Congratulations to the 2014 - 2015 Winners! Mary Helsaple is one of the 5 winners were selected from more than a thousand of entries in the year long Gateway to Sedona Artist Competition.
TITLE: Enviable Flight (Red-fronted Amazon Parrots and Spatula-tailed Hummingbird, Bromeliad)
ARTIST: Mary Helsaple
MEDIUM: Watercolor
SIZE: 23"w x 33"h
View on the Helsaple website.
My watercolors are “narrative.” Each painting has a theme about how humans and nature are are connected and similar. The Central and South American forests are filled with exotic birds of all shapes and sizes. I have traveled with some of the world’s leading ornithologists and I experienced the spectacle of hundreds of different species of magnificently colored birds flying together in flocks. I observed that each species had its special way of finding food and rarely did they compete with each other. Such coordinated cooperation! I did observe that the look-out bird, assigned to predator watch, would sometimes feel at a disadvantage and would give a fake warning call now and again. The look-out doing the all the work for the group then got to grab a snack and their "share." Now that is very humanly familiar. — Mary Helsaple
