Doris Ettlinger

Doris Ettlinger lives with her husband Michael McFadden in the old gristmill on Imlaydale Road, across the Musconetcong and a short canoe ride downstream from the museum. Over the course of her career, Doris has illustrated 40 children's books, including "The Orange Shoes" and "G is for Garden State." She coaches watercolor classes online and in person for the Musconetcong Watercolor Group.

During the pandemic, we spent more time than usual staring out the window at the river. We have a bird’s eye view from our 2nd floor dining room. Besides the birds that show up at the feeder, we’d also see heron, mergansers and the usual geese.

Every now and then we’d be startled by a bald eagle flying by. If we were feeling out of sorts, the eagle would snap us right out of our blues. “Wow! What a sight! How lucky are we?!” I began to follow an eaglet via explore.org’s wildlife cam. The nest is in Decorah, Iowa. This connection inspired me to teach a series of watercolor classes called “Big Black Birds." We used the screen shots I had taken as reference. “Eaglets” was my demonstration painting. The nest was painted very quickly. Then the eaglet, drawn in two poses was painted more carefully. The eaglet spent a lot of time looking into the distance for a parent returning with his next meal. (“Eaglets" received an award last year in the Garden State Watercolor Society’s Exhibit “Out of the Wild”.)

The Turkey Vultures were part of the Big Black Bird series. Here again, the background sky and tree was painted quickly. The big bird was a careful rendering. Then I added his crew.

To learm more about Dori's work go to www.dorisettlinger.com