When Kate and Martin were expecting their first child, they asked if I would paint a few watercolors for the baby’s room. They wanted to highlight the other inhabitants of our ranch…the wildlife that graces our property.
After walking around the ranch, I came up a list of potential subjects. A red-tailed hawk soared above me; a coyote stood on the hill gazing over the vineyard; jack rabbits darted back and forth through the vineyard; a kestrel sat on the raptor perch; a family of foxes lived in a culvert just up the hill; deer prance through the vineyard, stopping to eat Malbec grapes; a covey of quail ran through my garden. I gave Kate and Martin a list of 12 different ideas and they chose six: a quail, a kestrel, a fawn, a coyote, a jack rabbit and a racoon.

It was a fun project because I was painting for my future grandchild and challenging because I had never painted birds or animals. Before I start any new subject, I spend some time looking through photographs to help determine the angle and focus of the painting. Then I sketch a few options so I can decide how to proceed.

Watercolors can be challenging because you can’t hide your mistakes. When painting with oils, you can paint right over a layer and create something new. You don’t have that luxury with watercolors, so I practice a lot before I start in on a new painting.

The quail presented a new problem for me…on the belly of the quail are white feathers. In watercolor, white equals paper, more specifically no paint. I tried using masking (Masking is like painting glue on the paper so you can paint over it; then you remove the mask.) Unfortunately, it tore the paper, so I had to paint around the white areas at the same time maintain the tone and texture of the belly. The head of the quail is black, but you can’t just paint it solid black, you need to paint in layers to achieve the right perspective and depth.
Painting the quail allowed me to learn how to leave spaces white, so when I started the kestrel, it seemed quite easy. The belly of the kestrel is buff which was a color I hadn’t used before. Mixing watercolors is complicated, just a touch of one color can alter the end result significantly and beige has almost no hue at all, so it took me a while to get the color right. After I finished, I saw a kestrel near our house and decided that my painting did capture his nuances.
This past Summer, Scott and Kate decided that we would print some notepads as a gift for our Annual Tasting Package members. Previous notepads had always been watercolors of botanicals and they thought a change of pace would be fun. When I suggested using a few of Marie’s watercolors, they applauded the idea. 

I hope you will enjoy these new notepads. I have been using them both as notes to friends and as my To Do lists.