Birds
The top photo called Meeting of the Board is the result of a day taking photos in the marsh in Orlando, Florida. Once back to my studio, I used photoshop to isolate the portraits of each individual bird, then arrange them in an interesting way before I began to paint. The sand cranes (upper left came by each day with their young chick so I was able to shoot pictures of him over his first thirty days. I owned 14 parrots at one time and have a passion for the beauty of birds. The burrowing owls were such a surprise as I walked along in Cape Coral - a magical moment where I caught the young parents proudly showing off their little ones. The ostrich portraits are my attempt to show the world that there is never just one image of any living thing...they have personalities and expressions and each one is unique.
Entry to Kingsville Migration Festival

I photographed five sandpipers on the beach in Florida, then manipulated the images in photoshop to create a study of nine bird images before doing the work in watercolours.