Morning Collection - August 3, 2026

Something I Noticed

There's been a red-tailed hawk overhead every day this week.

You always know it's a hawk before you spot it — that cry, it's nothing like a any of the birds at the feeder. A few weeks ago I watched one teaching its fledgling to fly, the two of them calling back and forth to each other. So cool.

What I noticed today is *how* they fly. In circles, mostly, barely moving their wings. They've found the columns of rising warm air and they just... ride them. Wider and wider, higher and higher, almost no effort at all. 

It made me think about painting. 

When you use the elements of art as your guide, you're not fighting the process every time — you're riding a current instead of flapping through open air.

There's an order built into it.

You don't have to invent your way through every painting.

You just have to find the current and let it carry you.

A Word This Morning

Kettle    kĕt′l/

noun

— the name for a group of hawks riding a thermal together, circling upward without a single wingbeat. 

Something I Love 

Dianne sent in this painting for our critique series — and sent along a photo of where it hangs in her house too, in the kitchen. I love seeing that. It tells you something, knowing what colors a painting has to live with every day.

It was so close to being done! Her question was about the trees — whether to add more detail. But the focal point here is the sky, all that color, and the trees are doing their job by staying quiet and letting it lead. 

For the full walk-through — including Dianne's kitchen  — see the critique video on YouTube. 

Gorgeous. Just gorgeous. It works. 

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