Wing Slapping

I have become somewhat of an expert on pigeon behaviour over the last couple of weeks. It is from observing ‘my’ baby pigeons all tucked up in their drainpipe on the other side of the road.

My first set of twins have now become quite large and very active – I sit on the edge of pin watching them sometimes as I am so nervous that they will fall out of their nest and to the ground below as I do not think they can fly yet.

The other set of siblings are a bit further along from the first two – and I have not been able to observe them quite as well. But I did amazingly see them holding their own in a dispute in the very earliest days of their lives. The mother to the first two had edged her way along the pipe and was trying to steal something, probably food or grass from the two wee babies (their own mother was obviously off foraging somewhere). Well such a noise and commotion they created everytime her beak went near to them. ‘Peeep, peeeep, peeeep!’ over and over again and their little heads were bopping and beaking all over the shop! So much so that with her feathers a bit ruffled First Mum hopped up onto the ledge above the pipe and observed them somewhat coolly from her lofty perch, but made no further assault on the two young ‘uns.

On another occasion I saw the first mum again trying to bully her way into her rival’s home. This time the dispute was with mum number two – who has by the way a rather beautiful dusky pink colouring along her flank, in fact I think that one of her babies is going to take after her in that colouring – They were obviously feeling fractious on this given day and were ‘fighting’ each other up and down the pipe, stepping over debris and chicks alike as they edged up to eachother and started their wing slapping.

Wing slapping is behaviour I am observing more and more. I used to hear it sometimes lying in bed in the morning and wondering what the heck was going on. It is quite loud. The pigeons get right up close to one another and basically just beat the dickens out of each other with their wings. They sort of snap them really quick and they are probably quite strong too – after all they do use those same wings for flying. So I suppose it must hurt. But it is very loud and very purposeful. Anyway eventually one or the other of the fighting pigeons backs down and peace is restored. So far there have been no casualties or worse still, fatalities.

I have also observed the babies slapping their mum with their wings in the same way and am wondering if it is an instinct which stimulates mum to regurgitate her food for them so that they can feed – as they do, rather disgustingly, stick their heads almost entirely down their mother’s throat to get their own dinner. I can only assume that it is some sort of inducement the same way that suckling calves (or my own wee babies!) sort of head butt their mum’s in the udders to help bring the milk down. Well, my own babies did not head butt me so much as nuzzle seekingly, smelling for the milk and homing in onto the nipple, which in turn brought the milk cascading down of its own accord. Isn’t nature just a wonderful thing!

The photo here is not of my two babies but two adults having a bit of a slap and a bit of a beak too. I think the hot weather makes them a bit irritable at times and the drainpipe is not that big either.

How Wings Work

I thought that something a bit more gentle might make a better start to the week.

this is gentle in execution and gentle in theme I think you will agree. Also when I took the photo the sun shone a ray across the picture and I liked it so i have left it in. I think it enhances the painting - it makes the central portion look slightly translucent, don't you think?

I had a bit of a struggle painting this all the same - but when don't I struggle - but in the end it came together very satisfactorily. With nice washes of colour to build up the flesh tones and then slightly stronger paint to make the wings.

This idea came to me one morning when I was lying in bed looking up at the ceiling and out the balcony door at the blue sky. i was half dozing and half dreaming I think and I jsut started thinking about how wings are held together. I seem to have some memory - it might be a bird wing actually - that some of the feathers are latched together by organic hook and eyes. So I decided to use this system for these metamoth wings too. I thought it was just one simple thought in a painting. Not too crowded like some of my others. Sometimes that simplicity is just very relaxing.

I like thinking about how things work; wings, crests on birds, lizard feet and those great long lizard tongues that shoot out to catch insects, insect feet on water, how seeds germinate and how they get from a to b, how fingers and toes bend and point and how chestnuts open and how they protect their seeds. The list is endless and as varied as the whole world. It gives me something to do in the early hours of the morning though.

Today being Monday I thought i would ease myself in to the week on moth wings.

Something in His Eye

I am not sue what happened here - I will leave any interpretation up to yourselves, but I think I have given you enough clues in the past few weeks. If you want some help then you will have to email me to ask.

Obviously this is Vic again. I really am enjoying this rather anal dedication to the study of his face, as well as his neck musculature and also his lapels. Great lapels there!

Ears as well. i have always had trouble with ears, but through dedication and close study I am starting to get the hang of them. When I am brushing my teeth and applying my face cream in the morning I find myself studying the parts of my own ears very closely as well and find to my amazement that there is actually very little difference between my ears and Vic's. Although ironically this painting has no ears in it at all - which rather makes this paragraph a bit pointless!

The progress with each painting is of course the most important thing to me at the moment. If I was not looking for improvement then I would have moved on to the next thing by this time, printing or medal making, but for some reason I seem to have the bit well and truly between my teeth and working really hard at the laying on of paint. Also I am trying to whittle away the caricature look in these portraits and I am happy to say that I think this one succeeds in this where the first ones definitely did not. Progress is always so satisfying don't you think.

Other progress is in the laying on of paint - I was especially happy with the jacket in this painting. I found it very satisfying to combine the reds and blues together and create one unified whole - or so i think. i did use a bit of pen and ink at the end, just along the bottom of the picture, but that was more to create a balance of ink across the whole picture. For the colour it was not necessary.

I have just finished a book about a little girl who throughout her growing up spends a lot of her time drawing and making things and basically living in a visual world. I was impressed with the way the author managed to describe a lot of things that I describe in this blog on a regular basis and also some of the things that I have yet to speak about, but have experienced and feel. She too spoke about the development of her art, not in such an aware way as I do here - because obviously I am much older, but in the way that most of us experience life and living at the time we are doing it - much more intuitively. As I dwell on it the book impresses me more and more as I can completely identify with the girl's development as an artist. Not her life, as that was a million miles away from the life I have lived so far.

I mention this here because reading about the journey (so well articulated) of another artist validates the importance of the work that I do. I could see how important it was in her life and that helps to make me feel that my life and my work is important too.

Sometimes I do not feel so worthy - but today I do and when i write my blog it makes me think about what I am doing in my work, which must be good.

So, if this picture is called "Something in his Eye" then this entry and indeed my whole blog and my whole life really could be called "Something in my Mind's Eye"