How to scratch a magpie

  

Claudia_scratchboard02 from Claudia McGehee on Vimeo.

Big news from the studio! A short demonstration video has been produced, giving you a glimpse of my process at the drawing board. I'll post it permanently later on the side later, but for now...

Thank you Charlie, father-in-law extraordinaire, for perfect lighting, all around camera and production expertise and shared enthusiasm for art and birds, angry or otherwise. Please visit his website of stunning photography. www.charlesmcgehee.com

(Magpie, number 14)

"Hello there, nice to meet you!"

That's what I say sometimes when I'm "scratching" the faces in a final art piece. Although I've already sketched out in pencil roughly what characters in the composition may look like, I never know for sure what final features will form under my
exact-o blade. For this new piece for a current client, publisher Augsburg Fortress, I needed to illustrate a congregation of people at a Lutheran baptism. So I'm conjuring and scratching up a nice eclectic mix of community here, and for one male figure, out pops Michael McDonald from the Doobie Brothers! And then here comes a friend's son! And then the lady who has the fabulous knitted shawls I sometimes see at the Co-Op! It is part of the magic of illustration, at least my particular practice of it. For certain jobs, set details are important for character's faces. But for other assignments, I love the process that allows this creator a surprise or two!

Flicker

We heard a thud from outside yesterday morning as we were getting breakfast. It turned out a Northern Flicker, a large woodpecker-like bird, had hit my studio window. It must have been instantly killed. We all felt so bad. He was a beautiful guy. We studied his feathers. I had never thought our windows were much of a threat to birds, but when I went online, indeed, birds fly into picture windows quite frequently. To help detour these injuries, several suggestions were offered. Placing stickers of hawk silhouettes can help, also suspending flashy things like old CDs or tin pans can keep birds away too. A little illustration today, in memorial.

April Flowers bring May showers

Bloodroot. First flower of an Iowa spring. Now playing in Hickory Hill Park and other Midwest green spans around you.

Shakespeare this year

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I celebrated with completing an illustration for the Riverside Theatre's Shakespeare Festival poster. It involves an animal audience overlooking the lovely outdoor theatre we have here in Iowa City. Riverside is doing Romeo and Juliet and Love's Labour's Lost this year. I'll post the final poster when they're done.

Eagle Cam

My friend and fellow illustrator Jennifer sent me a link to a great birder site. "Eagle Cam" is set up by Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. It allows you an eagle's eye view of a pair of breeding bald eagles. The camera is mounted just above the nest. You can go online for 15 minute sessions and see what the eagles are up to. Sometimes you are treated to one of the eagle's snacking on a small rodent (dead already, I am glad to say) or maybe a fish. Other times they are building up the nest- with Iowa corn husks, no less!

The best part? Now there are three eggs! So cool to watch these big raptors do such a maternal thing like egg-sitting. Both female and male take turns. I've seen them do the ol' tag-team; one flies in, the sitting bird gives the in-coming bird a slight peck ("Like, what took you so long?") then sitting bird stretches and flies off, while new bird gets comfy, adjusts the nest to his own specs, tucks in the eggs and settles in for a few hours.

You can tune in any time of day- there's an infra-red camera so you can watch at night, too. Where else would you get to see an eagle taking a cat-nap!

Here's the link and a quick sketch I did today.

http://www.luther.edu/eaglecam/stream/