I started doing a fun series of birds in December. I plan to post one per day for the “Twelve Days of Christmas” with a short poem from Tom for each. Hope you enjoy!
Yomp yomp yomp yomp! Yum!
Fine feast for fast flying friend
of all who feed me!
Image (c) 2020 Hilary Farmer
Poem (c) 2020 TJ Radcliffe
Green Tea Doodles 
Your sense/feeling for colour is so great. I can see the Chinese influence and yet you have not been overshadowed by your studies (which can easily occur such is the power of the great arts of East Asia, Viet Nam, and so on). If you take requests I would LOVE to see your take on a male red-winged blackbird. They lived in the marshes around the home of my youth, and their “ka-KREEE-ka” call still makes me practically fall asleep with bliss…
I grew up with red-winged blackbirds too. They lived in the marshes behind our house and their call was part of my growing up sound track. Since they’re not a winter bird for me, I didn’t do one for this series but I’ve enjoyed this so much, I expect I’ll be painting more birds – and a red-winged blackbird would be a great one to do! 🙂
This is wonderful! I love the light playing on his cheeks and the dappled colors on his belly ❤️
Thank you! They are such delightful birds! Glad you like it. 🙂
That is cool you also grew up with red-winged blackbirds. It guaranteed that you and I, if lost in the wilderness, knew where to find water. Just listen for the rwbb-s and you knew there would be water of some sort, hopefully clean enough to drink. You don’t want to get Beaver Fever!
Indeed! They were always near water – usually perched on a bull rush watching over a nest.
Growing up where I did gave me an appreciation for small birds. I used to go out into the forest and find a spot under a tree to sit, wedge myself down into the snow and sit motionless/soundlessly. After a few minutes the forest creatures would get back to their usual routines now that any hint of “danger” was gone. It is amazing how busy even the smallest section of forest is once the animals all give each other the “All is OK” signal. Magpies, chickadees, sparrows, pileated woodpeckers, crows, ravens, woodchucks, squirrels, deer, starlings, northern flickers, jays, & nuthatches wandering around upside down on tree trunks doing that quiet peeping: it is almost astonishing how much poop even a couple of starlings can leave around in mere minutes!
Lovely! 🙂
Sitting there in a meditation position half buried in the snow, surrounded by the thunderous silence of a forest, had such an amazing restorative effect. I always felt healthier and reinvigorated by going out there and letting the forest “heal” me. Years later I would discover that the Japanese had a word for this:
森林浴 – Shinrinyoku – “forest bathing”, going out into the forest and taking in the fresh air and dappling light through the trees. I am completely against religion, but meditating in the winter in the forest sure did have such a calming, uplifting effect that at least felt quasi-spiritual. Feelings are not facts, but it sure felt good.
I always feel refreshed and calmed walking through the forest. I beg to differ – Physiological responses to environments are facts! 🙂
What I meant by that is that what we feel “about” things are not facts – our biases are not Reality. We can know facts, but we ourselves are not inherently “right”. This is why humans will always have problems. We tend to assume that if we know something to be true, by a transitive property, we are imbued with an individual amount of “rightness”. And if we are often right, we can apply our rightness to other subjects, i.e. I am “right about” X and Y, so I must be “right about” Z. Feelings, by virtue of their subjectivity, are not, nor can be facts. Knowing is fact.
I understand but if a slower heart rate, lower blood pressure etc while forest bathing is measurable, then it’s a fact. 🙂 Maybe someone has done that study.
Once again I am not talking about facts I am talking about how one FEELS ABOUT facts. I never said or implied facts themselves are not facts (quantitative vs. qualitative).
“I think Frank Gehry’s works look terrible”. Not a fact. “Gehry’s works are structurally sound”. Fact. “I think Frank Gehry’s works are structurally sound”. NOT a fact, because our feelings and thoughts about something are not inherently facts, even if they coincidentally align. Like I said we ourselves are not correct if our opinions line up with the truth about something. facts are the only facts, we ourselves are either in possession of facts, or not. As you rightly point out, quantitative measurements like blood pressure (levels, amounts, weights) are facts. Proven correlation is fact. How we feel about facts is never inherently true (fact) even if our feelings happen to share the same information about something as a fact.
If our feelings were facts then it would be impossible for anyone to have any differing opinions about your art. I think/feel you are a great artist. That is the only opinion anyone can have if feelings are facts. In the 19th century there was a group n the USA that opposed the building of the railway because they believed women could not travel over 50 mph without sustaining major damage to their entrails! Not fact, just incredibly stupid, LOL!