Autumn Notes

 

"Stream-side Autumn Ashes" - color pencil drawing - ©Bruce A. Morrison

Autumn rates way up there on my favorite season scale…its a memory bank of pleasant days outdoors with a warm sun in your face, and the crisp air a pleasant mediator.

 

Unless…ya there’s always a disclaimer. Unless the neighbors have just harvested their soybeans and corn! In that case, if its a warm humid day (as we’ve been experiencing this fall), outside work or leisure can find a person tormented by seen and unseen assailants…that like to bite! Youch, what a bummer those little “no-seeums” (minute pirate bugs) and Asian Ladybird Beetles can be!

 

But hope rests eternal in a future killing frost, and a return to the pleasant 60 degree days we used to refer to as Indian Summer. 

 

 

Golden-crowned Kinglet - photograph - ©Bruce A. Morrison

Right now we’re really enjoying those familiar visitors returning this fall - bird migration brings our warblers and sparrows back to the acreage and pastures…a myriad of small birds darting about catching small bugs or stripping the seeds from the past summer’s flowers.

 

 

"Autumn Along Dog Creek" - oil painting - ©Bruce A. Morrison

 

Our leaves aren’t spectacular this year, but we had good summer rains and a dry fall for harvesting. I’ve often found a dry fall to make for a great “leaf looker” season - maybe it was the wet summer that set things up the way we’re seeing it this year? I’m just leaving this one to chance - what else can you do? Enjoying it never the less! 

 

I’ll just paint or draw autumn to suit the season’s spirit I guess…come on Indian Summer!!!

 

Thanks for stopping by! Please be good to one another - we’re all in this together.

 

(Artwork and Photography from Morrison’s Studio on Prairie Hill Farm - morrisons-studio.com)

 

Freezing/Thawing...Once in a Blue Moon

 

The Blue Moon on Halloween here on October 31, 2020

(photograph -  ©Bruce A. Morrison)

If memory serves me, the past couple years lacked some of my favorite days of the season...Indian Summer.  This year has tried making up for it and hasn't done too bad of a job. Although we've had 3 snowfalls this season already, they've been fairly light and melted in short order...just the past several days have been in the 60's and 50's and quite pleasant for late November! 

Really I haven't relished this Fall too much, I won't get into it, just say I'd as soon forget it...in fact most of us would just as soon forget the entire year!  Its been tough on some folks more so than others.

I will admit I have been having a good deal of trouble motivating myself, like many, many have I'm sure.  But I have had a few bright spots appear here and there this year...so thankful for Georgie and the kids, and good friends who think of me and lift my spirits.  I know I am blessed and am grateful.

Studio work has been slow, but I keep on plodding away with small jobs and also work on the acreage...the chain saw has been busy off and on, a little seed collection from the pastures and some patching of the barn and crib roofs have also kept us busy.  Drawing, printing and some framing occupying each day now, tis the season😊.

Recently some friends called and let me know they had some River Otters out by their place and welcomed me to come out and try and get some photos.  I went early last Tuesday morning and found them, as if they were waiting for me!  Its been some time since I've seen Otters...they've been in the pasture out in front of us, along the creek...have seen them in the Little Sioux River a number of times, and even up north years ago.

 

When I approached the water, I was hearing the familiar sound of the ice "pinging" and breaching...a noise I remember from times when something large was swimming close to the underside of newly formed thin ice.  And there they were!  First one, then another...

 

(photographs -  ©Bruce A. Morrison)

 

At first they watched me with curiosity from a distance, eventually popping up through the thin ice by butting it from underneath with their heads...eventually right in front of me - then crawling out on a small log to get a better look...what fun!

Mink walking on the ice through the rushes.

(photograph -  ©Bruce A. Morrison)

I got an extra bonus while waiting for more photo ops - a Mink was walking around on the ice and one of the Otters would pop up through the thin ice around it and the startled Mink would jump up into the air - so funny to see!  This went on for maybe 10 minutes but kept taking place behind a bunch of rushes out of view of the camera...was like they were playing a game!

The trip to photograph Otter really made my week...between critters and great weather, its been fun.  A lot to be thankful for out there - even in rough times.

 

Be good to one another - Happy Thanksgiving!!!

This Is It!

The 14th Annual Artisans Road Trip is about to begin!  Saturday October 14th from 9am through 5pm and also Sunday from Noon through 5pm!  And we're ready here at Morrison's Studio on Prairie Hill Farm!  Ready with a warm place out of the weather if needed, great treats, hot cider, and always a great view and artwork!

Come and see a working studio and art gallery perched on the hillside above the Waterman Creek Valley.  In 2004 the Artisans Road Trip began with regional artists opening their studios and galleries to the public.  We originally had to show our work out in the corn crib of all places and it was a bit chilly out there to put it mildly!

Well in 2008 we completed a remodel of our out building that formerly served as a sheep barn until the mid 1990's and as a brooding house (chicken coup) prior to the mid 1950's and now have a nice cozy indoor studio and gallery to host our work and visitors - with a great view from our deck!  Come in and sit in comfort, have a nice warm beverage and look through our paintings, drawings and photographs of the region in which we live!

 

Rain or shine don't miss out on traveling through the NW Iowa countryside for a great view and experience - thank you for supporting the local arts and artists and bring something home to cherish for a life time, whether it simply be the experience or a beautiful piece of artwork to cherish!

For more information on this great weekend - visit the 2017 Artisans Road Trip web site at 
http://www.artisansroadtrip.com/!  Check out the artists on the Galleries page or go to the Map page and plan a weekend area artisans road trip!

Enjoy the weekend - hope to see you!!!

Past Ground Hog's Day!

 Red-bellied Woodpecker (male)

I must be too busy these days to keep up with the studio blog...its already a couple days past Ground Hog's day!  I guess he didn't see his shadow this year so we're in for an early spring!  Ha!  All in good fun.

I've been busy painting commissions this winter so don't have much to share yet.  But one thing that keeps things moving around here in the winter are the birds on the feeders outside the studio window.  One that's really pretty up close are the Red-bellied Woodpeckers! 

 Red-bellied Woodpecker (female)

 (Red-bellied male's head detail)

  (Red-bellied female's head detail)

The way to distinguish the males from the females is the nape on the female's head is all that's colored (red), while the nape and crown on the male are both colored.  You can also see a red flush around the bird's beak and cheeks...its more prevalent on the male's as well.

The name of this woodpecker seems to confuse a lot of people.  Its named for the "red belly" - a mere smudge of color hard to see as the bird crowds the tree trunks and branches as it moves about.

I like looking at February as a sign of spring - it is, after all, the last full month of winter!  Hope that Ground Hog was right!

 

Brown is Back

Corn Shock November

photograph © Bruce A. Morrison

Its well into November and I am just beginning to catch up with the business of a small art studio.  There is always the framing, website development, print work, and everything else that cuts into the actual creative process.  But that's OK sometimes...we're into the blah colors of the season now.  Even though I always think of Autumn as a season of wonderful colors...the transition from greens to rusts, reds, yellows, and orange; it eventually turns brown.  Brown is back.  A good time to get the less fun things taken care of right?

Well, I'd really like to get all those things out of the way and soon!  This is also the perfect time of year to be working at the easel and drawing board!  There's very little out there to distract a person so you can get a lot done inside. 

The image at the head of this installment is of a corn field near here many years ago while I was carrying the "big" camera around.  I shot 4X5 large format for easily 30 years or more...most of the time with a heavy old dude that I still have, a camera only one year younger than I!   I was driving south along hwy 59 one early November afternoon and passed this corn field being "shocked" (I guess you'd call it?) and pulled over.  There were a couple guys working together on the corn and I asked if I could photograph the shocks.  

The light wasn't particularly wonderful and it was pretty windy but this type of harvest doesn't occur anymore and I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity.  Why they were working their hind ends off on an old, old method of putting up their corn I can't say - I just wanted to see if I could get it on film!

Its a nostalgic look isn't it; one beckoning way back to both of my grandfather's days...kind of puts a tint of beauty back into this landscape...

Brown is back, but we'll spin some gold from it when we can.

Drawn to the Water

"July Morning, Waterman Creek"

photograph - © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view) 

Gathering more material and first hand experiences is very important for any artist...particularly the "first hand experience" part! And lately I really seem drawn to "water"!  

It really doesn't matter what a person chooses to walk, wade, paint, photograph or even immerse themselves into; it is what it should be if it is emotionally or intrinsically satisfying or important to that person's life and/or work!  Don't you think?!!

The past 2-3 weeks have found me "in the drink" so-to-speak..in Waterman Creek here in the valley, to be more specific.  And loving it!  Why, with the rotten high temps and humidity again in the forecast, I can't think of a better place to be with leaky boots and my tripod and camera...and maybe paint brushes too.  In fact, I think the creek has got me for the easel and drawing board for a good part of my summer yet.

Drawn to water in more ways than one.

Stay cool and happy out there!

Work'n It!

Song Sparrow's are once again singing here!

photograph - © Bruce A. Morrison

I was working in the studio this afternoon...it'd been snowing today but the temps rose enough to melt the lightly blanketed landscape.  As I plugged along I heard this beautiful bird song just outside the front door...got up and peered out the window and there sat a Song Sparrow in blissful song!  Wow what an optimist!  And what a singer; he may not know a lot of songs but he sings this one beautifully!

"Sunrise on Negus's Bales"

12x20" - oil painting on mounted canvas

© Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view)

I just finished my latest painting.  It was based on a landscape in the neighborhood that I photographed last fall.  I thought at the time I found the landscape in question, that it'd like to paint the scene.  I finally was able to make it come to pass; I enjoy taking a moment that speaks to me, and turn it into a translation through paint and brushes.  You can certainly see the influence of the original photograph on the painting, but f you look closer, you'll also see my translation picks and chooses what I like and leave out what I don't...that's really something all artists do when painting or drawing anything.

The "Sunrise on Negus's Bales" is a "neighborhood" painting - I truly love doing these works closer to home.  Our home is where our hearts are and isn't it normal for someone to celebrate what touches them in an uplifting way?!!!

Speaking of "uplifting", the Song Sparrow has been joined by the Junco and Harris Sparrow music throughout the acreage...and you can't ignore the more raucous "music" of the hundreds of Red-winged Blackbirds that have been filling the acreage's tree tops!

As I mentioned in the last blog - spring is here, and we're work'n it!!!

Till Spring

"Woodchuck" - graphite on bristol board
(private collection)

I had some difficulty putting a title to this post...nothing really makes sense descriptively, but I'll go on.

When we first moved here in the fall of 2002 we found Woodchucks nearly everywhere here on Prairie Hill Farm. Heads would pop up out of holes in the storage shed dirt floor whenever I'd walk in to get the mower or find a shovel. A head even popped up between my feet one day in the crib lean-to when I sat down to do some welding. (that was a little disconcerting)

I'd had plenty of exposure to Woodchucks growing up. Woodchucks (Ground Hogs to some) were something we marveled at - once we caught one in a cage trap and totted it home for a "pet". The snarling and gnashing of teeth made us decide it wasn't the "best" candidate for a "pet", so we carried it back and let it go. (Mom did have something to say about it)

I've taken a few photos of Woodchucks through the years...they're fun to watch in grassy meadows or wood lots where they readily climb trees. The young ones are really fun to photograph as are just about any small mammal, but I'm afraid the "fun" had run out on Woodchucks here in the yard and buildings some time ago.

I've repaired many doors on the out buildings here...all Woodchuck damaged, they love chewing through wood doors to get into any building. I've had to fill in huge tunnels under supporting walls and big holes in the middle of floors. I even caught one trying to tunnel under the house!

One day Georgie and I were sitting at the breakfast table looking out toward the barn and saw a Woodchuck up on the barn roof running around. What the heck!? Well, sure enough there was a new hole chewed through the barn roof! They love to climb into the hay loft, and chewing through the wood shingles and roofing planks to gain access to a roof frolic was not beyond these guys.

Since that day Woodchucks were no longer "cute" or "fun" here...the neighbors probably just shook their heads and thought "I could'a told you that!" Funny how it takes large doses of reality to look at something in a different way.

Well these guys were no longer welcome in the yard or buildings and the "enforcement" of this curfew has held pretty well over the past few years.

Last week I went out to the shop behind the studio to use the table saw...the shop is a metal lean-to attached to the back of the studio...its unheated with a sliding door and has a dirt floor. Right next to the table saw was a "big" hole in the floor with a lot of dirt piled around it. I guess someone snuck in for last minute winter quarters...

It's too late to do anything about squatters at this point. Woodchucks hibernate non-stop till early spring. I don't blame them...I understand. So I threw a door over the den entrance...no need to give skunks or coons the idea I'm running a bed and breakfast for them as well! Come spring, I'll notice if our stow-away is up and about, then I'll put out the unwelcome sign again.

We're having great sunshine for Thanksgiving this year. We're not going to complain about the weather as all the snow has melted once again and that's just the tip of the ice berg as to what we have to be thankful for!

I do want to stop and take a moment to wish all of you out there a great Thanksgiving as well...God Bless!

Bald Eagles in the Valley

Something we always look forward to in the late fall is the return of Bald Eagles to the Waterman Creek Valley here in NW Iowa. We are not the Eagle magnet like the Missouri or Mississippi River areas that bring them in by the dozens or hundreds, but we can usually count on a small number on any given day. The Prairie Heritage Center had over 50 eagles during their Eagle Watch last winter....now I grew up along the Des Moines River valley back in the 50's and 60's and my first Bald Eagle sighting there was around the time I was 15 years old...it was quite a sight back then!

On Monday Georgie and I were at the Prairie Heritage Center south of here and watched 4 Bald Eagles (2 sub adults and 2 adults) settling into the eagle roosting area just off Waterman Creek and the Little Sioux River. This is a fun thing to see and it's heartening to have the eagles come back in this state and the lower 48 as a whole during the past 40 years! I believe there was an estimate of less that 600 Bald Eagles in the lower 48 states back in 1960!

I had posted ( http://prairiepainter.blogspot.com/2007/12/december-studio.html ) on local Bald Eagles almost a year ago, but they are something we'll never grow complacent or bored with, and it's really neat to have them back again.

Wenasaga Bald Eagle - Oil on canvas

(private collection)

We used to have to go north to Georgie's folk's Ontario retreat along the Wenasaga River to see Bald Eagles and nests. I did an oil painting years back of the sight of an adult Bald Eagle catching a thermal high above the Wenasaga River, just upstream from the cabin Georgie and I honeymooned in 38 years ago.

It's a neat bird and it's a fortunate thing to still be able to hold a sight such as this so dearly in our hearts.