Melanie Mascarenhas

'Dragonfly'

Kitchen Litho

Goldfinch - The Young Forager

Ink, tea & Conté

'Branchin Out'

Kitchen Litho & red watercolour Juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker

Swooping Swallows

Tea, ink & charcoal

Woodland Jay

Ink, tea & charcoal. The sketches for this image have not only inspired this painting, but a recent lino print as well.

The Lookout

Ink, tea & Charcoal A painting based on my field sketches. Nuthatches are great birds to watch & sketch, which is why they have featured in many of my recent paintings. They are a familiar sight on my patch, as are the trees which they frequent.

Nesting Nuthatch

Watercolour on Arches HP paper I have really enjoyed observing nuthatches this year & there was one pair in particular that I became very familiar with. This painting shows the moment when one of the pair exits the nesting hole after depositing more nesting material.

Øyenstikker

Kitchen Litho 1/1 Apparently the Norwegian name for dragonflies is Øyenstikker, which means eye-poker & I think it’s a wonderful name for them. My Øyenstikker is inspired by one of the same field sketches that inspired my painting 'Birth of the Emerald Hunter', sometimes magical moments need revisiting and re-interpreting. For this piece I tried to keep the background quite soft and muted, so that the dragonfly would stand out almost in relief.

Emerald Øyenstikker

Kitchen Litho & Green Oil Pastel I used green oil pastel over this image to provide a sharp contrast, without adding distracting detail. A real poke in the eye as it were.

Damselflies - The Angle of Rest

Charcoal, ink, tea and pastel. Experimenting with ink and charcoal has helped me to express the poised elegance of these beautiful Red-eyed Damselflies. My original experiment did not involve colour, but for this larger piece, I felt that I needed to add a suggestion of their jewel bright hues.

Damselflies - The Dance

Charcoal, ink and tea.

Ink, Tea & Charcoal Damselflies

Perching Red-eyed Damselflies

Acrylic on canvas board These wonderful damselflies were perched, poised and waiting in readiness for the females to arrive. Well, that was my interpretation as I sketched these beauties. Normally the males arrive at a body of water first and wait in readiness to grasp any female that later appears. I wonder whether perching on these vantage points, with the water surrounding them, would give them a visual advantage? A possible hypothesis to test methinks......

After the Rain

Acrylic on gessoed watercolour paper. I enjoyed watching this goldfinch alight on the tree outside my window. The rain had recently ceased and this little chap arrived to gorge itself on crab apples between showers.

Nuthatch - field study

A pair of nuthatches, gathering nesting materials. I was able to spend quite some time observing this pair as they brought a variety of nest materials, mainly leaves, to this nest hole. I had originally observed one of the pair making adjustments to the entrance, in readiness for this day.

Nuthatch - Field study.

This is in preparation for a demonstration piece, to be carried out during South East Open Studios.

Woodland Flight

Watercolour on gessoed handmade paper. This painting started as a bit of an ‘en plein air’ experiment in one of my woodland haunts. There were quite a few plump woodpigeons in the bare branches, whose presence was only truly felt when they broke the stillness by their crashing flight through the wood.

Nuthatch - Studio Sketch

Watercolour sketch in Moleskine watercolour notebook. A small watercolour sketch/study of one of the nuthatches I observed on a woodland walk. It seemed to be extracting a large seed or nut from this crevice in the tree. No doubt part of the remains of its winter cache.

Birth of the Emerald Hunter

Acrylic on stretched linen. There is something quite amazing about the birth of new life. For this dragonfly, it was the shedding of it’s old life as a water dwelling nymph, to being reborn as an aerobatic hunter. It was an amazing privilege to watch this beautiful creature over several hours. There was something quite special towards the end, as it’s newly expanded wings dried; the adult above and the discarded remnants of nymph below.

Damselflies

Oil on canvas board. This piece was painted after a particularly captivating visit to a favourite lake in the beautiful Kent Countryside. I was fortunate to have experienced myriads of darting and courting Damselflies, which inspired this work.

A Golden Feast

Coloured pencil on Arches HP paper. It was finches not flowers that inspired me most on a trip to Wisley in September 2013. It was wonderful watching and sketching these beautiful birds. I love how plants metamorphose when they ‘go to seed’ - the changes from greens to golds and then browns and the changes in shapes and forms as the plant dries. The finches colours mirror those of the plants and in the case of the juvenile, almost blend in.

Cormorant Watch

Oil, soft and wax pastel on Arches HP paper. There is something gloriously prehistoric about these birds. I have watched them through binoculars many times, as they stand in their characteristic pose whilst drying their wings. On this particular day, I was captivated by these two individuals and their seemingly motionless vigil. In this piece, I wanted to share the intimate relationship I experience whilst viewing wildlife through binoculars.

Eagle Owl

Oil, soft and wax pastel on Arches HP paper. This owl really seemed to glow amidst the fir tree branches.

Marsh Frog

Oil on canvas board. The loud chorusing of Marsh frogs was the theme tune to many a Summers evening in the beautiful Kent countryside. I love the way these frogs suspend themselves, half in, half out of the water. From a distance they appear quite brown, but close inspection reveals emerald hues and a golden glint.