The Flyway Journeys Wildlife Art Fellowship

      Itinerary

6-26 Saturday: Wanda picked us up at the Winnipeg airport. We drove to supermarket in Winnipeg and purchased copious amounts of junk food and bottled water. Drove 1 hour to Portage La Prairie. Ate dinner at Jon Hopkins donuts/eaterie. (Canadians like to eat donuts with their soup) At roughly 9:00 pm, we arrived, unloaded groceries and suitcases in cottage. Ate dinner. Met Brendan. Went over to Brendan's cottage next door, and looked at his artwork. We talked art and played cards till about 11pm.

6-27 Sunday - 8:00 am: Met Jim at the main office. Gwenessa showed her slides and I showed my work on the computer. Then, Jim introduced us to his work. He brought in his most recent sketch books. He also showed us his process of laying out a design for a painting. He begins by collecting appropriate sketches and then drawing out the various "layers" of the scene on tracing paper. He draws the background on one page. On another page he draws out the foreground, and on the remaining two or three pages he draws the main subject of his painting, the birds. He then moves the birds and the foreground around on the background until he achieves the best design. Then he "carbon copies" the tracing paper onto the canvas. I find this technique very helpful and I will be able to apply it to my own work. Afterward, we took a tour of the marshes surrounding the main office and the old hunters lodge next door.

12:30 pm: Lunch!

1:00 pm: Jim and Brendan brought out their easels into the marshy area right in front of our cottage. Jim prepared to give us a lecture on landscape painting. He laid out four colors - red, yellow, blue and white. Then he began painting the grass and trees lining the lake, all the while discussing technique and materials. He started by mixing all the colors he saw in the landscape first, and then proceeded to paint in the darks first, then the lights. Gwenessa and I watched, took notes, asked questions. Brendan painted his own landscape while Jim painted his, and it quickly became a competition, or "paint-off". While Jim was putting the finishing touches on his landscape, Gwenessa and I painted onto Brendan's landscape. Fred Greenslade, the photographer for Delta waterfowl's publication, took pictures.

4:00 pm: When Jim had finished his painting and lecture, Gwenessa went in to take a nap (jet lag) and I lingered so that I could paint my own landscape. Jim hung out while I painted and he gave me tips and pointers, while occasionally interrupting himself to point out a flock of Canadian geese or pelicans.

6:00 pm: Dinner

7:30 pm: Jim, Brendan, Gwenessa and I drove the canoes down to the dock and went for a ride in the lake. We took many pictures of birds and watched the incredible sunset.

10:00 pm: The four of us collected in Brendan's enclosed patio and talked about art until roughly 1 am.

6-28 Monday - 9:00am (and too early): Gwenessa and I met Jim at the office again. He introduced us to the Delta team. We then set up shop in the enclosed patio behind the old hunter's lodge. There, we pulled out two dead bird specimens that Brendan had collected, and Jim lectured on bird anatomy. The lesson consisted mostly of feather composition and wing movement. Gwenessa and I sketched the two birds given our newly acquired knowledge of their anatomy. Afterwards, we went outside, hopped the fence and insisted on upsetting the geese which had collected around a pond in order to draw them. They didn't appreciate that so much. We also discovered a Killdeer nest (and of course, upset the mama killdeer in the process).

1:00 pm (after lunch): Brendan finally awoke and joined us out in the lake. We packed up our sketch and paint materials and with telescopes and tripods on our shoulders we hiked out through the muddy and mosquito invested marsh into the lake. We set up our equipment on a sandy "island" and proceeded to draw the turns and gulls. Brendan, Gwen and I took a swim in the lake.

6:00 pm: Interview with Dan. Brendan, Gwen and I had never been interviewed like that and we were sopping wet and trying to fight back the nervous giggling. Jim was a great help and answered many of the questions for us. :

Evening: Hosted dinner at our cottage. Wanda came and made the four of us Perogies. Later, another art pow-wow at Brendan's.

6-29 Tuesday - 9:00 am: The four of us hiked around for about an hour, searching for a place to draw birds. A bit discouraged we collected in front of the cottage again. Gwenessa set up the easel to paint her landscape, while Jim and I hiked out to the sandy island in the lake. We pulled out the watercolors, and he lectured on his field sketching process. We then made a few sketches.

11:00 am: Jim and I headed back in and he "critiqued" Gwen's landscape. Soon after, we said our thank you's and Jim took off.

1:00 pm: Gwenessa stayed in to work on a more abstract interpretation of the Delta landscape, while I hiked out to the sandy island to get more sketches in. The birds and I got to know each other quite well during this time. After about two hours, they permitted me to come within 10 feet of them. Afterwards, Brendan and I took a swim in the lake.

Evening: I sat outside on the porch and sketched while Gwen did her own artwork inside.

6-30 Wednesday All day: Wanda took Gwen and I to Menadosa, which is about one and half hours west of Portage. Gwen and I spent the day in the marshes with Letitia Reichart, a graduate student who is studying the reproductive strategy of nest parasitism in Ruddy ducks. For the first time ever, we were able to see how biologists work in the field.

6:00 pm: After rounding up all the graduate students, Wanda lectured rather passionately on applying for jobs in the field of biology.

Evening: Treated Wanda to a delicious dinner at a ma-and-pa diner out in the middle of no where. Later, Brendan, Gwen and I made a fire on the beach and stayed up to an ungodly hour.

7-01 Thursday: After catching up on a bit of sleep, Gwen and I spent the day experimenting with watercolor, which is Jim's choice field-sketching medium. I made color blocks in an attempt to control the amount of water and pigment used. We also brainstormed for our respective projects. That evening, Brendan's mother made us "tackles", Canadian for "taco". We also took a jaunt down to Portage and watched the fireworks in celebration of Canada Day. Gwen and I considered this our rest day. We were very unproductive artistically speaking, but the day off definitely prepared us for a highly productive last day in Manitoba.

7-02 Friday Morning: Gwenessa and I visited Laura who is assisting Travis Quirk in the study of female striped skunks. The study focuses on the effects of body condition on the reproductive success of female striped skunks.

Afternoon: Brendan lectured us on Encaustic painting, a technique he learned in a workshop at The Ontario College of Art and Design. The process involves melting bee's wax, mixing it with oil paints, and then applying it with brushes and knives to a variety of materials. Gwenessa experimented on Plexiglass, I on a panel of wood, and Brendan on a sheet of canvas. Using an array of techniques (such as ironing the wax after it is painted onto the carrier), we discovered that the medium is very versatile.

Evening: For our last night, Brendan took us into Portage to a bar called the Cat and the Fiddle. There we listened to a live band, danced, and delight in what we had gained from our experience at Delta.