Among the Wild Brambles
Artwork Description
Stephen Lyman’s “Among the Wild Brambles” is striking, vertical and oversized. At 40″ tall and 11″ wide, this exceptional piece of wildlife art is the perfect fit for that unique and hard to fill space found in every home. More importantly, the design and execution of this uncommonly shaped image is by one of the finest wilderness painters of our time.
Lyman’s passion for the wilderness touched “all things great and small.” He would put as much energy into the creation of a sweeping Yosemite sunset landscape as he would a hummingbird hovering over a cone-laden branch of a pine tree. “Among the Wild Brambles” is no exception.
The unique call, “Killy, Killy, Killy” of the sparrow hawk (or kestrel) can be heard over field and pastures of much of North America. As it makes it cry, this graceful raptor can hover nearly motionless in the air, displaying delicate white and brown stripes on its underwing. The kestrel is the lightest and smallest of hawks, averaging only eleven inches long. It easily perches upon telephone wires to rest, while its heavier cousins must content them-selves with sitting atop sturdier telephone poles or fence posts.
In “Among the Wild Brambles,” the sparrow hawk is in a characteristic pose. Having ruffled its feathers, it takes its watch on a convenient branch within close range of its prey, which is hiding somewhere in the dried grasses and blackberry brambles below, a glimpse at one of nature’s most sociable and spirited birds.
