Goldfinches on Thistle — Gallery Canvas Watercolor and the atmosphere is soft

and the atmosphere is soft and intimate

Glen worked from sketches and observation done over multiple seasons at active beaver lodges in Ontario

the whole composition breathing with the specific quality of early May in a mixed hardwood forest

The tropical setting required research beyond his northern field work: the plant species are correct

a second clover stem curving below

Goldfinches on Thistle — Gallery Canvas Watercolor and the atmosphere is softThree goldfinches work through a thistle patch a male feeding on a spent seedhead at left, a second male perched on the right, a female arriving from above with wings still open. The thistle is rendered with the botanical precision Glen brought to all his plant subjects: the spiny bracts, the purple bloom, the white plumed seeds drifting into the composition from the milkweed at left. This 1988 watercolour is more complex than the earlier single bird