I Walked by a Sora, and Thought of 'The Natural Eye'

Three of my framed mokuhanga prints, about ready to be shipped to 'The Natural Eye' at The Mall Galleries in London.

 

I was walking through our kitchen this morning and saw a photo of a Sora on a calendar on a wall. I had to stop and look. How often do I get a good look at a Sora? What more could I learn about if from what I saw? Wouldn't it be great to be able to draw it from life again? All of those thoughts reminded me of something else I've been thinking about recently, all the various reasons to draw, and also this year's annual exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists' called 'The Natural Eye 2026.'

I have been showing at this juried exhibition since 2011, with a couple of off years early on where VAT requirements were just too complicated for me. It is always a thrill to have some of my work accepted for the show, and it is equally thrilling to actually see the show, just once in person in 2018 though that included 5-10 visits, but most of the time through online view by Mall Galleries and other online coverage. You walk out with a spring in your step.

I've often tried to explain why this is really the only exhibition I really care about getting into. I'm not sure about how successful I've been. But seeing the Sora on the wall got me thinking about it. If you've never actually seen a Sora I think, at least if you're interested in birds, you woiuld like to see one. But if you're an artist you'd like to see it well, and you'd like to see it well enough and long enough to see all the things that you find necessary in order to portray it. For me it always comes down to structure. How does the entire bird fit together. How does the bill relate to forehead and chin? Where is the eye in relation to bill? How does the head curve in the back? What is the conglomeration at the back of ther bird? Are the primary feathers and tail feathers in there somewhere? For me if you don't understand the structure on any bird, both generally and specifically, then you will have a hard time being accurate. 

 For me I'm also concerned with color. So as an artist you ask yourself what colors are there? What type of yellow would use for that bill. Where does the black near eye come in and how extensive is it? How does it relate to the other colors, including the grayish violet, and all the rich browns? I could go on and on. And then there is the marking on plumage. What color are they, where do they begin and end, are they too small even to paint without looking labored? For many artists this plumage detail seems to be the main thing. It is definitely not for me. But I understand how mesmerizing it can be.

But if you've seen many sora, or any bird actually, you, or at least I, have to think about movement? I almost physically empathize with the weight distribution of bird, almost feeling the stretch as it reaches out for possible food. Maybe that sense of movement is more important than plumage. It is for me.

And of course there is the environment that holds the bird. Reeds and mud, often for soras, with dark water often extending back into the reeds. A million other environments for a million, more or less, other birds. What do you do about them? It is a challenge you want to avoid or maybe something equally as interesting, at least to the artist, as the bird itself?

And all of this more or less supposes you want some sort of 'realistic' portrayal. Maybe you don't.

Brushpen and waterbrush sketches of Megachile bees, based on my photos. Copyright 2026 by Ken Januski

Most of the edition of 'Warbling Vireo, Common Yellowthroat and Wilson's Warbler at Roxborough Reservior' mokuhanga. Copyright 2026 by Ken Januski

Brushpen, waterbrush and watercolor sketch of Sachem Skipper. Copyright 2026 by Ken Januski.

Brushpen and waterbrush sketch from life of Carolina Wren on  our feeder. Copyright 2026 by Ken Januski.

What I"m trying to get at, even with a photo of a bird on a wall, let alone a live bird, is that there are an incredible number of decisions an artist can make about how to portray the bird. I've just listed some. In the tiny sketch of the Carolina Wren above I think it is done. What more could I possibly add to it without stripping the life from it? The same is true to some extent of the watercolor from a photo of the Sachem Skipper above it. What more could I do without making it a bit lifeless? But some people would like more detail, possibly enough detail that it might help them identify it, as in a field guide. This is a real goal of some artists, but it is not mine. But it's still a legitimate goal of many artists. And many artists desire some sort of accurate portrayal, one that satisfies their own artistic desires, but isn't really something to use as an aid to identification.

My point is that there are just so many different methods and goals an artist can have when portraying wildlife.  I don't know of any other exhibition that even comes close to showing that variety, ands showing it at a high level, as 'The Natural Eye.' There is a feeling of great accomplishment in accuracy of realistic portrayal with more traditional means, and there is great accomplishment of equal accuracy with completely nontraditional means. There is art that covers an incredible variety of 'wildlife' subjects, subjects that I'm sure some of the audience at the show has never even seen portrayed in art before.

And as the prospectus says more or less, it would like art that captures the spirit of the natural world. That is more than just plumage detail though that can be part of it. But people who spend time outside, who see the natural world and appreciate it, can also sense it in art in front of them. There is art that is only based on a photo and there is an art that indicates a real understanding and appreciation of nature, even if it sometimes has the 'accuracy' of a photo. I think that is why you, or at least, I left the show I saw in person with a spring in my step. It is a joyous show, celebrating nature in all its forms.

Brushpen and waterbrush field sketch of local Peregrines. Copyright 2026 by Ken Januski.

Brushpen and waterbrush field sketch of local Peregrines. Copyright 2026 by Ken Januski.

Brushpen, waterbrush and watercolor sketch of Wilson's Warbler from my photo. Copyright 2026 by Ken Januski.

Partial edition of 'Cedar Waxwings in Junipers' mokuhanga. Copyright 2026 by Ken Januski.

Brushpen and waterbrush sketch from life of Northern Cardinal outside studio window in rain. Copyright 2026 by Ken Januski.

In showing so much of my own work I'm just trying to show the various ways that I approach art, in very quick sketches done in about a minute, to an edition of mokuhanga which often takes 60-80 hours,  and everywhere in between. There are just so many ways to make art based on birds and wildlife.

Once the online gallery of this year's 'The Natural Eye' is available I will post a link here so that readers can see for themselves what I am talking about.

Of course I've forgotten something: the tremendous amount of imagination and creativity in the way that the artists in 'The Natural Eye' decide to portray their subject. Hopefully that will be quite obvious when I put up the link to the show. In many ways it is this imagination and creativity that is the most exciting part of the exhibition!

I should add that I wrote this on a Mac but the Mac and Blogger are at constant odds with one another. So if you see more typos than normal......

Three Often Coflicting Goals

Latest proofs on new mokuhanga: “Warbling Vireo, Common Yellowthroat and Wilson’s Warbler.” Copyright 2026 by Ken Januski

 Not for the first time I’m trying to finish a mokuhanga and am torn in three directions. What should be most important? The accurate rendering of the subjects, or at least no inaccuracies; an accomplished use of technique, especially in a craft as specialized as mokuhanga, or at least no glaring technical mistakes; or making good art, something that is pleasant to look at or better exciting and exhilarating to look at regardless of accuracy or technique?

In quick sketches I don’t have to worry about this. If they are quick there will most likely be inaccuracies, especially if working from life.  But with my prints, which generally take 3-4 weeks from start to finish, I want all that effort to pay off and to somehow satisfy all three of the above criteria, without driving myself nuts! In the end though it is the art part that takes highest precedence.

This mokuhanga is nearly finished but I just wanted to document my goals as I work on something ambitious before I forget about it and move on to something else.

Do You Need to Be Able to Compose a Fugue in Order to Make Quality Bird Art?

Yellow-rumped Warblers after SnowStorm. Mokuhanga by Ken Januski, copyright 2026.

A silly title perhaps but there is a definite point to it, though it may take a while to get there. What got me thinking about writing fugues, which I never have and almost certainly never will, was that it seems like it has been required often for people who wanted to compose ‘classical’ music. I say this as a non-musician and someone who has only been interested in it for the last 10-15 years.The point is: do you need to learn the basics of a field, no matter how old and perhaps cliched, in order to create good work in your medium, regardless of whether it is music or the visual arts?

One other thing that prompted this was being rejected from a bird art exhibition which I rarely apply to because it is so dull, at least to me. Out of curiosity I asked Google afterwards “Do any bold bird artists still exist?” I got an AI list of a few artists I’d either never heard of or certainly did not consider ‘bold!’ I also was offered something as an answer that referred to what was needed for great bird art. The answer: it needs to look like it’s about to fly right out of the picture. Hmm. Sounds simliar to the ancient Greek painters of only 2000 years or so ago.

White-tailed Deer, Green Heron and Wood Duck. Linocut by Ken Januski,  copyright 2013.

Mama Wood Duck Squawking at Errant Young. Brushpen and watercolor sketch by Ken Januski, copyright 2026.

The third strand of motivation for writing on the subject was just seeing yesterday a mother Wood Duck, bill open, squawking away at a couple of newly hatched ducklings that had wandered off from the ones sitting next to her and were surely headed for danger. I’d used a similar pose as part of a very early print of a Wood Duck squawking at a White-tailed Deer that was entering the water very near to her. Because it was early in my bird art endeavors and also my printmaking endeavors the print was a bit of a hodgepodge, mainly because I could not figure out how to add all the elements, including a Green Heron, togther in a convincing and interesting way.

The last strand of motivation for this post was my recently finished mokuhanga, ‘Yellow-rumped Warblers after Snow Storm.’ What could I write about it? Would it be seen as hopelessly primitive and inept?

As I thought about this over the last few days it reminded me of the problems I foresaw when I decided to make my fist art using birds as subject. Some of these problems I’m sure arose from my 30+ years as an abstract artist, but also someone with a lot of exposure to realistic art and art history. The main problem I saw was that I couldn’t just plop a bird down on bare paper or canvas and think that I had made art.* It might be a sketch, or a study, but it certainly wasn’t art, except perhaps if my sketches looked like those of Rembrandt. I thought this held for all bird art not just mine.

So much of what I saw was all about the bird and only the bird. So much bird art was just a bird plopped on a page. There might have been a lot of detail, but still it was just plopped on a bare page or canvas. Some bird art, which I liked a bit more, seemed to vignette the bird. The bird was still plopped down more or less in the center of the canvas and then some gauzy, indistinct, slightly impressionistic rendering of a few leaves or branches were put in and then feathered out to nothingness at the edge of the canvas/paper. These were more convincing but still seemed both formulaic and a bit fudged. The other main method that I saw, and still do, was to place the bird in a realistic environment of smothering, stultifying detail.

Those were the three avenues I saw as open to me and none of them seemed appealing.

The last is probably still the most popular with people who like bird art. It is made easier for artists who use photographs as the source from which to extract the environmental detail. But to me the easiness shows in that there is often no compositional creativity. Everything is dictated by the photo. And of course it can also smack of tedium. But, back to the musical theme, I wondered if perhaps it was just necessary to learn how to paint enironmental detail, just like musicians ofteh had to learn to compose a fugue. But for someone who had painted large abstract paintings for 30 years or so the answer was NO! Still there has always been that question: was I ignoring something important because if seemed like too much work and I didn’t like it? I’m sure some  music composition students did not like the idea of writing fugues, at least when they started!

But for me the answer remained, and remains, NO. I don’t want to create work that places birds in a detailed but somewhat believable world. Though I can admire the work of some artists who work that way I have no desire to do so myself. I should add that most of the artists I admire who do work in that manner are not totally beholden to photos. They may use them but still let themselves be the boss of what goes into and what does not go into the environment  they create for their subject.

One thing I did know when I started is that I needed some sort of environment for the bird subject. If it was not going to be realistic detail perhaps I could do it through the formal means of color, texture, shape and the relationship of all of these. I would say that I am still doing that more or less. The one thing that has changed I think is that I also no longer feel any need for traditional representational space. Sometimes I use it and sometimes I don’t. The print of the squawking Wood Duck, White-taiiled Deer, Green Heron and vegetation is one of my first crude stabs at including all of these subjects, but not in a traditional manner. It was a stumbling step forward.

One thing that  I picked up from all of my courses in art history and from many visits to museums etc. is the understanding that so much of art from 1800 until sometime in the late 1900s is about freedom. The freedom for color to be important on its own, untethered from subject. The same can be said of shape, of texture, of mark-making and eventually of space itself, though I’ve always thought Tintoretto was way ahead of his time in regard to experimenting with space. So much freedom has been brought to art, and yet you almost never see it in bird art.

I continue to try to find my own way, staying true in some way to birds and their environment, but also not ignoring all the freedom that has been part of the visual arts for about 200 years. The new mokuhanga is the latest step and one that I am happy with!

Wood Ducks Along Wissahickon, another old linocut and one trying to create a half-abstract environment, copyright 2011 by Ken Januski.

Oh yes! After asking the question about whether any bold bird artists still existed I realized that I already knew the answer. Many exist as members of The Society of Wildlife Artists and in the annual exhibition of them and other artists at 'The Natural Eye' at the Mall Galleries in London every fall. This answer could be seen as thoroughly self-serving since I've exhibited in many of those exhibitions, though not as a member. All I can say is that I don't mean it to be self-serving and I only thought about SWLA and the exhibition a few days after I had asked Google the question.

*My first footnote ever. Written before someone bites my nose off for slighting sketches. I don't mean to suggest that sketches are different from art. In many instances, if not most, I prefer the sketches of artists to their more finished work whether it is a painting, a print of whatever. I love to see work from life and I especially like much field art, if it really is field art. To me Rembrandt's sketches are more appealing than his paintings, which I also like. What I meant up above is that you can't easily take a sketch and move it to a canvas or piece of paper without some further modification. It so often loses the sense of life and spontaneity it had in the original sketch. I don't know enough about Japanese, Chinese and other related brush painting to say if they are different. I think probably that they are, that there is more appreciation for a sketch as a finished and valuable piece of art. But as I said I know too little to say anything more. 

Me and Igor

Cedar Wawings In Juniper. Mokuhanga by Ken Januski. Copyright 2026.

I have used names of famous people in titling works or in naming posts a few times in my career, really more of a homage than as anything else. In the Hemingway of last post it was neither. In fact a recent rereading of Hemingway was quite disappointing. I used him because his quote on when to stop working on a creative work for the day made a lot of sense. Quite a bit back in the past I referred to Thelonious Monk or his musical compositions in titles to some abstract paintings. This was strictly as a homage, but also as someone who understood little about jazz. I just liked it and him and I suppose I also hoped some of his artistry would magically land on my canvases just through my reference to him.

Igor in this title refers to Igor Stravinsky. I'm using his name in the title because twice in the last 20-30 years a work of his has reminded me that I don't live in the 19th century. Years ago it was 'Rite of Spring.' Last year it was 'Le Noces,' a ballet by him. Both of them were just shocking! Not in a bad way, but in an exciting way, seeming at least to me to show a type of music that I'd never heard before. The freshness and imagination were almost beyond comprehension.

I'm writing about this because once you've been exposed to that type of excitement about a work of art, it's hard to forget it. A recent rehearing of both works just showed how lasting their impact has been. So as I'm making art that is based on portraying the natural world, specifically birds, I occasionally ask myself: "What in the hell are you doing?"Are you not doing something that is astonishingly anachronistic?"

On the other hand particularly with portraying animals, and probably people as well though I've rarely used them as subject myself, there is I think a really primitive, almost atavistic desire to just portray them, to translate their living selves into something that also lives on paper or canvas. This has always been part of my goal and I greatly admire artists who pursue it honestly and not sentimentally. I think it will always be a very important part of some art.

For me however I also care about the language I use. Most artists also do to some degree or another. Whether it is words, harmony, rhythm, color, shape or whatever many artists know that they are using a language unique to their art and they want to keep that language fresh and alive. They tire of using the language of 100 years ago. It is that thought which the music of Stravinsky always brings to mind: what a new language he is using!

So when I came to do the mokuhanga of numerous Cedar Waxwings that I'd seen in early fall, especially in Junipers I had no desire AT ALL to portray them in a traditional manner. I would say that this was true of almost every print I've ever made. I am always trying to capture the life and animation of my subjects but never in a traditional way. All of this is more or less to explain how this print came about. I wanted to give some sense of waxwings and waxwings moving in junipers, but I also wanted to do so in a way that seemed fresh, that did not look like it had been created 150-200 years ago.

Maybe this is why so many people have at some time railed against any 'modern' type of art. It is a threat; it is disruptive; it can stick with you whether you want it to or not. But in my case I"m quite happy that it has. The more I look at art, of any type, the more I realize how many artists were just like this. They needed to find a new way to use their language. It is just as basic I think as the drive to portray on paper or canvas the life of things you see around you, especially animate objects. To me it Is a thrilling quest.

 

Me and Hemingway

Cedar Waxwings in Juniper Mokuhanga. Edition in progress with 2.5 blocks printed. Copyright 2025 by Ken Januski

When I was in high school, at least my recollection is that it was high school, I used to read The Paris Reviews hardbound collected interviews with authors. I must have gotten them from the local library. Anyway part of the interview with Ernest Hemingway struck me: he said he only stopped writing when he knew what he would write at the start of the next writing day. Who knows why this struck me other than that it was a specific method. 

Today I am using that method but expanding it from a day to a year. I’m ending 2025 with 2.5 blocks printed for this edition of my new moku hanga ‘Cedar Waxwings in Juniper.’ I will print the other color on this block, thus finishing off block number 3 as well as blocks 4 and 5 in 2026. I will post something on the finished print then.

 

Wobbling Along

Canada Warbler Watercolor.  Copyright 2009 by Ken Januski.

Black-throated Blue Warblers at SCEE Watercolor. Copyright 2025 by Ken Januski

Nashville Warbler on Bean Trellis Mokuhanga, Copyright 2022 by Ken Januski.

Yellow-rumped Warbler Sumi Brushpen Field Sketch. Copyright 2025 by Ken Januski



I hope it will be somewhat obvious that the theme of this post is warblers, affectionately know at least occasionally as wobblers. Like many birders it was the wood warblers of North American that got me truly hooked on birding. Of course most should really be called the wood warblers of the Americas, not just North America. As an artist, especially one whose history was that of large, bold abstract paintings that is how I approached warblers: bold and colorful! 

There were a few minor problems with this, ones I've noted previously. The first was that I didn't know enough about the structure of birds to portray them accurately, especially if I limited myself as I did to my own poor photos and my visual memory. As a consequence many of my first attempts were colorful and bold but also skirted around bird structure as much as I could. The Canada Warbler above from 2009 is an example of this. A better example would be the watercolor I did of a Blackburnian Warbler seen and photographed at Shenandoah National Park that I used as the main image for my blog in its earlier years. I looked forever today and could not find it. And then the thought entered my head that I might actually have sold it. I think that is possibly true though it is a bit hard to believe just because it lacked so much accuracy thought not boldness!

Another problem I discovered early on was that I really didn't like the idea of a flattened space, almost design-like portrait of warblers, or really any bird. It sacrificed the bird for what by then to me had become an artistic cliche -- flattened space. That created another problem, what in the world was I supposed to put around the bird to fill up the space? Surely not all the details of surrounding vegetation!!

To make a long story short the recent opportunity via an on-spec commission of two Black-throated Blue Warblers for a wedding present allowed me to see attempt warblers once again but in a more finished work. That work is also above and was finished about a month ago. Also above a brand new field sketch from yesterday of one of a number of Yellow-rumped Warblers that were skittering all around and through some junipers yesterday, trying to escape the wind and also me. Finally a mokuhanga from about 3 years ago which is actually a new version of my very first mokuhanga which in turn was based on a watercolor I made of a briefly overwintering Nashville Warbler in our yard about 10 years ago. It is just one more example of the various ways in which I've tried to portray warblers over the years.


One of the reasons I accepted the commission was that I felt I'd learned a lot about the structure of both birds and warblers over the years and so wanted to see if that knowledge would appear in practice. Yes, to a certain extent. But the watercolor seems a bit overworked in ways, and has lost the sense of freshness that I most value in watercolors. But I also think it is the best finished watercolor I've ever done of warblers and is somewhat true to them. And I have to say the warbler that first set me off on warblers was a male Black-throated Blue warbler that appeared outside our cabin window around Montfair, VA about 20 years ago. So they are always special to me.

Over many years of both looking at warblers and portraying them I've also become much more interested in showing their movement than in showing the color and pattern of their plumage. That is something that I used in the Black-throated Blue Warbler watercolor but it is greatly subdued. All in all I think it will be much less subdued in most of my future work with warblers. Part of the reason is that they are living creatures, not fashion plates.

Common Yellowthroat Sumi Brushpen and Watercolor Sketch. Copyright 2025 by Ken Januski.

Black and White Warbler Sumi Brushpen Field Sketch. Copyright 2025 by Ken Januski

Tennessee Warblers Sketches. Copyright 2025 by Ken Januski.

Tennessee Warblers Sketches. Copyright 2025 by Ken Januski.

Tennesse Warbler Sumi Brushpen and Watercolor Sketch. Copyright 2025 by Ken Januski

Yellow Warbler at URRP Sumi Brushpen and Watercolor Sketch. Copyright 2025 by Ken Januski.

The images above are all from 2025 and are representative of my desire to capture a sense of movement in warblers and also to have a sense of liveliness. Overtime that sense of liveliness has come to dominate all other artistic desires, though with prints there is always the desire for an equally lively composition. Comparing these to the more finished Black-throated Blues at the top these come out on top. They are far more interesting to me, and far truer I think to the experience of seeing warblers. I do hope to return to warblers in mokuhanga hopefully combining something of these with the sense of a finished composition. They may be incompatible but we will just have to see what happens.

In any case I feel more and more confident about using warblers as subjects and will be making the most of the few that I can still see and perhaps sketch from life in the last weeks of possible warblers, at least where I live!

Is Visual Art Music or Literature?

The Peregrines of Manayunk. Mokuhaga by Ken Januski. Copyright 2025.

I have finished the mokuhanga of the peregrine falcons of Manayunk and St. John's Church and wrote about much of their story in my last post.

But you might wonder how I ended up with this picture. I talked very briefly about it last time when I showed the pencil sketch that served as its basis.

Preliminary sketch for the new mokuhanga. Copyright 2025 by Ken Januski.

After doing quite a few field sketches through my scope on two or three visits to St. John's Church I also made some watercolor sketches from photos I'd taken. After deciding to try to come up with an idea for a print I just got out a large sketchbook and came up with the drawing above.

What in the world is it? Well that's where the title of this post comes in. Many people prefer their visual art to be pretty literary, clearly illustrating an object or idea. The purpose of the art is very literal and any deviation from the literal is bad, at least in their minds. Others, especially in western European/American art from the 20th century on thinks of visual art as closer to music. It is abstract but wide-ranging it its emotional impact, like music. It is not limited by facts, visual or otherwise.

Of course visual art  shouldn't be literature or music. It should be visual art, whatever that is. In any case as I sat down to make this sketch I just let a summary of my experiences viewing and sketching the peregrines over a week flow onto the paper. I hadn't really thought about this until recently. But I think this is a good explanation. It is just a visual recording of my experiences.

That means showing all the peregrines(actually 6 in all, 2 adults and 4 fledglings) but also their environment, the church and its steeples and roofs, the surrounding utility structures on which they often perched, and all my sketches of them perched in various locations. Even the food handoff from parent to child of a recently caught European starling.

Having spent most of my life as an abstract artist I feel perfectly free to make real objects abstract or to add the abstract and the more realistic. There is over 100 years of history now of this type of art. Still it probably bothers some. But I can't worry about them. As many people know art is first of all for the artist who makes it, perhaps not in terms of making a living from it, but certainly in terms of artistic satisfaction. So I'm quite satisfied with this. It mixes realistic and abstract as well as flatter more abstract space and deeper more atmospheric traditional space. I like that.

In the long run though it is also quite realistic in the sense that it recreates my experience over the week of watching the peregrines.

This is probably the most complex mokuhanga I've ever done. I'm sure many would say: 'Please, please, please start simple and then get complex. First learn the rudiments of mokuhanga and then get fancy.' It makes perfect sense to me but I just can't do it that way. I need to be motivated to make an image and then hope that I can master the technical aspects as I go.

But I would reiterate what I've said before: mokuhanga is a wonderful medium for making art. It has left me frustrated at some point in almost every print that I have ever made. But the rewards have far outweighed the problems. It is very hard to explain how much freedom you have with mokuhanga. A printing press with a million options right on the small table in front of the you. The main ingredient of the press being a handheld baren that can vary in price from around $50 to over $1000. But it weighs only a few ounces and can be repaired by you yourself. The chisels can last a lifetime. The paints are watered based and non-toxic. And you work on beautiful, often hand-made paper. Did I mention a rich history? I don't want to go on. I'm sure I break as many rules of mokuhanga and that tradition as I do of European/American art especially pre-20th century. But I find it an incredibly rich and enjoyable medium.

I have printed 12 of these so far, all on Nishinouchi paper. I plan to print at least 24 more and then will have to cull out the ones with minor blemishes. When that is all finished I will put them up for sale on Etsy.

 

Preliminary Peregrines - A Six Week Story

Three proofs of new mokuhanga, 'Peregrines at St. Johns Church.' Copyright 2025, Ken Januski

It was about ten years ago or so that I learned that peregrine falcons were nesting quite near to our house, just down the hill towards Manayunk and the Schuylkill River. Oddly we found this out after nearly running over some birders who were taking up the road for themselves, quite oblivious to cars,  at Heislerville WMA near Cape May in New Jersey. We ran into them, figuratively, later and mentioned that we lived in Manayunk. They told us about the nesting peregrines.

    The first time we actually saw them was a year or two later when I was about to walk back up hill to our house, carrying my art work with me, after having exhibited for the first and only time in the Manayunk Arts Festival on Main Street. I'd only gotten a block away when I heard this shrill screeching. Peregrines! Later I learned that they were fledglings awaiting food from their parents.

    They nested at St. John's Church for 10 or more years, with occasional replacement of one of the parents. Unfortunately I didn't visit them during breeding season any where near as much as I should have. At one point the male I believe was found dead possibly the result of a drone strike. I think that there may not have been a nest for a year or two. And then this year a new one with new parents was discovered by the person who has most closely monitored them over the years, Judy S.!

So I went down the hill a couple of times and tried to find them and sketch them through my scope. I also took numerous photos and videos but they were always a bit too distant. Below are many if not all of the field sketches I made during those visits, starting with the first.  As I've said many times there is a thrill to field sketches and the actual process of sketching in the field that is absent from photography, at least for me.

After I'd done these and after a small celebration of local birders for another successful nesting season, with four juveniles(!), I decided to do some sketches for a possible new mokuhanga. Photos of the first compositional sketch as well as one of two preliminary digital sketches are also below.

At the top are the three newest proofs of all eight blocks. There are a few minor changes to make but very soon I will print a new edition. I should add that I haven't suddenly turned 'religious.' The crosses are part of the church. The other structures or fragments of structures are also from the surrounding area, and frequent perches for the six swiftly flying peregrines. I tried to capture all of that!

Sumi brush pen field sketch of local Peregrines. Copyright 2025, Ken Januski.

Sumi brush pen field sketch of local Peregrines. Copyright 2025, Ken Januski.

Sumi brush pen field sketch of local Peregrines. Copyright 2025, Ken Januski.

Sumi brush pen field sketch of local Peregrines. Copyright 2025, Ken Januski.

Watercolor sketch of local Peregrines from my photos. Copyright 2025, Ken Januski.

 

Large pencil sketch that tries to capture the experience of seeing so many Peregrines over three long visits. Copyright 2025, Ken Januski.

Sumi brush pen field sketch of local Peregrines. Copyright 2025, Ken Januski.

Sumi brush pen field sketch of local Peregrines. Copyright 2025, Ken Januski.

Sumi brush pen field sketch of local Peregrines. Copyright 2025, Ken Januski.

Sumi brush pen field sketch of local Peregrines. Copyright 2025, Ken Januski.

Digital template, using Procreate, of local Peregrines. This is the second one and a bit different than the first. The new print is based on this. Copyright 2025, Ken Januski.

Running To and From Line

White-eyed Vireo Mokuhanga. 9x12 inches on Torinoko paper. Copyright 2025 by Ken Januski.

 

I sometimes mention that I've been an abstract painter most of my life, though as I'm now in year 19 of naturalistic art and year 10 or more of printmaking that is starting to change. In any case in my artistic memory I remember when the only thing in my mind was pushing paint around and not paying as much attention to line. However drawing, which is primarily line, has also always been important to me.

It has seemed particularly important to me as a naturalistic artist, perhaps because there's more of a desire to capture the contour of things. In any case some types of printmaking lend themselves to line, like etching, engraving and perhaps lithography. And some do not. Carving into sometimes recalcitrant wood to produce a line is not the same as whipping a sumi brush pen across a piece of paper. One flows and the other doesn't.

Mokuhanga lends itself to shapes and color, but not really to painterly color. And though the expert professional carvers of the ukiyo-e period were incredibly accomplished in the sensitivity of the lines they could carve I certainly am not. And I think much contemporary mokuhanga, at least that I've seen in US, seems to favor shape and color over line. This is not at all surprising. Carving wood and getting sensitive, sinuous lines is quite difficult!!

My first notice of mokuhanga was contemporary work and that work focused on color and shape. I switched from linoleum block printing to mokuhanga partially due to my desire to abandon the oil-based solvents of so much of the ink I was using in linoleum  block printing but also because I thought the colors of linoleum block couldn't begin to compare with the richness of the water-based color of mokuhanga prints.

Though I struggled mightily trying to learn mokuhanga on my own I immediately saw the rich color possibilities. But I also felt I wanted line in my work. I not only wanted it; I needed it. There had to be a counterpoint to the rich color areas! Just one problem: I didn't have sufficient carving skills to do that to my satisfaction. Much of my earlier moku hanga tried to find a way.

Yellow-throated Warbler. Sumi brush pen and watercolor. Copyright 2025 by Ken Januski.

Yellow-rumped Warbler Eating Poison-Ivy Berries. Sumi brush pen and watercolor. Copyright 2025 by Ken Januski.

Willow Flycatcher. Sumi brushpen and watercolor. Copyright 2025 by Ken Januski

Willow Flycatcher. Sumi brushpen and watercolor. Copyright 2025 by Ken Januski

Warbling Vireo. Sumi brushpen and watercolor. Copyright 2025 by Ken Januski.

White-eyed Vireo. Sumi brush pen and watercolor. Copyright 2025 by Ken  Januski.

Often at the beginning of the year, probably because of often uninviting outdoor weather, I end up looking at the photographs I've taken over the year, taken for documentary reasons not artistic. I hate working from photos and rarely do. But this year I decided to work in sumi brush pen, wash from a waterbrush, and possibly watercolor as I looked through my thousands of photos. I really only wanted to notate ideas that the photos prompted in me. The fluidity of the brushpen, the ease with drawing washes out of their ink and the impossibility of erasure all gave me what I wanted: a quick sketch! The more I've done these, either in the field, or in my studio working from photos, the more I like them. They don't really remind me of photos but they're close enough to the subject portrayed to give me ideas about how to develop them in mokuhanga, or more rarely watercolor.

Again though there is that problem of line!!!! How could I get the same, often thin, sinous line from carved wood? Finally I decided to use the White-eyed Vireo sketch as the  source of a mokuhanga. I sharpened all my chisels, cut more deeply and cleared out more deeply than ever before, and hoped for the best.

I am happy with my newest mokuhanga, at top, of the White-eyed Vireo. It has given me the bold line that to me just seems necessary to balance the rich color of mokuhanga. This print has also given me the confidence to consider some mokuhanga using warblers as subject, something I don't recall that I've done in print in many, many years.