Chris Fedderson — MacroFine Musings ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Orchids and Eagles -- both rare, both beautiful. Last spring we had a bird build a nest in the underside of our second floor deck that stands over our ground floor patio. I think we had been out of town while the nest building was going on, as the bird didn’t seem to know how much daily activity there was going to be on the patio below, and the deck above, her nest. Our cat routinely dines on the second floor deck and then spends time on the ground floor where she wanders about on her leash or lounges in the patio chair that sits right below the nest. And we do plenty of clomping around on the deck during nice weather. Once the bird figured this out the nest was abandoned. After many weeks of watching just to be sure no one was using the nest, we decided to remove it and put it to good use. This winter as I was looking for new ways to create some great studio shots, I pulled the nest out of the box I had it stored in and went to work. This image, “Birth of an Orchid”, is the beginning of my experimentation with something new and different. I thought I’d try to find a way to capture the stunning attributes of orchids in unique ways and in unusual settings. So far I’ve developed a half dozen images of orchids — each displaying a unique aspect of The Orchid. What better way to Feathering Your Nest than with these unusual orchid images. As I was setting up the photo shoot, I finally examined the nest up close and was fascinated by not only the material but the amount of work that went into this very sturdy nest. It was also heavier than I thought it would be. I believe it’s a Robin’s nest and it’s about 7” across by 3” deep and made with assorted twigs, branches, grasses, leaves, pine needles, and oddly enough, plastic bits. Apparently the Robin also adds mud — made from earthworm poop — to the nest as she is building it to make it sturdy. I’m going to ignore the poop-thing, and still be fascinated by the construction. Birds are amazing nest builders. Some birds use spider silk as threads for their nests. Some build giant colonies of nests like apartment buildings. A bald eagle builds a nest that is 4-6 feet in diameter and may be just as deep. Imagine what kind of crazy studio set up we could do with that! Look out Anne Geddes! We live along a highly-trafficked bird migratory route, so we see a huge number of different birds and are continually spotting new species flying near our house. In Huntley Meadows, just a few miles from where we live, over 200 species of birds have been identified frequenting the park. It is a great place to visit, view birds, and see a few nests. Another really exciting development is at the National Arboretum. The Arboretum has a pair of hatchling Bald Eagles this spring for the first time in nearly 70 years! It is a wild eagle pair who are nesting on the grounds, and you can view them on the DC Eagle cam. Hurry, though, before the kids leave home!
Thank You for visiting, — Chris P.s. What unusual pairing of objects not usually associated with each other have you photographed? What have you imagined in your mind’s eye and are looking forward to shooting? Have you seen someone’s work you really admire for its juxtaposition? Share with us in the comments; we’ll trade ideas.
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Chris Fedderson — MacroFine Musings ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ What’s so great about trees, anyway? Trees' leaves fall off and we have to rake them up every year. Trees fall over and block roads or crash into our homes. Tree roots buckle our driveways and sidewalks and strangle our drains and sewer lines. And trees release their waste product into the air we breath. What?! Wait! Isn't that... oxygen?! Don’t we need that stuff to, you know, like, Survive?! The trees and other vegetation on land produce about half the oxygen in our atmosphere, with the other half coming from marine plankton, and they remove a proportionate amount of carbon dioxide from our air so we don’t suffocate. Not to mention the habitat they provide — both when standing and when fallen — for countless varieties of animal and plant life. Habitat that is absolutely essential to a balanced ecosystem. I’m not going to even touch on what they contribute to our food chain, lumber industry, by-product supplies, recreational and leisure uses, urban aesthetics, and on and on… According to WorldWildlife.org : “Some 46-58 thousand square miles of forest are lost each year—equivalent to 48 football fields every minute.” This equates to an area about the size of Alabama. Gone. Every year. And so, every year, every day, every minute, we decrease our world’s oxygen production capacity. How long can you hold your breath? EarthDay.org is announcing “Trees for the Earth (#Trees4Earth), a plan to plant 7.8 billion trees by Earth Day’s 50th in 2020. That is one tree for every person on the planet!” So, waddaya say? How about we each plant just one tree? Do you live in an apartment or some other arrangement that makes this prohibitive? Find an organization that is participating in planting trees and sponsor a tree… or maybe two! After all, if we end up planting more than 7.8 billion trees it won’t be the end of life as we know it. But if we don’t plant any, it might just will be… Thank You for visiting, — Chris P.s. We live in a townhouse and aren’t allowed to plant any trees in the common areas, so we just now donated to Arbor Day Foundation’s general donation fund. Quick. Easy. Fulfilling! I’ve listed a few links below to get you started finding organizations you can partner with. Or Google it up for your own area or preferences… [I am merely suggesting these, not endorsing any particular one] Our City Forest Arbor Day Foundation Earth Day Events Worldwide Trees For The Future Chris Fedderson — MacroFine Musings ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “ . . . landscapes are a genre explored by many artists, so if you’re going to stand out, you have to do it really well – and these are landscapes on the highest level.” — [art show] Jurors' comments about Ms. Gillmann’s work (Oct 2014) I recently had an opportunity to view the Best of the Best — at a print signing hosted by Kathleen Best Gillman, a landscape and plein air painter from Burke, Virginia. Working in oils, acrylics, or pastels, she portrays scenes of tranquility, harmony, peace, purity, and grace. We purchased one of her works titled Glacial Moraine which reminded us of scenes we have vsited in the high Sierras in California and in the Cascades in Oregon; two places we really look forward to visiting again. Kathleen Best Gillmann is a member of the Workhouse Associate Artists, as am I, and she recently agreed to let me interview her for this post to my blog. I had not interviewed anyone before, and had thought it would be so simple — you ask them stuff and they tell you stuff, just like every other conversation you’ve ever had, right? Well, you tell me how well I did after you read this, my first blog-speriment in interviewing… Q. What is “en plein air” painting? A. Simply stated, plein air painting is painting (or drawing) outdoors; the focus of the activity being the outdoors – landscape, sky, plant life. Q. The plein air painter will sit —literally— within her subject and paint what she sees before her. Do you ever paint from your imagination — portraying images from your visualizations in your mind’s eye? A. Since I have so much training and experience in drawing and painting from life, I find it difficult to paint or draw exclusively from my imagination. I had one teacher at the Art League School who gave us an exercise: first, look at the model for 5 minutes. Next the model leaves and you draw what you remember for 5 minutes. It was not impossible, but it was a challenge — a good one. This is an exercise in drawing from memory. Occasionally, I paint or draw from my imagination. I think what we carry around in our heads — our imagination and visual memory — does effect what we put on canvas or paper. Q. Do plein air painters finish a piece in one sitting or do you come back to a scene for additional sessions? A. These days there are plein air events where a painter is expected to complete something very rapidly. Plein air painting almost demands that the artist work quickly or return to the location at the same time of day for several days or weeks in a row. Typically plein air painting results in smaller works that are painted in one sitting. Some artists sell these directly. Others use them as studies for larger studio works. Some plein air artists work large and complete large works in one sitting. It all depends on the artist’s skill, experience, and intentions. Q. You’ve worked with several painting mediums — oils, acrylic, pastels — which do you find to be the most rewarding to your Inner Artist? A. It doesn’t matter which medium I use, all can be satisfying to my inner artist. When I am planning a work of art, my intuition often leads me to a particular medium. I sometimes do a particular composition in 2 or 3 media for the experience of working in several media and because I may want to see what the differences are, aesthetically. Q. If you had no obstacles, where or what in the world would you want to visit and paint? A. I seek out the amazing wherever I am. Sometimes the amazing is climbing in a shrub in my own backyard — a chipmunk. Sometimes I seek it out by driving up a mountain — Pike’s Peak, Colorado Springs, CO or to McCall, ID on Lake Payette or climbing up to the “Hanging Lake” not far from Glenwood Springs, CO. I’ve visited a lot of locations: many U.S. states, some of eastern Canada, many countries in Europe and South America. My bucket list of countries to visit includes Poland, England, Ireland, and Sweden because these people are my ancestors. I have an interest in seeing the Mediterranean — especially Greece and Italy —Japan, South Africa, more of South America, Israel, and some of the waterfalls and lakes in Africa. Q. At the print signing you recently hosted, we saw your two cats, Snizzle and Fritz (what are their real names?). What is their contribution to your art — besides cat hair stuck to the work? A. My cats, Feldspar and Galena, come into my studio usually with a demand — scratch my back, cuddle me, feed me, or let me out. So they provide constructive painting breaks or unwelcome interruptions. One time years ago, Galena decided to jump up onto my open palette. This created quite a commotion and messy feet and fortunately hasn’t happened since. I think we both learned a lesson. Well, it seems Kathleen has her work cut out for her visiting, and painting, all those intriguing places! In the meantime, she is going to be the Featured Artist for March at the Associate Artist’s gallery in Building 9 of the Workhouse Art Center. Come see a fine collection of her work, titled Atmosphere, and visit the work of all our fine, Fine Artists. The Workhouse offers many opportunities for you to expand your plein air experiences. We, the Associate Artists, are hosting a plein air session during the Workhouse-wide SpringFest, April 30th. Also, the Workhouse hosts a zillion classes all year long in all sorts of pursuits! For a downloadable PDF listing all these opportunities, go to the Workhouse website and in the ‘Classes’ tab click on ‘View Current Catalog’. Remember what they say: The eARTh without ART is just ‘eh’. Thank You for visiting, — Chris P.s. What is your favorite mode d’art? How did you come to favor this particular method or medium? What would you like to try that you haven’t yet? Tell us all about it in the comments — let’s compare notes. Chris Fedderson — MacroFine Musings Kathy Lawler, Guest Blogger ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It's about that time of year in our household when we are wishing winter was on its way out. Our thoughts are turning to spending time out doors in the sun where we can go on photo safaris to see spring in all its glory. But since we aren’t quite there yet we did the next best thing, brought a little spring home and went to work in the studio. It seems this time of year orchids are for sale just about everywhere. Turns out that orchids, according to the Rainforest Alliance, are the largest plant family in the entire world and there are over 25,000 different species of orchids – no wonder they're everywhere! Orchids have also been the flower we have never before dared to buy, only admiring from afar, for certainly growing them would be way beyond our abilities. But we took the plunge – we now have one – only 24,999 to go! We found this very photogenic variety, Phalaenopsis [fay~len~OP~sis] and we were told it was easy to grow. After getting two beautiful plants home we looked up the care and feeding of these lovelies. According to Missouri Botanical Garden site: “It serves as an excellent houseplant as long as basic growing conditions can be met. Best sites are on east window sills, but plants also grow well on well-shaded south or west sills, with growing conditions that include (a) temperatures at 72-85 degrees F in daytime and above 60 degrees F at night (a temperature drop to 55 degrees F at night in fall helps initiate flower spikes), (b) significant humidity (50-60 % - set pot on moist gravel tray with the base of the pot NOT standing in water and mist in morning), (c) bright light but no direct sun, (d) good air movement (ceiling fan is ideal), and (d) a potting mix of coarse fir bark or orchid bark mix that facilitates circulation of air and water. Plants will tolerate some brief temperature extremes, but temperatures in excess of 95 degrees F or below 55 degrees F should be avoided. Water thoroughly with tepid water in mornings only.” … OH REALLY!!!! It goes on and on from here! No wonder the name starts with the sound Phal (fail). Good news for all of us is that there are a number of beautiful orchids shows going on right now and we can visit and admire all sorts of varieties to our hearts content and not feel the least bit compelled to take home a living plant. The other great news is that you can visit the Workhouse Art Center in Lorton in March (March 9th through April 3rd) to see Chris’ excellent and unusual photos of orchids. These require no feeding or maintenance and will bring even more enjoyment to your home than the real (really hard to care for) thing. As you can see we had a great time in the studio trying new approaches to photographing orchids by raiding the cupboard for props and accentuating the natural beauty that is ... The Orchid.
Doesn’t mean we aren’t still waiting for spring. Thank You for visiting, — Kathy P.s. Have you tried to keep Orchids? How did you succeed? What's your favorite variety? Let us know in the comments how you overcame any problems... we'll compare techniques. And do be sure to come see Chris' Orchid Ovation show along with all the great Artwork on exhibit by the other great Associate Artists at the Workhouse, building 9. |
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About Chris
I am a Virginia-based photographer and gather my images while hiking in parks and natural areas here at home and in the locations I travel to. I also love to visit arboretums and botanic gardens to find unusual and exotic subjects. Archives
March 2017
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