Throwback Photoshoot

Today I just wanted to post a few pictures that I took a year ago for my Instagram page. Enjoy!

Hand carved and painted eggs in a domed cake stand (Sandhill Crane, Bald Eagle, Mottled Duck, Great Egret, Boat-tailed Grackle) and a Black Skimmer chick carving in a smaller cake stand. Both cake stands are from the Martha Stewart Collection at Macy's. 

A Buff-bellied Hummingbird and Ruby-throated Hummingbird carving. Both sitting on wooden finials painted an aged gold color. The Ruby-throated Hummingbird is a common hummingbird here in South Florida during winter time. The Buff-bellied Hummingbird has been a resident for a few years now in Miami at a small park planted with lots of nectar plants. The gold vase is from the 2007 Martha Stewart 1800flowers.com collection.  I gave one to my good friend in Houston to put at her restaurant but one of the customers broke it. 

A carving of the brown form of the Eastern Screech-Owl. This bird is a resident at the Green Cay Nature Center and Wetland in Boynton Beach, FL.  It has a home in a Sabal Palm near the path, but I haven't seen it except for the original time I saw it before carving this bird. I hope it hasn't been scared away and people are being respectful of it while observing it. In this picture its surrounded by Tropical Pitcher Plants, Nepenthes graciliflora and Nepenthes robcantleyi. The base is a wooden finial painted in an ombre tone of the stone block its sitting on. 

Sandhill Crane eggs

When I go to visit my parents in Sarasota I always see Sandhill Cranes.  These birds are a subspecies, called the Florida Sandhill Crane and are resident and do not migrate.  They are pretty common in that area and can often be seen in parks and neighborhoods.  They are also often seen along roadsides which sometimes lead to unfortunate fatalities.  I have seen a pair on the side of a very busy intersection at University Town Center Mall...

Luckily some pairs to pick safe spots in parks or near private ponds where they can build a nest.  The nest that I have observed are usually just a few feet from the shore of a small pond on a raft of vegetation (cattails and various grasses).  In the nest they lay two cream colored eggs, with a speckling of warm browns. In a month the eggs hatch and a very fluffy golden chick emerges.

Last year, I carved two Sandhill Crane eggs from pine and painted them with acrylic paints; painting the eggs in light  watered down layers with certain spots showing through. This year, I displayed them in a Waterford crystal bowl with wetland plants from the front yard pond.

 Sandhill Crane, Grus canadensis ssp. pratensis - eggs -carved from pine and painted with acrylics.

Waterford Crystal footed bowl with wetland plants including: cattail, fragrant waterlily, 

and a grass which grows very aggressively around the pond.

 

A close up of the two eggs.