops! part 1 of 2

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Drips into fishes

As I was preparing the garage door, a single drop of white primer missed my drop cloth and hit the concrete. I tried to wipe it right up, but I was too late-it had already sunk in. Later I tried to scrub it out. This only made things worse, a small white spot became a large scrubbed out area-with a white spot still in the center.

Lisa suggested I paint over the paint drop with a fish, a fish that had wandered away from the underwater garage door mural. We then thought it would be fun, being great cat lovers, if the fish was a “cat” fish, a fish that looked like a cat (not a real catfish, which are very ugly).

I looked at catfish photos on the web and started sketching. The first image shows my progression of sketches, from top to bottom and left to right. The first sketch looked too much like a real catfish-thin, stiff and definitely not cute. In the sketches that followed the fish got rounder. Shading accentuated the ears, nose and “paws” (fins). The eyes and nose moved forward to give the feeling that you are looking down on them. The stiff body developed an “S” curve that really gave a feeling of motion through water.

I had a few more drips by the time I was done. We decided to honor some of our favorite cats, present and past. I developed the following sketches for a tuxedo cat fish, an orange and white Maine Coon cat fish and an all black cat fish.

Next article: cats on the concrete