Nature hides its secrets, the artist must be patient, waiting for the riddle to show itself. Usually it is quite subtle and the quiet spectacle of light is gone almost as soon as it’s noticed.
Light is what the photographer seeks to describe, to find it in a way that it might not have been noticed or seen before.
This is a series of treasures no one would notice, but I find them quite beautiful. Nature has always inspired me.
Light through windows
Subtle for a moment and just as quickly gone the true colors of leaves are defined and we see the extraordinary in the mundane beauty in the ordinary.
Rich autumn colors come inside bringing warmth to a silver afternoon I cling to color as the landscape turns gold than gray watching the last remnant of flame fade
It’s sad to see its wings useless how many miles had passed? last winter it hung trembling with others of its kind and it belonged somewhere in Mexico waiting to make the trip back only to lay on the concrete spent The final shaft of light autum the final stained glass window a remnant of spring fading
Besides my love of nature, I am an artist and the four winners in Texas have definitely got a lot of opportunities for art and photography. The Candlestick Plant is not only beautiful, it is a winner in the Texas Garden. It is important for the sulphur and similar butterflies to feed their young.
The are also easily grown from seed and will grow with very little attention. They love the heat.
Another aspect of this plant is that it’s so easy to grow, very little watering and I’ve never fertilized any of my plants. After the flowers are exhausted, the seeds are very abundant. You will see many seedlings the next season or two.
Spectacle of Candlestick Plants – Sulphur Caterpillar
Wildlife Gardening Importance
This is the visitor you can expect, the caterpillar of the cloudless sulphur. Every year I get a few of them and I’ve had this plant in my garden every year for probably the last ten years.
Another senna that looks much like the candlestick plant is the Popcorn Senna (Cassia didymobotrya). This plant also attracts the sulphur butterflies and looks like a paler version of the candlestick plant but it also smells like its name suggests.
Spectacle of Candlestick Plants – Sulphur Caterpillar and budsSulphur Butterfly
Candlestick plants love the heat and I don’t think I have ever watered them. In the evening they close up their large mimosa like leaves and the whole plant looks like its praying. I will always have them in my garden and am in the process of selling their seeds as well.
The whole reason I started wildlife gardening was to attract wildlife. I have been able to photograph the cloudless sulphurs, clouded sulfurs and several cabbage whites that come for the nasturtium and lay their eggs on siennas as well. My work has been rewarded and I love to be able to photograph and paint the plants and butterflies as well.
Milkweed plants for Monarch – I have always been a lover of nature and wildlife gardening seemed a natural connection to my writing, photography and painting. If you build a wildlife friendly garden, they will find you.
My garden has been the subject matter for many photography posts, art and writing. There are several species of plants you need to have in your garden and the fact that they are native will make your garden almost care-free.
You need to feed the adult birds, allow spaces for birds to hunt for food without chemicals, raise their families and drink. You need to feed the caterpillar young and have a place for the adults to feed on nectar, again no chemicals.
The first plant you need to have to help the monarch butterfly population rebound is milkweed. There are all different species but try to stick with the native species.
Another plant that is available more than the native species is mexican milkweed, also known as blood flower. It’s a tall plant that can reseed and it feeds the young of the monarch.
For the adults, they love Frostweed and Zinnias. Both of these plants will attract them to your garden and you will not need to do much to keep these plants wild. Zinnias actually will grow well from seed and frostweed will reseed itself and feed many other species of nectar loving butterflies.
Fruits of Labor – I set up fruit for a still life and it’s been sitting on a table for the last week and nothing has happened. There is a distinct difference between being inspired and just not shooting. After a bit of a break and getting back to being present in the moment, See Wichita post, suddenly the images made themselves known.
It is seeing the way light paints objects that drive my creative response. It’s how the background blends and fades into varying colors that are ethereal and muted. I felt like these images were what I was searching for, why I went and bought blood oranges and pomegranate.
Suddenly with a bit of creative magic, the mundane suddenly shows itself and there is a brief moment where the artist finds the beauty and excitement in the everyday.
As quickly as I set up one shot, another quality of light made it known and suddenly one shot turns into multiple images. I am planning on adding these images to the artwork for home decor, just abstract enough to be interesting and yet I hope there is a sense of place in the images. Please feel free to let me know what you think and as always, thank you.
Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge – A sunset on Mount Scott as I rushed to capture the last bit of light.
The Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge is an amazing prairie with sweeping buttes, free range longhorns and bison and many small brilliant blue lakes.
I can’t say enough about the feeling of being away from everything. There are prairie dogs in open fields and meadowlarks in bright yellow flocks rising and falling in rich brown fields of native grasses.
I would also recommend the blue hole for a rugged hike surrounded by waterfalls and deep gorges. There is a holy city and a great network of trails that go all through the park.
A Cheetah watches the spectators, I loved the depth in its eyes.
A Weekday at the Zoo – I have wonderful memories of zoos growing up. My dad had a passion for travel and zoos were one our families’ favorite destinations. My brother and I have since carried on that passion for travel with our families.
A female lion watches intently at the guests in a coffee shop at the Dallas Zoo.
A matriarch chimp takes a moment from grooming to view its surroundings.
Caverns, aquariums and zoos are some of our favorite places for my son and I to explore and we have magnets to remember each one.
We have been to the Dallas zoo many times but it’s a different experience when you go alone. Even as my son got older, he would have specific animals he was interested in, usually he would antagonize the monkeys.
At the Dallas Zoo, a giraffe is alert for food, they have a place where you can feed them specific leaves they sell.
The experience was usually fast-paced but today I went alone. Even though I missed his company, it was a unique feeling being alone.
I spent the first thirty minutes watching the gorillas. I talked to the zookeeper and learned about each gorilla by name and she told me about the chimps.
I close-up of a Komodo Dragon, he was as curious about me as I was of him.
When you’re alone you get to stop, you have no agenda, only getting photographs of specific animals. I was able to enjoy each animal in a relax unhurried pace.
This isn’t something you see everyday. A bushmaster has a guest for dinner.
I spent much time in the reptile house and because it was during the week, it was uncrowded. I got to listen to the zoo keepers information about the elephants and I I learned not just more about each animal but about the zoo and what they were doing to protect certain species.
A Green Mamba looks for the zookeeper to feed them.
There are so many more zoos I need to visit, across the country and across the sea, so many more animals to enjoy. It is the child in me that loves to see animals and though I would prefer to see them in their natural habitat, I am glad zoos are a beacon for society to see that these amazing animals are worth saving.
A great African Elephant, I liked the texture of the trunk.
These are portraits from the animals at the Dallas Zoo. I hope you enjoy and will seek out a zoo near you.
A gorilla, I sat and watched him for a while, he was thoughtful and relaxed. I loved the feeling in its’ eyes.
Artbygordon abstractions of nature become art for home and office: Naturally Graphic
Abstractions of Nature – I love the patterns in nature. As an artist, finding a unique perspective that can show a viewer something they might not have seen before is a large part of my artistic intent.
I have always painted landscapes and seascapes but I could never perfect what is already real. I am competing with the greatest artist of them all: God. All I can hope for is to show the viewer an aspect of that image that moved me and perhaps move the viewer with the same or varied feeling.
As I have been photographing more regularly, I have found the need to see deeper than just the landscape. Especially when the light does not cooperate with the subject or doesn’t show up at all.
I learned to isolate parts of nature when my desire to photograph didn’t lend itself to the light of the day. On a gray winter day, when there is nothing but flat, bland light and no objects are discernible by any effective modeling, I have discovered a new way of seeing the landscape.
I started seeing how images were painted by stray bits of light. Suddenly instead of a bland landscape, I was able to find just a piece of that landscape that could be a graphic object. I don’t even care if the final image is discernible, it is more the aspect of its abstract nature that intrigues me.
modern interior room with a beautiful furniture
I have started gathering autumn leaves, green leaves and patterns in water, in the past I would have struggled to find something in abstract but now the image jumps out at me. It’s a muscle and to strengthen this way of seeing the landscape has changed my whole outlook on contemporary art.
I believe that bringing nature into the house can evoke a calm center as well as a conversation piece for visitors. I like how without representing a specific subject, the image evokes something without trying too hard to be abstract or artsy. I have found my way to the abstract and contemporary subject.
Interiors are from Adobe Stock-Photographic art Artbygordon
Parkhill Prairie – I got lost in the long flowing stalks of bluestem grasses, the great blue sky looming above where hawks dance in slow spirals. I sat on the cold, moist ground and listened to what it might have been like when bison and Indians roamed the backland prairie.
The clouds drifted with a calm indifference, the wind breathed and than exhaled followed by a ritual silence. Meadowlarks flew in patterns from fences and crows called out breaking the stillness, it is like going back in time.
I guess the fact that the winter chill that settled in my spine and slapped my exposed skin with pins and needles would be a good incentive not to go to the prairie. I assume that’s why both times I’ve gone there has been no one there but I consider it my oasis of silence.
I am comfortable sitting on the cold ground. My breath is still, my senses charged with the sounds as I try not to miss anything. I can hear cattle in the background and even a truck in the far distance but for the most part all is consumed with the rush of the wind through the grasses.
All that moves is the grasses, swaying back and forth as if haunted and the clouds marching passively across the plane, I am in awe of the silence and calm.
I have been dwarfed by mountains, the ocean but never by a huge open field. I have images of our history and it’s inhabitants that made a life out here and imagine the distant cows that cry out now were probably the sounds of wagon trains and troops of coyotes, maybe even the bison.
The coyotes are still here, I see their tracks and scat but the bison are long gone. There hawks of all kinds, the red tail, the kestrels and the prairie falcon, their mood is pensive with a mission. They rise and fall in the golden field as it should be.
I learned about this place from a trail guide at the Blackland Prairie Raptor Center and I have been back twice. Yet another great place I learned about from the Blackland Prairie Raptor center, great people and wonderful birds with lots of knowledge, if you haven’t gotten a chance to go on the first Saturday of the month, I would highly suggest going.
Barn Owl from the Blackland Prairie Nature Center photo by artbygordon
Blackland Prairie Raptor Center is doing all of these important aspects of wildlife preservation. I visited their first Saturday of the month, it’s the only time they’re open to the public and they show the birds that pass through their center.
They keep the birds as wild as they can be, even the imprinted birds that haven’t learned to live in the wild are treated with the respect and dignity they deserve. It is quite an impressive operation and much of what I have learned about the Blackland Prairie is from talking with the naturalists there.
Barn Owl from the Blackland Prairie Nature Center photo by artbygordon
They take the time to show you each bird they have and explain their unique situations. I was impressed with how much the children knew about the birds and the difference between nocturnal and diurnal.
Preregrine Falcon from the Blackland Prairie Nature Center photo by artbygordon
Every time I go to the center I learn something I didn’t know. Here is a list of some more things I’ve learned from my visit today.
1. A flock of Kites is a kettle. The mississippi kite is expanding its range southward. With age comes the more grey plumage and it feeds on mostly insects.
2. I’ve never heard a barn owl hiss up close. They also shriek and it can be quite piercing to the ear.
3. The tuffs of feathers on the head of the owls break up their round shape and make them harder to see in the wild.
4. A barn owls ears are so intense they can hear a heartbeat and they can actually attack a mouse under the snow without even seeing them.
Screech Owl from the Blackland Prairie Nature Center photo by artbygordon
5. Owls have tubular eyes that are more fixed than other animals and therefore they need to swivel their heads to see.
After the bird show we took a hike on the trails and we learned about blue stem grasses, native grass and invasive non-native species. I learned about another place I had never heard of before today and I very much enjoyed my visit, the park is the Parkhill Prairie near Blue Ridge and it was an amazing visit where I saw hawks and vultures flying in their environment.
Red Tailed Hawk from the Blackland Prairie Nature Center photo by artbygordon
Great Horned Owl from the Blackland Prairie Nature Center photo by artbygordon
Painting Deliberately – There are so many different feelings when you paint, sometimes it’s pushing paint around, sometimes it’s deliberate, even mechanical and sometimes it’s instinctual, tonight’s sitting was a little bit of all of them.
I started with an under painting and it was one of the more deliberate paintings I’ve started, unfortunately I didn’t have the full picture, just an idea of clouds moving forward over the viewers head. The actual image is from real life, I have photographs for reference but I’m not completely sure where the clouds end and what the landscape looks like.
I painted the background with perspective lines, every form, every color and every space will be designed with the idea of perspective and I want the viewer to feel overwhelmed by the clouds overhead.
As I tend to do, I switched gears after finishing a monochromatic under painting I turned to the painting of a scene from beneath Shark River Inlet in Belmar New Jersey. This painting was inspired thirty plus years ago and it still stood clear.
I painted with a clear feeling of purpose but as suddenly as it began it ends and I wasn’t sure if I was done with the painting or should start all over. The problem is the idea and image is strong but the recollection is so hard to bring back to mind. I will continue to study it until I know it’s either done or time to start over.
Another thing about painting, sometimes you feel like you’ve created your best work and sometimes the same painting looks like a mistake. I got back to the grackles above the city, an image that I started at the end of the last series, again I had that feeling of instinct kick in and for thirty minutes or so I painted like I figured out the problem.
None of the paintings are finished but I feel like I’m shaking off the stagnation and getting in the process. The most exciting thing about painting instinctual is that images appear that you didn’t necessarily know you were creating they just come out of the details you’ve worked in feverishly.
I’m excited about this series and feel it will be a huge step toward my future painting style and feel.
Stay tuned, more paintings coming very soon.
Original art in oils and pastel, celebrating nature
