Splashing Through Life - Art by Patricia Henderson

  I'm going to miss you, my little vain friend! "You're So Vain", is heading off to Massachusetts today. He's been my studio buddy for a while now, but he's going to a good home with a repeat customer, so will be among friends! Now I have an excuse to do another crow collage!

  Finally! Bird #100 of 100! Mar 9, 2022 Updated: Oct 26, 2023 Way back in the beginning of 2019, in the "before times", I gave myself the challenge of painting or collaging 100 birds. To make it easier on myself I decided that it would be 100 birds in total, not necessarily 100 separate individual birds, so some of the paintings could have more than one bird in it. Finally, here we are in 2022 and I've recently completed my 100th bird, another crow. They are one of my favourite subjects. With their black glossy feathers that actually shine with so many colours, to their intelligence and character, I find them endlessly fascinating to paint. I want to thank everyone for their interest and for cheering me on. It took me a lot longer to finish than I thought. The pandemic didn't help. While some artists took advantage of being forced to stay home more often and created volumes of work, I found that I was often not motivated at all and often spent time playin...

Maybe it is appropriate that my last painting of this year is of a crow. According to some legends, the crow can be a sign of change. We are changing from the old year to the new, and that always comes with the expectation of changes, hopefully for the better. Wishing you all a Happy New Year full of wonderful changes, new beginnings and the comfort of things that we want to stay the same. Family, friends, and home. Patty A Sign of Change 5" X 7" Watercolour, ink, coloured pencils (Click on picture for larger image)

Has it really been four months since I've posted anything? Time flies and life gets in the way of my creativity, but I've just completed my newest Mixed Media/Collage. I'm not sure why I seem to be attracted to Crows in my artwork, since lately they have been a real pest in our work parking lot. (Don't park under the tree!) Maybe it's because they seem to have real personalities and they just look kinda cool! Here is "Puzzled", 16" X 20" on canvas. This painting will eventually framed in a black "floater" frame.

My newest collage painting "Our Daily Bread" and two others, "Frenemies" and "Marshland Morning" have been accepted into the 7th Annual Desmond Juried Art Show and Sale. Stop on by the Ridgetown Campus of the University of Guelph from July 22-August 2, 2012 and check them out! Our Daily Bread Frenemies Marshland Morning (formerly titled Elegant Ecosystem)

During the spring and fall, parts of our community are taken over by crows. They tend to gather in flocks of hundreds of thousands along the Thames river in Chatham, right by residential areas. Of course this has caused problems such as the birds getting into garbage and leaving nasty surprises on cars. Some people want to get rid of them by shooting them, others send in birds of prey to scare them away.The intelligent crows seem to figure out our tactics and steer clear. I decided on the name Frenemies for this piece. The crows must think of us as friends sometimes, since we provide them with tasty food such as garbage, and vast fields of corn. Yet we are their enemies and attempt to eradicate them. Many people think of the crows as our enemies when they dirty our cars, but they are our friends when they eat rodent pests, damage-causing beetles and road kill. They are also a wonderful sight flying en mass at sunrise to go about their day. This painting is also about "frenem...