A Passing Reference

Red Phalarope at Wissahickon Waterfowl Preserve. Moku Hanga by Ken Januski. Copyright 2023.  9x12 inches.

 Earlier today I was looking through some of my earliest blog posts trying to find one in which I talked about the problem of making a painting that had a bird as the subject. I never did find it but I did run across one on ‘building a picture.’ It touches on the same subject.

In my many years  as an artist, but particularly in my early years, including all the time I was studying art in college, my art was about building pictures, not portraying something. During my many years  as an abstract artist that remained true. One of my main concerns was making the picture ‘hang together,’ or as Matisse said to have every inch of the surface contribute something to the overall work.

 As my work veered toward abstraction that seemed organic and seemed to reference the natural world in some way I also started considering those references when I built my pictures. An overall disillusionment with the art popular in galleries. and art magazines in the early 90s, coupled with my practice of drawing insects that I found in the garden, eventually led me to use birds as my primary subject.

As I did so I was surprised to find what an easy transition it was from abstraction to naturalism/realism! Except that I did have a fair idea of what birds looked like. And because I knew what they looked like it was easy to see how wrong my work often was! All the formal elements of abstraction could be used in realism. But accuracy was another matter.

To finally get to the  point (!!) I also realized that I didn’t want to fudge my inability to draw birds with some degree of accuracy and realism by resorting to abstraction. So I spent 5-10 years trying to paint and draw them somewhat realstically.

In doing so I sublimated my interest in building a picture. You may guess where this is going. I no longer want to sublimate building a picture to accurate bird portrayal. Sometimes I still get a pretty good balance I think. But sometimes I don’t even want a balance. I want to abstract the bird, especially in the interests of the entire picture,

Such is the case with my newest moku hanga. It is based not  only on a specific bird, a Red Phalarope, but also on the other birds even at the Wissahickon Waterfowl Preserve that day. It also includes the island on which a number of the birds were situated, a tree on that island, the very bright washed out colors of the day, and the bubbler/aerator which  seemed to attract the phalarope. All highly abstracted, and all in the interest primarily of a visually exciting picture. Many of the subjects I just mentioned are seen as passing references, just an in music you may only need to use a note or two to recollect a much longer musical phrase.

In my journey through bird art I have tried a lot of things in order to actually build a good picture but also be true to the bird portrayed. Much of it has frustrated me because I felt giving up too much ‘art’ to keep the’ accuracy’, not just in terms of the bird itself but also in its environment and space. Many viewers might have actually felt the opposite, that I was letting ‘art’ get in the way of accuracy. But here’s the thing. Cubism is over 100 years old. Non-objective art is over 100 years old. Even Abstract Expressionism is over 50 years old. So much art has happened  over the last 100-150 years. I really don’t think bird art or wildlife art does well to ignore that. On second thought bird artists and wildlife artists would probably not do well, at least financially! I think that is probably part of the problem. The buying audience is very conservative, with some exceptions. I know bird/wildlife artists who are not at all conservative and yet do very well in terms of sales. So it is possible. In any case I at least I know that I can’t ignore the last 150 years of art, sales or no sales. To do so is like being forced to wear someone else’s clothes. So my art continues to try to find a way to portray the natural world with a contemporary visual vocabulary.

Reconciling Naturalism and Abstraction

Dead Tree Along Kankakee River. Lithograph by Ken Januski.

The recent sale of an older abstract work, Chesnut Park Number 16, along with the completion of a watercolor sketch of a juvenile Purple Finch based on a sighting last week reminded me of how much my art has often fluctuated between abstraction and naturalism and/or realism.

In looking for a very old etching I did that married abstraction and naturalism to some extent I ran across the lithograph pictured above. I've never formally studied woodblock or linoleum block printing, my current printing media. My first actual study of printmaking was in the basement of the UC Berkeley Student Union, thus the name of my etsy store berkeleySU, and the subject was lithography.

Since I did strictly abstract art for so many years after getting my MA from Berkeley and only recently turned to naturalism I'm always a but surprised to see something like the print above. Obviously there is a realistic subject but I tried to hide it pretty well, concentrating instead of both composition and the process of lithography, experimenting to see what types of marks I could get. Still I did like the idea of combining the two. I hope that perhaps this explains a bit why I continue to stay away from naturalism that is particularly straightforward.

Chestnut Park Number 16. Charcoal Drawing by Ken Januski.

When I moved to Philadelphia around 30 years ago my first works were abstract charcoal drawings like the one pictured above. It's 23x29 inches and titled Chestnut Park Number 16. The entire series was called Chestnut Park, Chestnut because my studio was on Chestnut Street almost next door to the Ben Franklin Hotel, and park because I felt that my shapes were getting more organic, like critters you might see in a park.

I've always liked this work even though I no longer work in this style. Because I'm still quite fond of it and think that it is of high quality I also have some of it for sale on a separate etsy store, OldAndAbstract. I was happily surprised to sell my first work from that store just recently.

Juvenile Purple Finch in Dogwood. Watercolor Sketch by Ken Januski.

As I've said here more than once before when I got disgusted with the contemporary art world and could no longer see a viable place for myself in it I eventually turned to naturalism, first insects found in the garden and drawn while viewed under a dissecting microscope and finally birds, in about 2006. I quickly realized how little I knew about birds, even though I'd been birding for 10 years or so at that point. It has been a long struggle to be able to understand them and to be able to draw or paint them successfully.

Soon after I started I realized I'd get nowhere working from photos and that I needed to work from life in order to truly understand birds. Easier said than done but I can say that today I'm at least somewhat comfortable working from life. And because of that I'm also more comfortable working from my own photos when there's a compelling need. The small watercolor sketch above is such an instance. We rarely see Purple Finches in Philadelphia. But last Sunday we saw four at the Andorra Natural Area, an adult male and female and two juveniles. I have to assume that they were a migrating family but that could easily be wrong. I wanted to be certain of their ID so I spent most of my time taking photos and one sketching. But the image stuck with me.

I particularly was struck by the scruffy plumage of the juvenile above. So yesterday and today I did this watercolor and pencil sketch based on one of the photos. I'd like to do something that combines both adults and juvenile but that is a bit ambitious so I'm not sure when I'll actually take it up.

When I do though, most likely once again I'll try to reconcile abstraction and naturalism. Who knows what might turn up?

Rambling with Pencil, Color and Theory

Blackpoll Warbler. Watercolor Sketch by Ken Januski

Blackpoll Warbler. Pencil Sketch by Ken Januski

Yes you would have a good right to question my honesty if I told you I recently saw this warbler. But there are some hints that it is fall and not spring due to the orange leaves, or should I say suggestion of leaves.

I'm working on ideas and sketches for a new somewhat abstract woodcut, similar to the one of the grebes and mergansers. Part of my idea in what I hope will be a series of such prints is that I needn't be limited, at all, by verisimilitude. I've always known this but it was reinforced recently while listening to a very lengthy introduction to music from The Teaching Company.

Music is of course the most abstract of the arts. It rarely is meant to represent something. But I was shocked to read about something, from the Renaissance, called non-imitative polyphony. In it two different themes are sung at the same time, creating counterpoint or polyphony. Often this was done with masses and in fact got to the  point where there was a reaction against it. So though one theme might be a recognizable song, often from the mass, the other, played at the same time, might be the most secular and non-religious of songs. I'm a beginner to music history to I hesitate to say more because I'll inevitably get it wrong.

But what struck me was that about 500 years ago composers felt free to experiment with even such solemn things as masses for decorative and emotional effect. There always was and always will be the desire on the part of artists to experiment. Even 500 years ago!!

Some musicians of that time felt free to mix and match in seemingly the most outrageous ways. Why I can't say for sure but I'd guess for artistic effect and expression.

What does this have to do with the visual arts, and particularly that fall Blackpoll Warbler seen among the Swamp Dogwoods at Maumee State Park? The sensation of color. What stuck with me more than anything else were the subtle colors of the warbler AND the pink/rose color of the Swamp Dogwood. There was an overall color harmony that was and is my most striking memory.

So just like non-imitative polyphony I'm going to take great liberties with the warbler in the interest of an overall color sensation.

The problem with this of course is that I could get so abstract so quickly that it would be easy to lose all moorings, all sense of connection to the warbler itself.

Blackpoll Warbler. Pencil Sketch by Ken Januski.

Blackpoll Warbler. Watercolor Sketch by Ken Januski.

That is where shape comes in. Many authors of bird field guides talk about the importance of shape in identifying birds. That's absolutely true. I recently had the pleasure of watching David Sibley discuss his working methods in a talk about the second edition of his famous guide to birds.

He said that he might look for 15 minutes or so before spending less than 30 seconds putting down the shape on paper. Details he could get later from photos. It was the shape that was important.

It is shape I think that gives life and individuality to birds. It's also one of the most pleasurable aspects of drawing. Sometimes when I'm sketching something it seems that there is nothing else of equal enjoyment in art. I felt that as I drew the three sketches of Blackpolls I'm showing here. I deliberately took photos of them before I added watercolor so as to accentuate the drawing itself.

In any case I think that shape can be an anchor in a more or less abstract painting or print. That is what I tried to do in the mergansers and grebes print and that's what I'll try to do if I make a print from the blackpolls. At the moment I'm just sketching trying to get a good sense of their shape. At some point I'll try to merge that with a much more abstract rendering of the pinks, oranges, and subtle yellow of the Blackpoll that I remember so well.

Blackpoll Warbler. Pencil Sketch by Ken Januski.

Blackpoll Warbler. Watercolor Sketch by Ken Januski

The Magic of Light

Just recently I needed to complete a resume of my artistic career and also create an Artist's Statement for an upcoming show. One of the notable parts of it was the fact that I've done abstract art since grade school. As I thought about it I realized that I've always preferred abstract art, from grade school through graduate degrees in college and beyond.

When I tried to think of contemporary representational artists who had influenced meduring my artistic training two stood out: Elmer Bischoff, with whom I studied at University of California, Berkeley, and Richard Diebenkorn, a fellow Bay Area Figurative Painter of Elmer Bischoff's, though by now a far more famous  one.

Even the White House currently  hangs an abstract Diebenkorn. This Diebenkorn is from his earlier Berkeley series and not the later, and really magnificent, Ocean Park series. When I was in California and studying with Bischoff it was his contemporary abstract paintings and those of Diebenkorn that really struck me. I'm sure I did many bad imitations!

Nonetheless I also was thoroughly taken with their ink and wash  figurative drawings. Both seemed to portray light as solidly as if it were a Yosemite rockface. I was competely entralled with this and also did many  poor imitations in my figure drawing classes.

I didn't turn to representational art until about 10-12 years ago, first with insects, then six or seven years ago with birds. Occasionally my love of light will surface in that work. That is partially what happened in the ballpoint pen drawing at top. It's based on a photo, which in itself seems to do something with light in terms of capturing it and making it solid. I do feel it's cheating in a way to use it as a source. But I've always loved the photos I've taken of shorebirds on Nummy Island last spring..The birds are Black-bellied Plovers, Short-billed Dowitchers and Dunlins.

The combination of light, variety of shapes  and bills, not to mention color makes this scene one that I keep  wanting to portray. Here I  did it with the intention of just getting  down the shapes of the different birds. Inevitably I also tried to capture the sense of light.

Art can be many things. Though as I've said I've spent so much of my artistic career as an  abstract artist I can't help but stand in wonder at the way  some artists capture light in naturalistic paintings. I think that Diebenkorn captured light in  his abstract paintings but it seems to me to be a rare accomplishment. For that representational artists as varied as Hopper, Vermeer and Constable are always  the best examples. And a very strong reason  to work representationally. I'd have to say that for me there's  not anything much more moving than light captured in art.

Toying with Abstraction

A few posts back I showed a small experimental watercolor of a number of shorebirds, almost all of them Dunlin, landing. It was an idea for an entry in the Bike Art show at Manayunk Roxborough Art Center. My thought was that the sense of dynamism was similar to that of a bike race, especially going up the Manayunk Wall and also at the sprint to the finish line. Limbs and wheels are flying everywhere just like the Dunlin wings, bills, legs.
Though I liked the watercolor I wanted to try another one that was a bit larger and more developed. It is at top of post. It's about 9x12 on 140# Arches cold press paper in watercolor and white gouache.
Some viewers will I think appreciate this, some will think it's a valid idea that just didn't get executed well, and some will wonder why I waste my talents with naturalistic art doing something like this. It's mainly for the last group that I'm writing this.

Above is an abstract oil painting that I sold to the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, now part of NASDAQ, a little less than 10 years ago. It's representative of most of the artwork I've done in my life, before I turned from abstraction to naturalism. I don't want to write a treatise on it but will just mention Matisse's quote about a painting being an orchestration of elements with everything in the right place. I always liken my abstract art to music. It is an orchestration of color, shape, texture, composition space that all adds up to something expressive, just like music.
When I turned to naturalism it was difficult to leave all that power of expression behind. Of course I gained something instead, the ability to portray nature, and thus gain all the expressiveness of nature. I'm happy I went in that direction. But sometimes I feel like there's something missing, that I'm speaking in Latin while the world converses in the Pidgin English of the web. So this bike art show gave me the chance to explore once again the melding of naturalism and abstraction. We'll just have to see what happens from here.
By the way the title of the abstract painting is "Short Arthur's Oblique and Non-stop Song", in honor of the jazz musician Arthur Blythe. I told you that I likened my art to music!

Killdeer Getting There

I wanted to start off this post by quoting Henri Matisse about how every part of one of his paintings has its place and is important. I thought of it this morning while various considerations about my current painting flitted in and out of my mind. As they did I realized that a good painting is like an orchestral composition, with many parts all working together: the light, the color, the shapes, the brushwork, the lines, the values, the objects, their evocations, etc.

As soon as I thought symphony and orchestra I was reminded of Matisse's quote. It used to be when I remembered a quote like this I'd go search through my books hoping I could find it without spending too much time. But now we have the internet right? No need for books.

Well the problem with that is the sloppiness of the internet. Someone may say that something is a quote of Matisse but how do I know it's correct? I read two versions of one quote today that had somewhat different meanings depending on how much of the quote was shown. So I don't trust what I've found and am not going to use it. It seems safer to just paraphrase my recollection.

All of which just leads to the thought that I'm getting happier with this painting and all the various parts of it that I'm trying to get to work together. The newest version is at top.

You may notice that the killdeer is about the only constant. Everything else is changing. I hope it will stay that way. I've liked the bird from the beginning and have made only minimal changes.

I think this painting is also heading more toward naturalism now. The abstract pattern of the water is still there but it's toned down quite a bit. I've gone back and forth between naturalism and stylization in this. For now it seems like naturalism will win out. And yet even in naturalism every part of the painting has its place, every brushstroke, every color. In that sense every painting is somewhat abstract.

I need to turn this in for the show by Friday, and frame it before that. So soon it will be done one way or the other, at least temporarily.