Barry Kent MacKayArt by Barry Kent MacKay
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In this section are copies of original works of art. All of them are dedicated to helping us live according to unconditional love and compassion, which is the foundation of our peaceful means of bringing true and lasting peace to all of God's creatures, whether they are human beings or other animals.

Baltimore Oriole (Icterus galbula)

 

Barry Kent MacKay Baltimore Oriole
(Artwork - 067)
Baltimore Oriole
(Icterus galbula)

This life-size painting shows a female (upper figure) and male Baltimore Oriole amid the blooms and leaves of a Tulip Tree. I had long wanted to draw and paint the beautiful blooms of a Tulip Tree, a species that only reaches the northern end of its range in Ontario, but I could never get close enough to the blossoms to get reference photos or sketches. Finally, this spring, I did. I was commissioned to paint orioles and thought that it would be great to show them with the blooms, since this is a species of tree you could see the birds in. In fact, I later realized that the famed American bird artist John James Audubon (1785 – 1851) showed his Baltimore Orioles in the same sort of setting, and so did another bird artist, Arthur Singer (1917 – 1990).

My painting was done in acrylics on compressed hardboard.

The Baltimore Oriole is widely distributed in temperate eastern North America, from British Columbia to Nova Scotia, and is quite migratory, wintering in the south-eastern U.S., West Indies and tropical America. They are very common and easily attracted to garden feeders featuring sugarwater, sometimes feeding from hummingbird feeders.   Their songs are cheerful and distinctive. They are famous for making intricate sack-like nests that hang from the very tips of slender branches of taller trees, often over roads or waterways.

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Copyright © Barry Kent MacKay
Barry describes himself as a Canadian artist/writer/naturalist.
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