Field Sketching with a Scope

You can blame it on the snipe! It's always easier to sketch live birds when you can see them through a spotting scope. This is because you can see more detail since scopes have higher magnifications than binoculars, and more importantly because you now can look and draw at the same.

It's such a luxury to be looking at the bird through a scope then glance quickly down at your sketchbook to make some marks. When I bird without a scope there's always the need for more than two hands. You need two hands to hole the binoculars, though I know some people can do it one-handed.

But even if I did weight exercises so that I could easiiy lift the binoculars with one hand there's still another problem. While my eyes are up where the binoculars are in front of my eyes my sketchpad is far below, generally around waist level. Often I find that I look at bird with two hands holding binoculars, then drop them and put sketchbook in one hand and pen in another. Great until I need to take another look at bird. Where do I put the pen and sketchbook while I put both hands on binoculars? Often I keep the pen in my right hand and the sketchbook in left as I raise binoculars. This is a good formula for losing sketchbook, pen or both.

I won't go on but you can see the difficulty. That's why it's so incredibly easier to use a scope. The problem is that it is heavy as is the tripod that is necessary to hold it. So I rarely take it out in winter. I don't think it will be worth the hassle of the weight. Come spring it's another story though, as birds finally become prolific.

They're not quite prolific yet but there was another reason to bring out the scope today. We flushed at least two Wilson's Snipe at Morris Arboretum on Sunday. They kept coming back to same location, well hidden until we flushed them again. Never did we get a good look.

So on the offchance that they were still there I decided to bring scope, hoping that I could get a good look, and sketch them, before scaring them off. Well no such luck. There was no sign of any shorebirds today.

But there were turtles and swallows in particular. Above a Tree Swallow, snapping turtle, head low to water, and a Canada Goose on nest on left page. On right a male and female Belted Kingfisher as well as one of many Painted Turtles on a log. It was such a pleasure to be able to look at them and sketch them without constantly lamenting the lack of four hands!

I also did some field sketching without scope over the previous few days. You can see the difference. Eastern Phoebe and White-throated Sparrow on left, wonderful Great Blue Heron with crest on right along with a nother Eastern Phoebe, a Carolina Chickadee, a Wood Duck in flight and the first Blue-gray Gnatcatcher of the year. The latter bird is elongated. I always enlongate them unintentionally. I've vowed that this is the year I finally get them right. Next time....

Some Ink Sketches

Continuing on with the thought of preparing myself for doing field sketches of wood warblers when they arrive for their brief spring visit I've returned to my photos of them and done some ballpoint pen studies. Above are some Black-throated Greens. Though the most striking thing about these warblers is their color you really can't do justice to that without being able to draw the structure of the bird. Many of these photos were taken at Magee Marsh in Ohio last year where warblers seemed to drip from the trees.

Above are Black-throated Blues. Though we saw many of them at Magee we also see very many here in Philadelphia, especially in the fall. These sketches are all based on photos I took in Philadelphia over the last couple of years.

The striking colors or warblers can almost hypnotize you. I always find that when I try to draw them in the field the thing that has stuck in my mind is a field mark, for example the black throat of either Black-throated warbler. But I don't remember the structure. In fact I don't even SEE it. I'm too struck by the colors and patterns, and of course the fact that the bird has now flown. In any case I hope that these studies might help a small bit in creating a mental imprint on my mind of their structure.

I do have a better mental image of a Belted Kingfisher. So when I drew one recently in the field with a very long thin bill I knew it was wrong. But that is what I saw so I stayed true to it. But it got me thinking so I did some ballpoint pen studies of them as well, all based on photos I've taken in Philadelphia over the last year or two. I've yet to figure out what made the bill seem so thin. But in looking at my old field sketches I found another similar sketch with a long thin bill. Perhaps it's because his mouth was open, perhaps eating something? I don't know. but something created the illusion of thinness. I'll need to keep investigating. (Well the investigation wasn't very time-consuming. After posting this I was looking through 'The Art of Robert Bateman.' I came across a painting, which I'd seen many times before, called 'Aspen and Kingfisher.' It showed a kingfisher flying with its mouth wide open. In that position the lower mandible in particular looks thin and long, quite unlike the blunt appearance of the entire bill. I believe that most likely it was the open bill that so confused me in my field sketch.)

These sketches are all ballpoint pen as I've mentioned. You might think the finality of ink would be inhibiting. But for me it's much better than the ephemerality of pencil. You never know when your fine, carefully drawn fine lines are going to smudge away to a blur. With ink you're sometimes stuck with a line that is wrong. Your mistakes show. But I think it's easier to cover over them and have lines that stay as you made them than to worry about smudging pencil. It is surprising to find ink such a rewarding medium. I used to draw with India ink and liked it for the same reasons. But I've only recently tried ballpoint pen, thanks mainly to two artists I often see at Birdforum, Alan Dalton and Paschalis Dougalis. More than anything else their work convinced me to give it a try. I'm glad I did.