Talking Crows

Here, thanks to Photoshop, are both sides of a Mylar template used in oil-based ink monotype work. Sometimes I find the residual ink is so interesting that I just let it dry and tack it up on the wall. Since I use the templates over and over, the many layers of ink from different printing sessions adds an interesting dimension.

Sprite Crows in India

Hurray for the ad firm in India that came up with this commercial based on the intelligence of crows.

Crow Crust 3

Crow Crust 2

Crow Crust 1

Crow Siblings

Street Smart Crows

Crows adapt very nicely to the urban and suburban environment. Keeping their poses, but changing every other visual bit of information presents a different picture. This is a detail from one of my paintings, Street Smart.

Button-eyed Crow

You can turn yourself (or any lovely crow you have a photo of) into a button-eyed beauty at www.Coraline.com.

Bean Twist Crow

Bundled Wire Crow

Butch and Sundance: Wild Crows of the West

Collage Crow

Polka Dot Crow

Hieroglyphic Crow

Valentine Crow

Pecan in the Parking Lot

So I got to my apppointment early and pulled in the Target parking lot to figure out the hands-free phone contraption in the car. A lone crow was cruising for something to eat. It has been raining a lot lately, so all the birds come out during the dry periods and look for food. In the suburbs, of course, where better for a crow to search than parking lots.

Always prepared for corvid contact, I had a bag of pecans handy. I got out of the car with the bag and krinkled it up so it would make that good "food is in this kind of bag" noise. The crow was immediately alerted. Paused. Watched. Waited. I dropped a few nuts, lightly broke the shell and retreated to the car. I'll have to start carrying a better camera than the iPhone has if I'm going to keep this up.

Nobody Flocks With Randy

Got this in the mail, from Michele Jamison, who tells me "there's a Crow Bar in Shoshone, CA...just south of Death Valley."

Birdlime Blush Crow

22 Crow

Detail Crow #2

An attentive American Crow. Detail from my painting, Silent Discussion.

Crow Above the Traffic

I've been taking lots of photographs of clouds lately, since we've actually had some for a change. Found an American Crow, too.

Crow in Charge

...and he/she seems like a crow with a definite action in mind.

Detail Crow

This engaging crow is one of two in a painting of mine, Silent Discussion.

Corvid Constellation

This is an detail from a painting of crows flying through roiling waves with flecks of foam mirroring the constellations. I love being able to show the wing feathers in such a graceful way.

Corvid Knock Down

...or, you could say, how one crow gets the message across that "It's My Peanut!"

Corner Corvid

I did a line drawing in a sketchbook once that I never finished. I liked the attitude of the bird's head. Today I cut the corner of a piece of recycled paper in the shape of the drawing. Maybe the positive section I removed will show up one day.

Zip Disk Crow

Well, finally. I thought I would see a crow everywhere I looked. I see faces in kitchen implements, parking meters, clouds--you name it. Surely I can spot a few corvids. Didn't. Couldn't. And then, cleaning out the computer stuff, I popped open a zip disk. I never did before and had no idea that the "disk" was this circular Mylar looking thing. A perfect beak. Anyone else spot crows in disguise? Send them in!

Corvid Lookout

This monotype, Watcher #5, was done with a lot of layering of a water-soluble ink, Akua Kolor. One of the reasons that I love using crows to represent birds is the ease with which you can read their body language. Deliberately omitting beaks and eyes, I invite the viewer to interpret the intention of the bird. What will it do in the next second of its life? Don't you get the feeling that it depends on what YOU are going to do? Think about it. In the instant captured in this image the crow will take immediate action depending on your motion or stillness. On a larger scale, what humans do is a very large determining factor in the lives of our wild species.