Robin Arnold Art

These two birds enjoying a cup of coffee on a cold winter's day is my first ever digital drawing. For years I've wanted to try this but never got around to it for various reasons. In the last few months I bought the Mac I've always wanted and a drawing tablet. Unfortunately, it looked like my digital drawing  was going to end before I ever got started because of the pain it caused in my hand and arm. I had the tablet all packed up, ready to send back to NYC, when my spouse insisted on going to Staples and buying me a better, more ergonomic chair. I unpacked the tablet and gave it another try and it made a huge difference. I won't be giving up on traditional media but this was a lot of fun....except when I overdid the "Undo" button and lost half of my painting! This was done in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet. The painting printed beautifully on my Epson 1480 and I even made a few cards to send out for Christmas. This is for sale as a 5x7 or 8x10 print i

I've been going through a rough stretch with my drawing lately so I was ecstatic when I finally came up with something cute and funny that wasn't a total mess. This still needs some tweaking but I like the idea. When I redo this I think I'll make the bird with the stocking smaller and rounder and bring the birdhouse over to the left and up a bit. I'm also not sure about painting them yellow. Red birds would have looked better but I thought it may be too much with the red stockings. Merry Christmas!

September has been quite a month on our 12 acres. Within less than two weeks I had rescued a budgie(parakeet) and a rogue rooster. I first spotted the budgie one evening as we were shutting up the chickens. He was sitting on a bush in  our backyard. My first reaction was "rare bird" but I soon calmed down after looking at the yellow blob with binoculars. Definitely a budgie. I tried to capture him that evening but he flew off to the top of a very large willow tree. Over the next couple of days we spotted him off and on under the bird feeder but he always flew off with the wild birds every time we walked out the back door. About 3 days later, on our wedding anniversary, I saw him sitting on our chainlink fence all by himself...no other birds around. I grabbed some bird seed and slowly walked over to him, fully expecting him to fly away. He didn't. He let me put my seed-filled hand in front of him and he started to eat the food. While he was eating, I carefully brought up

We have some very large bullfrogs on our property and yesterday I saw three sitting in the shade of a maple that grows on the edge of the pond. I wanted to get a photo of one of the monsters and while I was fiddling around with my camera and trying to get into a good position, I noticed something sticking on its skin near the frog's mouth. I figured it was a blade of grass but when I finally got a closer look I saw it was a spring azure butterfly. I couldn't believe the frog didn't eat it's friend. Blame it on the extreme heat or the frog had just ate a very large meal. We are in a moderate drought so there is the possibility that the butterfly was getting a much-needed drink off the frogs moist skin. Much better than getting your feet muddy near the edge of the pond. And yes, I do plan on using this photo for a drawing/painting :)

Earlier this week we were taking a walk around the marsh and we saw a pair of Canada geese sitting on top of a muskrat den. We figured it was the same pair who nested there last year but as we got closer we noticed there was something not quite right with one of the geese. It's head was wasn't dark black and the bill and feet were orange, not black as they should be. I took some photos and posted them on FB to get some opinions on this odd goose. Turns out this is a hybrid goose and after doing some research it seems likely a Canada goose mated with a Greylag domestic goose.  This is a photo of the hybrid goose swimming with his mate in our pond. I was surprised a female would pick a mate who was not the norm but I guess it's not a big deal to her. The hybrid also doesn't sound like a Canada goose as you can hear in the video below. This pair is still fighting with another pair for the rights to a  nesting spot in our marsh so it will be interesting

Gena and I decided to walk  a few laps around our marsh yesterday afternoon but we didn't get very far before we were waylaid by several chickadees looking for a hand-out. It was a cold day with a bitter northeast wind but it was well worth the frozen and numb fingers to bond with these adorable little birds. The chickadees will eat of Gena's or my hand but in this video Gena is feeding them while I documented it with my new point and shoot camera. This is a great little camera to take on walks because it's nice and light...a lot easier than carrying heavy DSLR equipment. Not long ago it was a big deal to have 1-2 chickadees feed from our hand but the population is slowly growing and yesterday there must have been 3-5 birds flying in for a treat. When we first started feeding them a year ago they would fly in close to investigate but they wouldn't perch on our hand. We solved that problem by placing our hand under a small branch where the chickadees could safe

Gena and I are again in search of salamanders. The last 4 years put a huge damper on our evening activities because of Gena being unceremoniously dumped on afternoon shift. After 47 years of working in a lab she officially retired at the end of 2015 so we can now pick up where we left off. We went out two nights when the conditions seemed to be perfect--warm and rainy--but we didn't see anything except hundreds of earthworms. We know they're out there somewhere but until we actually find a live one I will have to be content to draw pics of what it would be like to shine the flashlight on one or two of these amphibians. This intriguing pair  were big enough to chew off a foot but fortunately they were smiling and seemed quite friendly. I have no clue where they got the umbrella!

 Gena and I have had a problem with this ever since we've had chickens. We also have tons of rabbits and every year a few of them go the Easter Bunny route. We have actually caught them in the coop, yanking eggs out of the next boxes. This particular hen has obviously made a deal with one of the bunnies in return for a pile of dew worms. This was a very fast sketch using Micron pens and watercolor. I had a fever while I did this so that might explain a lot :)