Gardening for Flying Fauna

Benary's Giant Zinnias, Bronze Fennel, 'Mulberry Jam' Salvia.

Benary's Giant Zinnias, Bronze Fennel, 'Mulberry Jam' Salvia.

Every once in awhile I, and this time my wife Jerene as well, are just dumbstruck by the beauty of something in our garden. The last few days it's been the scene above of various Benary's Giant Zinnia, Bronze Fennel and 'Mulberry Jam' Salvia. Often behind the scene is another blue salvia and a few other plants including the wonderful leaves of broom corn.

The scene is beautiful enough in and of itself but it's even more fascinating when the flowers are covered with bees, wasps, flies and butterflies.

Scolid Wasps on Mountain Mint.

In particular it's the Mountain Mint, shown above, with two Scolid Wasps, that is just full of bees, wasps, flies and sometimes butterflies. We've found that whenever we have grown this plant that is just full of the most fascinating and beautiful flying fauna. I suppose if you're allergic to or scared of bees and wasps this doesn't sound too appealing. But we've rarely been stung, in fact never by anything on these plants, and instead just love to watch them. As I've also sketched insects on and off for many years that makes the plants even more attractive.

We have a very small garden, though it might be relatively large for the average big city garden. But it is an amazing microcosm of the world. Yesterday I watched a Carolina Wren go after a garden spider, itself waiting to go after whatever it caught in its web. As I said a microcosm of the world and endlessly fascinating.

Preening Green Heron, Red-tailed Hawk, Belted Kingfisher. Field Sketches by Ken Januski.

I had hoped to finish the Rusty Blackbird lino this weekend but I haven't touched it. Once people start reporting seeing migrants I remember all that I've seen in August and have a hard time resisting spending some time birding and sketching at places that hosted these migrants. The most interesting bird from my visits to Morris Arboretum over the last two days was an Osprey. To me it's very early to be seeing ospreys but I do know that they've already been reported on some hawk watches. The birds I've been able to sketch through my spotting scope the last two days include a mature Red-tailed Hawk and a female Belted Kingfisher along with a preening Green Heron. Unfortunately the latter moved before I could finish the pose.

I think my best art work is always precipitated by something I've seen in the field. So I never consider these sketching trips to be a waste or as procrastination from work in the studio. They instead fill up the reservoir of my imagination. And it is fun.

P.S. I don't think we'd ever willingly buy something called 'Mulberry Jam.'  But when I asked for salvia recommendations for hummingbirds at The Henry Foundation during their annual spring plant sale this was their recommendation. It's been a beautiful plant and one that does attract hummingbirds, just in time in fact as the Monarda is fully done and the Honeysuckle seems to be on its last legs.

GBBC Day Two - Merlin, Kingfisher, Grackles

Merlin and Belted Kingfisher at Morris Arboretum. Watercolor by Ken Januski

A very overcast day today didn't make for a very inviting day two of the Great Backyard Bird Count. Still it was an opportunity to be out and about. I finally reached my 50th bird of 2013 in Philadelphia when I spotted my first Common Grackles of the year at Andorra Natural Area. Other than that though it was very quiet, almost as though the birds too decided it best to sleep in.

After Andorra I stopped briefly at nearby Morris Arboretum. When I small raptor in the large dead tree in front of where I parked my car I expected the familiar American Kestrel that has been frequenting the area. But it just didn't look right. Finally I realized that it was a Merlin. Species number 51.

It was also very quiet here, though that might have been partially due to the Merlin. It didn't seem to bother the Belted Kingfisher though, who was on the same large tree simultaneously with the falcon. The small 30 minute 5x7 inch watercolor above is based on field sketches and photos from that scene, rearranged to suit my artistic purposes.

Icterids are always a sign of spring. I assumed that I'd see Common Grackles one of these days. Another sign of spring was a singing Red-winged Blackbird at Morris. At one point they'll drown out all the other birds I'd rather hear but that time is still 4-6 weeks away. For now it's nice to hear their song.

And as usual it's nice to be out birding for GBBC. You never know what you'll see. I believe the Merlin is only the second I've ever seen in Philadelphia. I can't complain about seeing him either.

To Sit and To Sketch - A Miracle!

I wonder if anyone has ever noticed the shakiness and uncertainty of the lines in my field sketching? Part of this is just due to tentativeness about which line to put down. But most of it is due to the fact that I never have a firm support underneath my sketch pad. At most I sit down once out of every 50 field sketches. More likely it's once out of 100.
Most of the time, even if I'm using a scope, I'm holding the sketchbook in my left hand and drawing with my right as I stand. That means that there's never a firm surface underneath the sketchbook. Today I had the rare pleasure of sitting cross-legged on a bench, my scope lowered to my new height. I was able to rest my sketchbook on my crossed legs as I sketched. It seemed like some sort of miracle of luxury!
I actually stood for the Green Heron but he stayed still for at least five minutes and I was able to get continued good looks at him. The other birds, Belted Kingfisher, Cedar Waxwing and Eastern Kingbird came and went, the latter two often off on a quick flycatching foray. But they almost always came back to the same or a nearby spot. So at times each of them looked pretty empty. But as they came back I was able to go back to the sketch and add more detail.
Talk about small pleasures!! The eyes peaking out at the bottom right are a White-tailed Deer who kept his distance. He moved a couple of times, the last taking him completely out of view. Too bad as I would have liked to at least completed the head.
These birds are typical birds of Morris Arboretum at this time of year. I'd like to see something more unusual, in the rail, shorebird or warbler family perhaps. But when I'm able to sit down and comfortably draw I can't complain. It was an exceedingly rare opportunity.

Mid-August Field Sketches

It seems like there's always something getting in the way of my field sketching. A cool morning today convinced me to get out to Morris Arboretum to see if anything unusual was around. Sure enough the first bird I saw was a Great Egret. A few field sketches of the bird are above. The head is the only sketch viewed through a scope. Most of the time I was so close to the bird that I couldn't use the spotting scope to view him, unless I just wanted to look at a certain section.

In the field sketches above I did a number of other sketches of him, these done with my naked eye. Egrets and herons are often both a pleasure and a challenge to sketch. They are very elegant. But this one was constantly feeding. Just as I started to put down the bill and head he'd move and I'd not be able to get the sinuous curves of the neck, or I'd get that and miss the torso. That can be frustrating. But if you keep at it it becomes easier. Though these are all very small sketches I'm happy with them.
Other birds seen and sketched include Cedar Waxwings, Northern Rough-winged Swallow, Belted Kingfisher just before being attacked by a second one and an immature Red-tailed Hawk. I continue to get a great thrill from field sketches, both my own and those of others.
What differentiates me from many bird artists I think is that I rarely want to take this hard won knowledge of birds and make a more finished painting based on it. I value the knowledge but more to do something spontaneous, not to do something more finished. I've never had much appreciation for high-finish art. And I don't think that will ever change. To me it seems to kill off, or at least lessen, all the sense of life that field sketches often so wondrously capture.
By the way my new web site is moving along. Hot and humid weather this week convinced me to stay in and continue work on it. I'm slowly adding a collection of thumbnail photos of a lot of work. Eventually much of my work will all be visible here.

Feathered Refrigerator Mouse

After a few hour out birding and sketching on a winter day it's always nice to come home and settle down with a book about the birds seen. Because it's not a picture book I often forget about Pete Dunne's 'Essential Field Guide Companion.' But when I remember to pull it out it's always a pleasure to read.

Birds I wanted to look up that we'd seen today were Belted Kingfisher and Red-headed Woodpecker. But we'd also headed out to the Wissahickon today specifically hoping to see a Winter Wren. We found one a few weeks ago quite close to the tree where the Red-headed Woodpecker has been hanging out for months. But no luck today. Jerene caught a glimpse of a small wren but we never saw it again. Most likely it was a Winter Wren. But I really wanted to sketch it and a brief glimpse by someone else just wasn't enough material to work with. In any case I also read the entry on Winter Wrens.

If you've ever read this book you know that you always need to pay attention. If you don't some clever thing is going to slip right by you. Today I was reading about a 'feathered mouse', which seemed factually accurate, which hops from "brush pile to uprooted tree stump to discarded refrigerator..." You can guess the part that's easy to miss. And yet it strikes you as true. It's not unreasonable to expect a discarded refrigerator along a stream where a Winter Wren might hop along like a mouse.

I'm not an artist who can work well from imagination. My wife, who claims NOT to be an artist, can draw a bird from her imagination better than I can. But all my field sketching is making me a bit better. I've got a much better mental image of birds than I did five or six years ago. In my field sketches I often now spend most of my time looking at birds then try to draw them from a briefly held mental image. I'm getting better at mental images of birds. Not that I don't still come up with some whopping mistakes.

In any case as I sat enjoying my coffee and reading about the Winter Wren hopping to the discarded refrigerator I couldn't resist trying an illustration of such from my imagination. It's at top.

I sometimes think that the best way to do field sketches of fast-moving birds is to have a mental image at the ready, get that down on paper quickly and then spend the real work trying to delineate the specifics of the bird just seen. So even though we didn't see a Winter Wren today I had some semblance of a mental image. So that's how this came about. It's partly for fun but I imagine will also help me to do a better field sketch the next time I actually see a Winter Wren.

Above it on the same page are two sketches of Chipping Sparrows. The one on the left is one that we saw at Houston Meadows in Philadelphia on Sunday. As with so many of my passerine field sketches I've elongated the torso. So the sketch at right is a mental image sketch based partially on the sketch at left but also on what I recall that I saw in my field guides and in actuality on Sunday. It seems like another worthwhile type of exercise.

Above a small field sketch of a male Hooded Merganser seen very briefly at Morris Arboretum about a week ago. Everything I've read says that you should only put down on paper what you actually recall seeing when you do a field sketch. Often that looks incomplete so there's a real temptation to embellish. I did that here and really shouldn't have. I remembered black markings on the breast but not exactly where they were. My guesses were a bit off.

Below him is a male Belted Kingfisher from today. There is a small bit of embellishment here but most of the sketch is from life. The odd thing is that the bill, seen at quite a distance through binoculars, really did look that thin. I have other field sketches where it looks more like the blunt shape it really is. Still I stayed true to what I saw.

Finally a Great Blue Heron seen along the Manayunk Canal almost a month ago. I've also made his bill a bit too thin and long. Perhaps I'm just out of practice with bills. There's only one answer: more practice!

This has been a bit of a ramble. But I did want to write some of my thoughts about field sketching. It's very difficult. And yet incredibly enjoyable. And it's these sketches from life that often lead to the best more finished art.

Field Sketches Prove Rich Trove

It's hard to believe that it was only 10-14 days ago that I did field sketches at Morris Arboretum of Belted Kingfishers, Painted Turtles and Snow. Since then I've done one wash drawing based on this scene as well as one more fully developed watercolor. Today I finished a linocut on the same theme.

This print is 9x12 inches for the entire print, 6x8 inches for just the image. It's printed in a dark slate gray, though it may look black in the photos, on cream Rives Lightweight paper. It's an edition of 12.

I've titled this post as I have because it all came about because of my field sketches. Often when I'm out people will look at them, see that they're not fully developed, and I suspect sort of write them off as scribbles. But for the artists I admire they are the richest sort of material you can find. Photos don't hold a candle, not even a cheap wooden match to them. I've written about this many times so there's no point in repeating myself. But I did think the work I've done based on those small sketches is a good illustration of my point.

I did do something different with this print. I used transfer paper to trace the outline of the last watercolor onto the linoleum block. In the past I've used my own primitive makeshift methods that give me a rough skeleton to improvise on. The one problem is that sometimes the lines don't have th sureness of the original drawing, sketch or watercolor. I'd prefer to just carve into the block while looking at my original work. But relief prints print in reverse so if I copy what I see I'll actually get a print with everything in reverse. Thus the need for some sort of transfer method.

So finally I broke down and bought some transfer paper. Only problem: the print came out in reverse. To make a long story short this print is actually a reverse of the last watercolor. Normally I wouldn't want to do that because often such reversals just look wrong. But in this case I think it did not harm it. And it was too late to do anything anyway.

I also was tempted to do this as a reduction print, using more than one color. But I finally decided to keep it simple. But there still may be a multi-color reduction print on the horizon.

Lastly I'm very happy having captured this unusual scene: snow, basking turtles and a Belted Kingfisher. That's the type of thing I aspire to.

Developing the Kingfisher and Turtles

It's been awhile since I've done anything other than quick works and sketches. That's fine. I feel like I need to move back and forth between the easy and the hard, that which puts a lot of pressure on me and that which puts little. Of course that pressure is primarly the pressure of failure.

But you never really improve without risking failure. There's only the thrill of success when you realize that you're taking a chance and risking something. But this does take a toll, so I for one have never seen any need to put constant pressure on myself.

All of which is a long roundabout way of saying I wanted to try something more ambitious with my sketches of the Belted Kingfisher, Painted Turtles and Snow.

The accompanying photos show two versions of a new watercolor. It's a slightly different design than the last wash study. One of the things I'm finally starting to get comfortable with in representational work is modifying what I actually saw. For years I couldn't do this. I only felt comfortable drawing or painting exactly what I saw, whether in real life or from a photo I took. But happily that has changed. And there is something thrilling about creating your own world, almost like writing a novel.

The first version at top is the most recent version. I changed it from the second photo because I was afraid the kingfisher got lost in all the surrounding blue. So I made some of the water a bit more green/brown. And that was probably accurate as well. I didn't take any photos of the water so I can't say for sure.

I'm not sure if this is done. Pretty close if not actually done. You can only work a watercolor so far without ruining it. And I still think I'll do a linocut of this same subject.

Winter, Spring, Bamboo Pen, Wash

Even when I was out doing the recent field sketches of Belted Kingfisher and Painted Turtles in nearly 70 degree temps, there was snow all around me. Yesterday was the second day of the Great Backyard Bird Count and yet it was so windy that there were almost no birds at our backyard feeder and only one solitary Ring-billed Gull in my 20 minute walk around the Roxborough Reservoir. So spring was here just briefly. Today it's back to being cold and snow is in the forecast over the next week.

Still I did think about capturing the odd juxtaposition of turtles basking on logs in the sun while the surrounding ground was covered in snow. And I also wanted to get the kingfisher in. He was in the same pond, often perched on snags, but never close enough to be in the same view. I did something similar last year with a Great Blue Heron and Belted Kingfisher also seen in the snow for the GBBC. The birds were never so close together that they'd appear in a photo if I were to take it of the actual scene, at least not large enough to be identified. But artistically I wanted to put them in the same scene, to take some artistic liberties.

I'd recently seen some wash drawings that I'd like. Some were by John Constable, others by Claude Lorrain. Both reminded me of how much I enjoyed wash drawings. So when I looked for a way to experiment with designs for a finished work, maybe watercolor maybe linocut, I thought about doing a wash drawing. But how to do the ink drawing?

For years I used to do large nudes using a bamboo reed pen. I see you can still buy a set of three for under $4. They are a bit messy because there's no reservoir to hold the ink. You just have what sticks to the end of the pen when you put it in the ink. But they do make a very quick and fluid line. That's what I always loved about them. In any case I got out one I hadn't used in 30 years or so and used it with some equally old India ink. Then after that I used watercolor brush to add wash and straight India ink.

There's room for improvement in this. But it did what I wanted, allow me to test out a quick design that combined bird, turtles and snow. I think it stands alone. But it also may be just one step on the way to something more developed. I do love capturing these odd natural moments.

Kingfishers, Blackbirds and Turtles

We birded for the Great Backyard Bird Count last year in two feet of snow or more. This year's GBBC starts tomorrow. Instead of two feet of snow though we had temperatures in the mid-60s today. A welcome change but one that can't, and shouldn't, last.

Still I took advantage of it to do some field sketching at Morris Arboretum. Like another trip there last Sunday a male Belted Kingfisher was evident. And he seemed to stay in one place so that I could sketch him through the scope. Normally he just doesn't stay in the same place or pose for long. I wonder if it's possible that there is less food available for him and so he just goes to a few choice spots overlooking the open water waiting to see fish movement. That's just a wild guess. In any case it's been a pleasure to have some chance to draw him.

All of the drawings but one above are done with Pitt Artists Pens. The other Kingfisher is done with a 4B pencil. These are very different media. Normally I like the greater expressiveness, due to fluctuating line weight, that a soft pencil offers. But I've never found myself happy with them when field sketching. Maybe the lines are too loose and inexact. I'm not sure. But for some reason I favor the more inflexible pen line. Out of curiosity today though I did one in pencil. As you may notice one 'bad' side of using a pen is that you can't erase. But that's fine. I know I'll have to live with what I put down so I don't worry it to death. In the case of the massive bill on the Red-winged Blackbird above though you sometimes have to live with some obvious mistakes.

Last Monday I heard my first singing Song Sparrow. Today at Morris I heard more as well as many singing male Red-winged Blackbirds, another first for the season. Along with them I believe the first basking turtles I've seen. Often I tell myself I ought to sketch them. Today was such a beautiful day and I had some free time so I also did a sketch of them. It could use more work. But often live field sketches are like that. You capture what is there and then use that as the basis of something more developed in the studio. I'm sure we haven't seen the last of these kingfishers or turtles.

Seeing What You Have

It seems like a long time since I've written about improvisation in art, a popular theme of mine for awhile. In the past I've mentioned it in relation to my abstract art which had always been improvisatory. It was something I missed in my representational work.

Today I was reminded of exactly what I mean by improvisatory. I realized that I didn't know what to do with this charcoal drawing of the Great Blue Heron and Belted Kingfisher that I saw yesterday. I would only know what to do once I put some marks down. In other words the drawing develops in reaction to what is already there. But I can't start reacting until I put something down. So in a sense what I put down to begin with isn't that important.

Make sense? I hope so. I think I've always known this but it hit me over the head today when I realized that I really wouldn't know what I wanted to do until I did something!

This style of charcoal drawing lends itself to that much more than watercolor does. It's difficult to react to what you've put down in watercolor and not end up with mud. Work that looks bright and fresh in watercolor seems to require planning. Improvisation is just hard in watercolor. There's an element of difficulty in charcoal in the sense that once you really rub in the charcoal it's hard to get the white of the paper back. But other than that it's a pretty improvisatory medium.

In any case I've been wanting to do some more improvisatory work for awhile. This is the first. I'm not sure if it's done. Sometimes you just need to let something sit and see if it still looks right 24 hours later. For now it's done.

It does continue with yesterday's goal of combining the heron and kingfisher that I saw yesterday into one drawing. They were very close to one another. But not so close as to end up together in one drawing or painting unless they were just small blobs. They were never as close as in this drawing. That juxtaposition is an artistic liberty. Improvisation and liberty in one drawing. Sounds like a good game plan!

Sketching for the GBBC

I always look forward to Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology's annual Great Backyard Bird Count. It always occurs in February and forces us into some winter birding. I like to go all 4 days of the Friday-Monday time period but the 48 inches of snow have complicated things. It's difficult enough to just get to work and buy groceries. So I didn't get out on Friday.

Today we did our errands early though so we went out for two hours. Normally we go the Wissahickon. But to have done so today we'd have given up our parking place, which would surely be gone when we returned and forced another lengthy hunt, and we might have had trouble parking at the Wisshickon.

So we decided to walk instead. We're fortunate to be in the middle of one of the 10 largest cities in the U.S. and still have two bodies of water less than a mile away. To the northeast is the Wissahickon Creek. To the southwest the Schuylkill River, and a small towpath that parallels it. The walk to the Schuylkill is a steep climb down and back. But that's what we took today, slippery, icy slopes and all.

It reminds me of why I like the GBBC so much. You get out in an unusual time of year and see your own neighborhood in a new light. We were shocked to see 19 species, including a Sharp-shinned Hawk, Swamp Sparrows, a Fox Sparrow, a Red-tailed Hawk, and the subjects of this painting, a Great Blue Heron and a Belted Kingfisher.

We've seen both before on the GBBC but I thought there was no way we'd see a Belted Kingfisher. I figured the huge amount of snow we've had this year would force them further south. But no, right there on the Manayunk Canal towpath, just as we were ending our trip and heading back uphill we saw the heron, then the kingfisher. In the same place we saw our first Downy Woodpecker, Canada Geese and Mallards.

It was too cold to sketch so I just took some quick photos. The accompanying watercolor is a composite. The heron and kingfisher were never so close together. But I wanted to get them both in the same picture.

This compositional freedom is something that I did all the time in my abstract work. But this is the first time I've done it on such a large scale in a representational work. Most representational artists will probably be shocked at this. It's a basic tool of the trade. But I've never felt comfortable enough with birds, or landscape for that matter, to stray far from what I actually saw, particularly if I'm using a photo.

But that is very limiting. I celebrated the GBBC today by taking that step.

Sora Sketches

One of the great pleasures of our trip to the Midwest a few weeks ago was the number of Soras that we saw at one particular spot at Horicon Marsh. Soras are a once a year type of bird for us, generally off in the distance. One night near dusk on this trip we had three in our binoculars at the same time, just a few feet away.

I only did one fieldsketch of them and it wasn't much. The photos weren't great either because Soras are very skittish. Nonetheless I got enough blurry photos to use as the basis for this page of sketches. Eventually they'll form the basis of more complete paintings or drawings.




I also managed to get some more fieldsketches done the other day at Morris Arboretum. They include a Kestrel, Belted Kingfisher, American Goldfinch and Ruby-crowned Kinglet. As usual the Kinglet would not sit still and I didn't see it for long. During that time I didn't notice where the legs were. Looking later at the newest edition of Roger Tory Peterson's field guide to American birds I saw that he had them much further back than I did. So I moved them a bit here. Still need to do a fieldsketch that really focuses on this though.

October Peregrine

Sometimes you get perfect October days. Today was one of them, sunny, clear, somewhat cool and brisk, at least early on. All in all a beautiful day to be outside, and just too beautiful to be inside, regardless of what sports might be on TV.

I'm testing out a new scope. I've decided that I really need to improve upon my ancient Bushnell Spacemaster, mainly for drawing purposes, though I'll obviously use it to ID birds as well. In any case I was testing out a 60 mm today at Morris Arboretum. No sooner did I have it set up and on tripod than we stepped across the road from the parking area to the wetlands and saw a small hawk land on a dead tree in front of us. At first I thought American Kestrel but the colors were a bit off. A dark raw sienna brown rather than the rust of an American Kestrel, and none of the Kestrel's blue. As I drew it and the sideburns immediately beneath the eye it seemed more likely that it was a Peregrine, not a Kestrel.

I'm not that familiar with Peregrines, and have never seen one so close. Further study of our Sibley guide confirmed that this was an immature bird. He flew off quickly, probably after a migrating passerine lunch. We didn't see any further evidence of him until we were just about ready to leave and a large bird winged powerfully and swiftly after a songbird. The speed and power left no doubt as to what it was.

The rest of the day I continued to test out the scope. But all the migrating sparrows we saw just weren't all that cooperative; here one second and gone the next. What we saw for sure: Savannah, Swamp, Song, House and White-Crowned Sparrows. What we might have seen: Lincoln's and Vesper. One bird had a lot of the buff of a Lincoln but I didn't see it long enough to see if it was also on the chest. I think it was but hate to identify a bird I'm not sure about. Another light colored sparrow, something like a Savannah, but with a pronounced white eye-ring might have been a Vesper Sparrow, a bird we've never seen. But again he was just gone too quickly. So he remains a tantalizing close ID, just not close enough.

For my wife, Jerene, and myself, there is no enjoyment in claiming to see a bird we're not absolutely certain of. The enjoyment comes in clearing seeing and identifying a bird. So both the Vesper and Lincoln from today won't go onto our checklists as such. One day, hopefully soon, we'll get a good look and enjoy our ID much more.

The Belted Kingfisher, one or more of which is generally obvious at Morris, played hard to get today. As we neared time to leave though he gave me a good, long view in the new scope. That is also in drawing at top. If I'd been better prepared and it was earlier in the day I would have perhaps tried a watercolor.

I also include an unidentified turtle, most likely an Eastern Painted Turtle. I was taken by the way he had both legs stretched out behind him, though I only drew one of them here.

Other birds today included our first Yellow-Rumped Warblers of the fall, more Eastern Phoebes, and innumerable Goldfinches. As I said a beautiful day to be outside. This is fall at its best, made even better by drawing birds from life through the lens of a new scope!

Work from Life!!

These two field sketches from today at Morris Arboretum won't set any records for good bird sketches. Nonetheless I loved doing them! Today was the first time in a while that I had a block of a time for nothing but field sketching. And it was a beautiful sunny day in low 70s.

Most of the first birds I saw were American Goldfinches, but then I started to see Eastern Phoebes, first one, then two, then possibly more. Time to sketch. But like most birds they don't sit still. So I got maybe part of the head down, and then the bird I was drawing moved. Same thing over and over. But this is the important part. Once the bird moved I had no idea how to finish off the drawing. I had only the vaguest notion of what a generalized Eastern Phoebe looked like. How did the whole bird fit together? I had part of the head but how did I draw the rest and still have it look like a Phoebe? I had no idea!

I just hadn't really looked closely enough at Eastern Phoebes, even though I've seen hundreds of them in my birding, to have a mental image. More than anything else this is the value of drawing from life I think. You're forced to realize all that you don't know about the mental image of each bird you see, and then you try to do something about it!

So the Phoebe head on top left is actually based on seeing a number of Phoebes today on various trees and bushes. Each time one flew I realized what I still didn't know about a Phoebe shape and I looked for it the next time I saw one. This went on for 60-120 minutes. I still don't have a fully formed mental image of an Eastern Phoebe but when I started today I had none at all. That is the value, AND the tremendous excitement of drawing from life.

I decided to take a break, have my lunch of apple and cheese, sit down on my portable stool, and set up the scope to match my lower height. I didn't expect to see anything while I did so, especially as I moved to a shady area where I'd seen few birds but which would be comfortable. As soon as my hands were greasy from the cheese I heard the rattle of a Belted Kingfisher.

There in front of me, centered in the scope, was a Belted Kingfisher, trying to eat a fish that was too big for him!! That's the drawing at lower left. I was so focused on getting the bill right, with fish in it, that I completely missed the crest. Was it not up as is usually the case? If so why didn't I draw it? I have no idea and only noticed the problem when I showed the drawing to my wife when I got home.

But that's really no matter. It will be harder to do any sort of finished work from this, but not impossible. The important thing is that because I got so involved with trying to draw what I saw that I have an emotional attachment to it, something I don't think occurs when I take photos. I had my camera with me, but I'm much happier that I tried to draw this struggle of Kingfisher with oversized fish rather than snap a few photos.

The last drawing on page is a Northern Flicker whose head just barely peaked out from behind a tree. Even this was instructive in getting me to see the curve of his bill. Not that I got it right in this or the next drawing. But it made me uncertain enough to do more research when I got home.




As I got to my last half hour before I needed to leave a large bird landed clumsily in a tree not far from me. Cuckoo!? No, the loud clumsy arrival made me think so but it was another Flicker. That is the bottom drawing. He remained in front of me for a long while but constantly changed position. So the first pose I sketched in never really appeared again. Now the tail looks odd. Again no matter. I drew what I saw and kept using the additional knowledge I gained from each new look to try to improve the drawing.

Among the things I noticed: all the spots on a Flicker's breast. Though I've also seen hundreds of them I'd never really focused on this. What I didn't notice: what the underside of the tail looks like. I got the shape but he'd moved before I saw the color. Only when I got home and noticed the beautiful drawing of a Northern Flicker that graces the front of the newest version of Roger Tory Peterson's field guide did I see that the dark I saw is only on the outside of the tail, especially at the bottom.

So all in all these sketches are mainly a record of what I don't know. That should be depressing. Instead it's invigorating! I'm starting to learn to really look at birds. And that's the way to do high quality drawings and paintings of birds.

I'd encourage all bird artists to spend more time on it!