More Fisher Cat!

The past week and a half I have been out to Beaver Brook scouring the edges of the fields looking for all the cool birds that are passing through, I have seen a great variety, from Scarlet Tangers to palm warblers, many of these I have never seen before. I will be doing a post in the next week or so with a collection of these images. Today I would like to share some images I captured this morning of a fisher cat. I was hiking quietly along a new trail and discovered a Fisher cat who was too busy to realize I was there, This would mark the second time I have seen one in person. Glad I had the camera.

Fisher Cat!

Just finished moving to beautiful Hollis NH, I am surrounded by vast tracts of forest and huge farm fields, I love it here. I have been hiking daily and shooting some photos, feeling a renewed urge to create, check back soon!

I was pretty happy to have captured a daytime photo of a fisher cat on my trail camera. I plan to have the camera set up as much as possible this spring. I have this dream that there must be bob cats around here! We will see.

Hybrid Mallards

This is a first for me. I had first thought this was a Green Wing Teal, but after looking at the photos I realized it was actually a Mallard that had been hybridized with a American Black Duck, this LINK makes it ver clear what happened. Nature never ceases to amaze me!

New Hampshire Fox!

Red Fox in Hollis, NH Click image to enlarge


I had a great weekend exploring a tract of land owned by the Beaver Brook Association in Hollis, New Hampshire. I am excited for several reasons about this. The land is located a mere 8.5 miles from where I live, second, for a wildlife photographer like myself it seems to be teeming with life. I saw more deer and turkey in the first hour than I normally do in weeks around here. Another reason I have really been drawn to this land is how similar it is to my beloved Tarrywile Park where I started shooting. While the trees are not quite the same, the general layout of the land is. Its steep and thick, and has a lot of small open field areas as well, very similar to Tarrywile. On Saturday I hiked 6.95 miles from 10:30 am-almost 4pm. My legs were toast. I rarely found my self on trails, instead i explored the entire perimeter of the southern parcel. Today after trying unsuccessfully to paint for a few hours, I felt the need to be outside. I packed up and headed back over to Beaver Brook.



Catching a mouse, or vole? Click image to enlarge

Ill take this to go please. Click image to enlarge

About a mile from the parking area I spotted this Red Fox hunting for mice, and actually saw it get one, might have been a vole. He seemed healthy in actions but his fur seemed to have areas of missing hair, possible the onset of mange or a really bad fight. Got some fun shots most were blurry because i was so excited i could feel my hand shaking as I was trying to hold still.

Spring is upon us, one more big storm, tonight and I look forward to some sunny days, although I know i should probably not hold my breath. I have seen a bunch of ducks already starting to migrate through and will try to get some photos of them, Several pairs of Hooded Mergansers, and a new one for me, the Golden Eye. Photos coming soon.

More work on the turkey

I feel like i have been working on this FOREVER, but truth is that I am close to finishing, not sure when but here are 2 shots from last sessions I had on it. I am savoring the last few strokes of this one. It will almost be sad to finish it. I have started another larger painting of a Barred Owl, I will try to post the first few shots of it in the next few days. Also planning to paint some Koi fish. So far keeping with my new years resolution of a painting a month!
Stage 25??




The current painting below.

Fire in Nashua

Around 930am this past Monday I was at work headed to get some food from the fridge and saw a plume of smoke rising from the center of Nashua, I headed over to have a closer look. I heard fromt he fire chief that it was the biggest fire in Nashua in over ten years. With the camera I was able to get pretty close, i thought that was all good, until a down draft sent the black smoke createdfrom the asphalt roof down into the street choking me so bad i gasped for air through my sweatshirt, after that i backed way off!

An Old Friend

I pulled the Turkey painting back out this past weekend. I started this painting in April 2008! Id say a solid 6 more hours and it will be looking good!


click image to enlarge

More Icicles

This one is getting insane



They just keep Growing!!!

These are on my building at work 100 factory street in Nashua. They have since fallen off..

Growing Icicles

I saw this insane icicle growing next to where I live. I thought it was big on Wednesday, I took these photos Yesterday ( Thursday) I cant wait to see how it looks today. It was pretty warm here yesterday and I bet it either broke off or grew even longer. Check back, I'll shoot some photos on the way into work today. Friday whoohoo!


I wanted to thank everyone who visits my website, I have had more traffic this month than anytime in the past 3 years. I am in the process of totally changing over my site to a new format, with luck, should be done in the next month or so. it looks great so far!

3 for Tuesday

A few random fun shots from the past week..

1. Find the Northern Flicker. There is a Flicker and a Robin in this tree.

Click to enlarge


2. A very well used deer trail.


Click to enlarge



3. My cat wishing the door was open just a bit.



Going to check out some houses this weekend, looking forward to making the permanent studio!

A run-in with Fame.

Looking back at the past 33 years I can recall 3 specific times where I have run into someone of genuine fame. The first experience came when I was on a 7th grade field trip to NYC. After watching an amazing practice performance of the New York Philharmonic featuring Sarah Chang, our class headed over to FAO Schwartz where we bumped into Candace Cameron. In 1988, this was pretty amazing given her stellar performances as D.J. on Full House. Either way, it was pretty cool to meet someone I saw on TV, and even come away with an autograph! Still, kind of embarrassing to admit nowadays.

The second run-in with fame was 3 years ago in Morgantown, West Virginia at a hotel. I had been out there for our annual sales meeting when I worked as a designer for Cannondale Bicycle Corporation. There were rumors of a few famous musicians who were staying in the same hotel, a few of which belong to one of my favorite bands, Phish. Short story even shorter, I was getting ready to go to dinner in my hotel room when my roommate Ron came in and said "Dude, I think that guy from Phish is out in the hallway." I jumped up, ran to the door, whipped it open, and there he was: Trey Anastasio AND Mike Gorden from Phish. I was able to muster some conversation while trying to remain composed like it was no big deal. I mean, its JUST Trey. Since 1995, I have spent thousands of dollars and driven thousand of miles to see him play over 20 times. No big deal. And his room is right next to mine?! They were cool enough to leave an all access pass for the All Good Festival at the front desk.

Morgantown , WV


That leaves the latest, third run-in with fame. I remember when the video, You Were Meant For Me, came out on MTV. I had always had an appreciation for Jewel's music -- probably for the folk aspect that I enjoy so much in many other bands I listen to. Through this amazing thing, Facebook, I befriended her and surprisingly exchanged a few matter-of-fact emails. It’s pretty cool to be able to talk with her on a level that is the same as just talking to any of my friends, and to hear about her horses, music, and her 2,200 acre ranch in Texas. When talking about art, I shared my website and was excited to hear awesome feedback on some of my paintings. Wow, Jewel, winner of three Grammy Award nominations and sold over 20 million albums in the U.S. alone is checking out MY art! Craazy. Also a visual artist, we agreed to trade some drawings. I took on attempting to draw a photo portrait that she sent me. I don't draw a lot of faces so this was a challenge for sure, no pressure, its just Jewel. I started the drawing one night at home. I was about halfway done and took a quick break to eat. Upon returning to the drawing I somehow got some of my dinner on the piece of folded paper I put under my hand when I draw to avoid smudging. I tried to quickly wipe it off, but it was not going to come off. I needed to start over. Damn, it was coming along pretty good. So over the next few days I attempted it again with greater success. I sent it off to her Nashville studio looking forward to see what kind of sketch I was getting in the trade. Good on her word, her drawings showed up yesterday! A pretty neat story, a new friend, and some new art to hang on the wall!



Drawing one I received from Jewel! I really like this one, this is the sad one.


Drawing #2..this one is my favorite, full of hope and good energy.

Finished Portrait that I sent

The original one I started then got dinner on it.

Hawks

I wanted to share some recent hawk pictures, the oldest, a Red-Shouldered Hawk were taken at Christmas time in my home town of Berlin. The pair of juvenile Red-Tailed Hawks I spotted this weekend in Dunstable, Mass. Amazing snow this weekend, I spent a few hours hiking and photographing branches for an upcoming painting of a Barred Owl. Updates to follow
Bill

Finished a new painting!

My first official painting done entirely in New Hampshire! I feel very proud of this new one! Much more to come !



Winter Pheasant $450

more of the new Painting

Step 4 slowly starting to develope the background trees more, adding snow to the branches. Now the barn comes in. I started it out very bright red but it will get adjusted as needed later. that red color will show through washes of highlight and shadow.



Step 5 I had to darken the sky a bit to make the roof line of the barn stand out with out getting lost. I also want to get the feeling of a field out behind the barn, its starting to get there. The pine tree on the right is started, I need to work on it to get it to look to proper scale. The white blobs on it right now are not indications of snow but rather a way for me to go back and make it look as if your seeing though the branches. I need to add more branches and detail over that white as the paint dries. Another hour or so and i will start the immediate foreground and the main subject!

Painting again!

Hello and happy New Year....I made a New Years resolution to dedicate time every week to paint. I started this weekend, and basically had to blow the dust off my brushes that have been idle for almost 7 months. The painting....i wanted to do something that was not only appropriate for the time of year, but also something on the smaller side, and not to over whelming...like getting into the pool, nice and easy. I found a few pictures online to build the background and will be adding elements from photos I have taken to create this farm scene with a ring-neck pheasant in the foreground, I expect to finish it this week ( a quicky!) so check back soon to see my progress.
Bill


step 1. I like to sand and gesso my canvases at least 3 times before starting, then i begin by sketching the furthest elements with pencil or water color pencil




step 2 Although its mainly a white painting i mix raw umber, panes grey and white and yellow oxide to give the "white" subtle hue, this will help add lots of depth later on when i can use nearly pure white to make highlights. then i started to lightly fill in the elements furthest away with thin washes, using an old fan brush and a jagged piece of seasponge i have had forever.

setp 3. continue to develope many layers of washes, and adding indications of details, without attempting to draw every branch.

Snow!

Hello and happy New Year!! Hope every one had a safe Holiday season.

I had a great hike the other day and was able to enjoy the silence of walking in freshly fallen snow. Keeping wind direction in mind , I was able to get nice and close to these bedded deer.


A few days later I went on a hike in my old home town of Berlin, Connecticut a day after Christmas. I have found it to be much more difficult to get an image of a buck there, I think the population seems to be a little smaller than other places I go. I had some good luck and after about an hour of hiking I found a over grown field on some land that has recently been declared 'open space'. I had some luck and had this nice little 5 point 2.5 year old buck walk right up to me. I tucked in behind a tree and waited till he got very close befor taking the picture below. As i had figured, as soon as the shutter fell he became very cautios and fled within a minute. After bumping about 5 doe from bedding areas in the middle of the over grown orchard I discovered the remains of a buck. Upon further investigation I discovered a strange antler growing straight down below his eye on one side, and no antler at all on the other. My guess is that he sustained some sort of injury that eventually took his life when winter set in. All this was possible because of my new GPS . I will do an entery about it soon.


First Berlin Buck I have photographed!

Unusual antler.

Ice storm!

Hello and welcome back. Im sure Lots of you have heard about the crazy Ice storm we had up here in the North East. They say at the peak 320,000 people ( myself included) were with out power by Friday morning. As of today, they claim 96,000 are STILL with out power. I was luck to be able to flip on the coffee maker as soon as late Friday Morning.
An account of my experience.
I knew when I got home last night we were in for it. As I turned on my Christmas lights, I noticed a slight buildup of ice on the bulbs and wires. It was misting, and the temp was dropping. I rubbed my hands together and imagined waking up to a world of crystallized ice trees. I checked my camera battery, poured a glass of water, when all of the sudden, snap! The power went out. Left in darkness, I lit a candle and headed for bed. Throughout the night I was awakened many times to the sound of snapping branches. Finally a weak, dreary, morning glow revealed the power of a little mist and cold temperatures....alas, my world of ice was before me begging to get its picture taken. I was happy.


Thankfully MY white Toyota did not meet the same fate as my neighbors.