CHICKADEE IN THE SNOW
ACRYLICS ON CEDAR W/RED OAK FRAME
WINTER 2020-21

     This painting began with a bang.  In the middle of the night, we heard a noise coming from our bathroom and discovered one of the tiles affixed (with two others) to a frame had come loose and gone crashing to the floor, breaking into many pieces.  As the tile was one of three Art Nouveau tiles from the turn-of-the-last-century, there was no replacing it.  So, the next best thing was for me to remove the other two tiles and reuse the frame (made in 2009) for a triptych painting.  As the title implies, I chose a winter theme because it is currently winter and because I love seeing snow.  I am also very fond of chickadees and thought that one would be a good subject to include on a snow-covered tree branch.  The design for the chickadee was inspired by both Northwest Coast Native and Celtic art traditions.  The overall composition of the snow-covered branches was inspired by many ukiyo-e prints, particularly Utagawa Hiroshige’s Sparrows and Camellia in Snow.  I made this frame back in 2009 out of red oak using pegged, hand-joined, mortise-and-tenon construction methods.  I applied a chestnut-colored stain to finish the frame.
 
DIMENSIONS:          HEIGHT:  14 inches
                                    WIDTH:  33 ½ inches
 
                                                            PRICE $350

Hiroshige--Sparrows and Camellia in Snow

Gary Giovane
La Conner, WA
gioart13@yahoo.com