I painted the Mourning Doves (Zenaida macroura) first because they inhabit the tree that overshadows the end of the wall. In fact, last summer, we watched Mourning Doves drive the Blue Jays from that pine tree over to the one on the corner. It was quite interesting and surprising to observe.
I was falling behind on my one a day, Fun-A-Day, carousel animal painting prequel, so I made a valiant effort and painted 12 in this moonlit carousel. This is the first time I have included passengers. It is clearly a dream, however. There are no spectators, no adults, no carnival hubbub; just a lonely, half-dark carousel, under the moonlight, with happy, sleepy children waving good night to the world. We see a dozen carousel animals. I will list them as we see them from right to left, before they pass out of view: a peacock bench, a white stallion, a pink zebra, a brown pony, a green tortoise, a pink burro, a crocodile, a purple draft horse, a blue colt, a pink mare, and an ostrich.
Painting is acrylic, including some metallics, on 24″ x 18″ stretched canvas.
Price: $100reduced to $50 plus postage
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The first thing you may notice about this carousel animal is that it is facing left. I guess it must be on a British merry-go-round! It also is not simply nailed down to the deck like the swan benches I have ridden in. It is round-bottomed and mounted on a little deck that gently tips backward and forward as the carousel goes around. The seat is only big enough for two children or two ‘very close friends’ to snuggle together in a semi-reclined position.
Painting is acrylic on 6″ x 6″ stretched canvas.
Price: $30 plus postage
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This is a carousel Peacock painted as my fourth Fun-A-Day warm up piece. Peacocks are male Peafowl. This is an Indian Blue Peafowl. There are three species of peafowl.
Painting is acrylic on 6″ x 6″ stretched canvas.
Price: $30 plus postage
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This is a Green-headed Tanager (Tangara seledon). He/she’s way out of scale compared to the painted ponies he/she’s obscuring on the carousel. The Green-headed Tanager is found in the Atlantic Forest in southeastern Brazil, far eastern Paraguay and Misiones, Argentina. It is about 13.5cm or 5-1/4″ long. This one is saddled up and ready to ride on a fantastic carousel.
Painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $60 plus postage
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I determined to paint carousel animals for my project for the 2018 Perkasie Fun-A-Day. I am supposed to wait and just do it in January. I did some research on Sunday. I found more than 31 carousel critters from zoo carousels built in the late 19th century, without including a single horse or pony! This is more fun than one month can contain. I just had to get the ball rolling. I also decided to not limit myself to 6″x6″. On Monday, I painted a Carousel Flamingo in acrylics on a 16″ x 20″ stretched canvas.
Price: $150 plus postage
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This is the Goldfinch I just painted and hung on my shed. It is based on a photo I took through the window of the front door of our house. It is about 2′ 9″ from beak to tail. I painted this in the same yellow that is the trim color on our shed. I can adjust the shades on these to match your trim or siding, within reason. It is mounted on a 1×3 to provide dimension or to give the option of mounting it on a steel fence stake in your yard or garden.
Price: $100. Pick up at my place in Perkasie, PA.
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I painted this Ruby-throated Hummingbird on coarse canvas to echo the one I painted on the cinder block wall as part of the Birds of Perkasie mural that I painted the summer of 2018. This is Bethann’s favorite. I painted the Beebalm in shades of lavender instead of pink. This is closer to the color ours was. This is now pasted on one of the bedroom walls, where I live. I was on the hallway wall of the house we rented on Ridge Ave. I simply used warm water and a sponge to peel it off without damaging it or the wall. The clay based, wallpaper paste remains water-soluble forever.
The painting is acrylic on a 25-3/4″ diameter canvas.
Price: $200 plus postage.
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This is a painting of a Chickadee clinging to a hanging pine branch on a tree in front of our house. Last year and through the winter, Blue Jays dominated the huge, sprawling pine. This Spring, the Chickadees drove them out! They are now sharing the far pine at the right, front corner of the lot with a small flock of intrepid Mourning Doves.
The painting is acrylic on 6″ x 6″ stretched canvas.
I may have mentioned before, that I grew up in Minnesota. In my day, there was a strong and booming middle class, thanks to an aggressive, progressive income tax structure on both the federal and state levels. On weekends, holidays and vacations (Working people actually took vacations back then), it seemed just about anybody and everybody went “to the lake”. That is what we all said. Our cars’ license plates advertised “10,000 Lakes”. The Almanac counted 12,512 lakes plus a few thousand ponds. One did not have to leave “the Cities”, short for “the Twin Cities”, Minneapolis and St. Paul, to go to a lake. Mpls. is a mash-up of Sioux and Greek meaning “City of Lakes” and has 25 lakes within the city limits, including one manmade one, since they just needed to round up, I guess.
When I was in junior high, my folks bought a lake place just across the river in Wisconsin. I learned the cheeseheads called Minnesotans “swampies”. But this article was supposed to be about my painting of a Great Blue Heron. I grew up seeing these beautiful, fishing birds on the edges of lakes and swooping down and diving into them all of my young life, growing up in Minnesota and Wisconsin. I have seen them occasionally, if only fleetingly, in PA.
Painting is acrylic on 10″ x 10″ stretched canvas.
This painting commemorates the day last June, shortly after my open heart surgery to replace my damaged aortic valve with a pig valve. I had just exited our house and was passing the front “garden”, a jumble of native plants and weeds. I was moving slowly. A male goldfinch landed on one of the many Echinacea that were in bloom. He was within arm’s length of me. He tilted his head and looked at me; then he began to sing. He went through all of his repertoire, then it seemed as if he turned to me again for a response. I said, “Thank you, Mr. Goldfinch!” He nodded and flew off, It was a magical moment, like something from one of those classic Disney movies.
The painting is acrylic on 6″ x 6″ stretched canvas.
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