publishing water colour painting "Golden Days"

"Golden Days" published on the 13th of August in celebration of my parents Golden Wedding.

How was this composition inspired?

It was in fact late May and I was observing the two swans nests as it was imminently time for the eggs to hatch.

I was particularly interested in the nest under the coniferous tree in Roath Park and was sitting with my pastills painting what I had given the pet name "The Forest Swans Nest". It was the second year the pair had nested under the tree and it was exciting because the nest was so close to passing visitors to the park ... although many did not spot the nest!

The forest swans nest with her five eggs under the tree close to the lake. She regularly left the nest to go and dip in the water. To me it seemed a great risk the eggs were so close to the passing inquisitive public.

The events shown in the watercolour composition above all happened as I sat on the bank of the lake painting, my position being midway between the willow, where the Great Crested Grebes were sitting on the nest.

Here are a couple of sketches

It has fascinating to watch the Grebes this year, there have been many pairs successfully breeding particularly at Roath, as can be seen from the slide show of a boat trip we took on the lake in early July.

While many were sitting on their first clutch of eggs in July, the same pair who appear in the painting had adopted a different willow and were sitting on their second clutch of eggs.

Most of these pairs have now successfully hatched and to a large extent are having success bringing up their broods, with few losses.

Here can be seen the same pair of grebes with their second clutch of five chicks clearly seen as the blustery August wind, and portrayed in the lower sketch on the right.

The upper sketch shows a grebe sitting high on a nest, under the original willow where the above pair had their first nest. It is quite interesting to see the pair making a nest high above the water resembling that of a coots nest site rather than the floating nest at water level that grebes tend to make.

It will be interesting to see if this latest pair in fact are successful with their clutch of eggs ... it is quite late in the season and the weather has changed dramatically from the bright days of the early summer.

Have you spotted the young coot looking on also sharing the willow with the grebes?