Goldfinches on Thistle — Gallery Canvas Watercolor the whole composition breathing with

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

a second clover stem curving below

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

Glen Loates is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts whose botanical range extended from exact scientific illustration to evocative landscape impression

GLEN LOATES

Goldfinches on Thistle — Gallery Canvas Watercolor the whole composition breathing withThree 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