Critters
“April Chippies”
Eastern Chipmunk, Blood Root (white wildflower), Spider, Beetle and a slightly hidden Blue Jay feather … a nod to Sally Middleton who long ago showed me I didn’t have to fill the paper.
Thank you Sally! Though I never met you, you influenced me greatly!
Archival giclee signed and numbered limited edition (500) from a gouache and pencil original
“Beauty and the Beast”
Male and Female Diana Fritillary Butterflies, a nine-banded Armadillo and an assortment of wildflowers
Signed and numbered limited edition giclee (500) from a gouache & pencil original
“Reclaiming the Old Homestead”
Cotton-tail Rabbits, Wild Violets and an assortment of things humans discarded
Archival giclee signed and numbered limited edition (500) from a gouache and pencil original
“Too Early for Strawberries”
White-footed Mouse in a weedy tangle
He has treasures - a marble and part of a tea cup. One man’s trash is a mouse treasure!
Archival giclee signed and numbered limited edition (500) from a gouache and pencil original
All of the prints are archival giclees produced by us and in our studio. The term "giclee" refers to the printing process. This process provides wonderful color accuracy and detail without the dot pattern of an offset lithograph. David scans the original and uses photoshop to correct colors. Color correcting is a skill and can go quickly or take days of trying. We have a large format Epson printer and use Epson's archival inks on acid-free Somerset Velvet paper. The inks are light-fast and under normal household conditions will not fade for 100 years.
We have a small pond that’s feed by a rocky waterfall and chipmunks make their home there. I love watching them! They are so fast with tails held up like bumper cars! I watching them waddle off with cheeks full of sunflower seeds and wonder in what underground passage their treasure trove is located. Do mice raid the stash? Are there underground wars I’m totally unaware of ….
Other critters visit our pond and waterfall as we watch from the deck and windows. Four very young raccoons came exploring one morning. Marching in one perfect line, perhaps on their first adventure without Mom, the masked marauders probed every bit of shoreline and then trotted away happy. They visited several times but when a couple of bird feeders were sacrificed we relocated them to a national park.
Turtles, deer, possum and neighborhood dogs are pond visitors but the frogs are residents! They own the pond and spring with frogs is deafening! The clamor increases day by day till we can’t use the deck! We have to close the windows and give them a week to settle down. You just have to experience it to understand.
For several years we had a happy ground hog we named Ralph that would wobble in from the woods, mount the stairs and spend time just enjoying life on the deck. We think he could better survey his territory from that height. After maybe a half hour, he would decend and wobble off towards a different area of the woods where, I imagine, his lady friend waited for him.
Life in the woods is never dull or quiet!