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!