Finished Woocut, 1000 Year Old Painting

Black-crowned Night Heron, Short-billed Dowitcher and Greater Yellowlegs. Woodcut by Ken Januski.

I finally finished the woodcut of a Black-crowned Night Heron, Short-billed Dowitcher and Greater Yellowlegs. It is 4x6 inches, printed with Daniel Smith water soluble ink on Shin Torinoko paper. The edition started at 12, but has dwindled to between 6 and 9 due to sloppy mistakes on my part.

As I was finishing this and also looking at other prints and wildlife art I realized that where many artists devote their energy to a finish of detail(wildlife art) or technique(printmaking) my energy instead goes into more formal aspects, composition, color, tone, etc. I think I also have a greater concern for how birds actually behave physically, i.e. where their weight is distributed, how they move, etc. than many wildlife artists who instead devote a lot of time and energy to detail.

Part of what got me thinking about the sense of movement and weight of animals was my skimming of the relatively new book on Bob Kuhn  Drawing on Instinct. He seems to actually feel the weight, balance and movement of the animals he portrays. This may be a bit easier with big animals like lions than with small ones like birds but I suspect he's just as successful with birds. One other artist who has at least one reproduction in the book is Karl Rungius. Again he is a master of understanding the weight, almost the presence of animals. Surprisingly a contemporary wildlife artist who I think also is very successful with this is Harriet Mead, currently President of the Society of Wildlife Artists. Her somewhat abstract found object metal sculptures of a variety of animals and birds always have a sense of connection with the living, moving subject, even though done with various bits of found metal objects. They are striking in their believability.

I'm of course not comparing myself to any of these. But I do think that I'd rather get at least some sense of the physical empathy they have for the subjects that they portray than waste my time on details. For many wildlife artists I'm sure this seems like sacrilege. But for me it's as necessary as air.


Along with the finished woodcut I wanted to show a photo of a Chinese painting that is nearly 1000 years old. It was painted by Cui Bai in 1061. It seems particularly fitting for Easter weekend:


It is amazing to see such strong wildlife art from almost 1000 years ago.

A New Woodcut, a New Bird or Two

Black-crowned Night Heron, Greater Yellowlegs and Short-billed Dowitcher. Woodcut proof by Ken Januski.

I can't remember how long it's been since I last printed but it must be six months or more. The oddest thing about this is that I got a new brayer and baren towards the end of 2015. You'd think I'd be eager to use them. Well I was but I just didn't have any ideas for prints.

I've been looking at photos and sketchbooks for 2-4 weeks now and finally decided on a small 4x6 inch woodcut of this grouping of birds, first seen at Forsythe NWR quite a few years ago. I always liked the lurking night heron and the oddball dowitcher amidst all of the yellowlegs.

I've mentioned many times that I never plan out my prints, unlike so many prints that I see. I can't say that this is good or bad. But I know such planning is beyond me. In any case once I get going with a print I remember how enjoyable it is to go through the process of carving, proofing, more carving, more proofing, etc. There's always a great anticipation of seeing how the print will develop.

Given that this print is only 4x6 inches I really can't do much in the way of detail. So it is probably nearing completion. I'll most likely print an edition just in black. But after that I may eventually do an edition that also includes some color on the reverse side of this block.

Eastern Phoebe. Photo by Ken Januski.

Along with my first print of 2016 I'm also seeing some first birds of 2016. Above is an Eastern Phoebe, a sure sign that breeding birds have returned. It's always a question of when we'll see the first one. The photo above is from one seen yesterday. But we've been seeing them for at least a week. This was the first that sat still for a minute, in good light, so that I could take a photo.

Savannah Sparrow. Photo by Ken Januski.

Dixon Meadows Preserve has turned out to be a great spot to see Savannah Sparrows. I can't remember whether or not I saw some in early 2016 there. But we got clear looks at this one last weekend. They're always a pleasure to see. We may have heard another Pine Warbler yesterday but we're still waiting to get our first look for 2016.

Trials and Rewards of Ink Drawing and Painting

Black Crowned Night Heron, Greater Yellowlegs and Short-billed Dowitcher. Brush Pen Sketch by Ken Januski.

I first saw the possibilities of working in ink when doing life drawing through adult education classes in San Francisco many years ago. I'm sure this was precipitated by examples from Matisse and Picasso as well as the more contemporary Richard Diebenkorn and Elmer Bischoff, the latter two more for their use of line and wash rather than just line as with Matisse and Picasso. In any case once I tried it myself I was thrilled, particularly in doing large, very quick drawings from live poses.

I really haven't been too successful in using ink with wildlife art, particularly bird art though I have done quite a bit of it. I think the main reason is that the pens I used didn't have as much fluidity as I would have liked. That has changed however ever since I started using the Kuretake Brush Pen and to a lesser extent pens from other manufacturers. Since they're made to mimic oriental brushes it's no surprise that they have a lot of expressive possibility.

Nonetheless ink is also fairly unforgiving. You can't erase mistakes. Either try to work around them or start a new drawing. I've done more than my share of bad drawings so far in 2016. But the ones on this page from today and yesterday are fairly successful in my estimation.

The one at top is based on a photo that is quite a few years old. It has always struck me as full of possibility: all those Greater Yellowlegs with one Short-billed Dowitcher and then the barely visible Black-crowned Night Heron looming over them. I think finally I've captured some of the possibilities of that photo.

If you look at much wildlife art, online or elsewhere, you can see a whole lot of big expressive eyes and a lot of fur and feather details. Someone must go for this because there is a never-ending torrent of it. I'll say no more than that the type of work I'm showing here is in deliberate contrast to it. It is very difficult to believe that the same subject can create such thoroughly different responses.

Great Blue Heron. Brush Pen Sketch by Ken Januski.

As I've mentioned before I'll sometimes work from a particular photo, or even take that photo in the first place, because I can see the entire bird, feet and all. That was the case with this Great Blue Heron seen at Maumee State Park a couple of years ago. I like to see the feet as well because they are very important in showing how the bird has distributed his weight. It adds to the sense of life, much more so than the glint in the big eye of some bird in a more 'realistic' painting or drawing.

Great Blue Heron. Brush Pen Sketch by Ken Januski.

I do think Great Blue Herons must have just about the most predictably interesting shapes of all birds in the eastern U.S. That was the motivation in the remaining sketches on this page. Their shapes are just too interesting to pass up. I only wish I'd had a better view of the feet!

Great Blue Heron. Brush Pen Sketch by Ken Januski.

Ending January - Month of Herons

Often the blahs of winter seem to nudge me towards colorful neo-tropical migrants in my art. I remember beginning 2011 with a quick watercolor of an Indigo Bunting. The grays, white and mud browns of winter seem to call out for brighter, warmer colors.

But as this January ends I think it has to be called 'The Month of Herons.' Between the new painting of the two immature Little Blue Herons at Morris Arboretum, the juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron seen at the Manayunk Canal last week and then the comparison of it with the juvenile Yellow-crowned Night Heron seen at the same place in the summer of 2010 it has been a month of herons.

There have also been a number of sparrows, particularly the dead Song Sparrow killed by a backyard cat. But mainly it has been herons.

So as the month ends it makes sense to show the latest version of the immature Little Blue Herons. It has definitely gotten more realistic. I don't think I've ever painted tree bark before, or even had the desire to. And even though this painting started out in an abstract vein something has pulled me toward realism. So for me it is a surprising painting. But part of the enjoyment of art is being surprised.

I think this is about done. If so I'll include it in a show that opens next Saturday and which I'll mention in next post.

Going Out on a Limb, Like a Heron

I'm not an expert birder. 'Expert' of course is a relative term. But I've had the experience of knowing some expert birders, either personally or in print or online, so I have some idea what a real expert is.

With that in mind it seems foolish to write this post comparing juvenile Black-crowned and Yellow-crowned Night Herons. It's doubly foolish because the drawing at top is based on two photos I've taken of juvenile night herons over the last 2 years. I'm convinced that the photos show a juvenile Yellow-crowned Night Heron from over 18 months ago and a juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron from just the other day. But I could be wrong. Both were seen at the same spot along the Manayunk Canal in Philadelphia.

What I'm trying to do in the sketch above is to do a bit of a field guide ID workshop on differentiating the two birds. This is what's foolish. I'm not an expert and I could be wrong. But in this case I think I'm right and I thought the sketches might be helpful.

The first thing that struck me is the bill of the two birds. Though they can both look blunt in certain views in profile the Black-crowned, which is the bird at the right, is more pointed. I think this is due primarily to the fact that the tip of the lower bill in the Yellow-crowned starts off at one angle then turns to another. This gives a blunt impression rather than a sharp one. This is one of the things obvious in the photos of the two birds and I tried to show it here. These differences are consistent with Sibley's guide.

Another difference mentioned in guides is the extensive yellow on the bill of the Black-crowned. Unfortunately my photos don't really show the lower bill colors clearly. The upper bill is almost completely blue. The lower bill does seem lighter though, perhaps a muddy yellow-green, whereas the photos of what I decided last year was a juvenile Yellow-crowned show a wholly dark blue or blue/gray bill, with the lower bill being darker than the upper. I didn't try to accentuate this in the drawing above.

One thing that I think is critical in bird identification is to first determine what you see, then try to match it to an ID. So for me I have no use for digital guides taken afield. I think people are better off looking at the bird and really studying it. Sketching helps in the looking. In any case that's what I'm trying to to here: look at the most noticeable differences in the birds and then see how they compare to what the guides say. With the bills both the photos and my sketches match the guides in determining the bird on left to be a Yellow-crowned and the rightmost bird a Black-crowned.

One other obvious difference in drawing the birds while looking at the photos is that the streaking on throat and chest is much finer and more distinct on the leftmost bird. I'm not sure I've gotten that across as well as I could have in the drawings. The rightmost bird has more muted, blended streaking. This was very evident in the field. This also in consistent with the IDs of Yellow-crowned on left and Black-crowned on right. It was using all these clues both last summer with the Yellow-crowned and this week with the Black-crowned that convinced me of their identifications. And the guides agree.

Another striking difference but one that I didn't accentuate here because I wanted to focus on the head area is the extensive white markings on the wing converts. They are much larger and more striking on the Black-crowned. I tried to show this in yesterday's watercolor but wasn't as successful as I could have been.

Other clues that confirm the ID: the legs are longer on the Yellow-crowned. I didn't show this in the drawing but it is clear in the photos. Finally something I wished I'd noticed as I finally flushed this week's heron: the feet of the Yellow-crowned are much more visible behind the tail than those of the Black-crowned.

In conclusion I'm going out on a limb here by trying to explain how I differentiated one juvenile night heron from the other and saying why I believe my IDs are correct. And I have to add I feel a little safer doing this in that no one from the PA Rare Bird List has disagreed with either ID. But I'm not at all an expert. I did the above sketch partially for my own education. But I thought others who have trouble with IDing juvenile night herons might also enjoy it.

Oh yes, for anyone interested in the medium: this is in ballpoint pen.

January Night Heron in Philadelphia

I knew that I shouldn't expect a night heron in January. But there's this perverse notion that always takes hold of me that because I once saw a bird in a certain location another of the species should be there every other time I visit. At least there should be a possibility.

Never mind that it's the wrong season, that the one time I saw it might have been a fluke etc., etc. But I was recently reading 'The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable' by Nassim Nicolas Taleb, and he mentioned a study about how people's guesses regarding numbers or probabilities were influenced by the most recent number they'd seen. This is completely irrational and yet it happens. The mind works in very mysterious ways.

Nonetheless I didn't expect to see an immature night heron along the Manayunk Canal today. Three Great Blue Herons was more than I expected. A Hairy Woodpecker was a nice surprise. And yet there it was.

I'd been greatly surprised to find a juvenile Yellow-crowned Night Heron in almost the exact same location in late June/early July of 2010. So I assumed that's what this was. But I can't differentiate juvenile night herons on sight. I did a sketch, took numerous photos, and then when I got home looked at Sibley, Crossley, et al. The combination of fairly long pointed beak, more or less of one color and fairly large white spots on coverts lead me to the conclusion that it's a juvenile Black-crowned.

As has happened before I'm using this blog for documentation purposes for the Pennsylvania Rare Bird listserv. I'd hope to wait until tomorrow to post these photos, along with the sketch and a new watercolor or two. But I see that the blog has had an unusually high number of visitors tonight and I assume its peoplevlooking for photos that aren't yet there. So I'm putting them up now. Tomorrow I'll work on a watercolor and most likely post it and the sketch.

That Heronry - Step by Step

Yesterday I finally settled down and got to work on a finished watercolor of the heronry on good watercolor paper. For some reason I just wanted to get some version of it done in paint.

The problem with heronries is that they are large. You can capture some sense of all the trees or you can capture an individual bird or two. But it's very difficult to capture both. After all the preliminary studies of last 7-10 days this seemed like the best way to get both birds and trees.

The painting at top is the finished version, an 11x14 inch watercolor. I'm including some of the steps along the way below.



I did a sketch first on same size paper to make sure I had the proportions more or less correct. Then I drew the sketch above on the good paper. I often skip sketches but this time I didn't because I wanted to make sure I had planned out where the birds would go, especially since I needed to preserve white of paper for them. One problem with this however is that the lead of the pencil itself can dirty the paper.



Then I got to the first problem. Where should I start? I knew I had a number of possible problems: 1) how to show the individual reed stalks, especially since they were very light in value; 2) how to show the pine needles at right, near the Black-crowned Night Heron; 3) how to blend in the dark areas in shadow. When I know I have such problems I just sort of feel my way along. So in the painting above I painted the pine needles, some of the reeds and some of the shadow.



I then added more dark shadows as well as the dark part of the trees. I knew that this would be a problem though. There were light reeds going on front of some of the dark trees. How could I accomplish this in transparent watercolor. The reeds would never look light on top of the dark of the trees. I've never used masking fluid and that might have worked but it's always seemed far too finicky for me. Still if I had some I might have tried it but I didn't. So I just put the dark down and figured that the solution would eventually appear.



Next I added some of the green foliage at top as well as the light reeds in center. I knew that using yellow for reeds would not really accurately portray what I saw. They were actually much lighter and tanner in reality. But I couldn't figure out how to get that in watercolor.



And some more finetuning to try it all together. At this point the one big question loomed: should I try to make the reeds lighter by adding white gouache. And if I did that should I add it in other places as well to try to get a few more white highlights. Finally I decided to do so. I then went over some of the gouache with transparent yellows to try go get a more realistic portrayal of the reeds.

This is shown at top in the final version. I also did something I didn't really intend to. I made the water darker and with stronger reflections than I planned. Once I made a small change I saw that I needed to make another small change, etc., etc. I think it works like this. But it was a surprise that just took over the painting at the end.

For me that's just the way art works...

Building a Heron(ry)

When I do a number of quick works as I have over the last two days I wonder where I should post them, here, on the Wildlife Art thread of birdforum, both, or maybe neither. Birdforum seems to be more for professional and/or dedicated wildlife artists. This blog, I think, tends towards a more general audience, people who are interested in nature and birds and art but maybe aren't as thoroughly devoted to it.

This is a guess on my part. I don't do reader surveys of people who read the blog. But based on the comments I've gotten over the years I think it's primarily people who are interested in nature or those who are just getting comfortable with nature-based art.

Because of that I tend to detail my process more here than at birdforum, on the assumption that people will find it interesting AND aren't already familiar with it because they work similarly themselves. The end result of that is that I don't always post the highest quality work. This is more like a scratchboard than a gallery for finished work, though I do include that as well.

Which brings me to today. A week or so ago I did a quick 15 minute watercolor sketch, seen below, based on a photo of a heronry at Heislerville WMA. I wanted to see if I could make a painting where the two herons were so small as to be almost unnoticeable. I realized after the attempt below that I'd need to study herons more so that I could summarize them at a very small scale. To do that I tried a quick watercolor of a Black-crowned Night Heron, above. Then I tried another version of the heronry. It is at the top.

I think I'm at the point now where I'm ready to try a version on better quality watercolor paper.



In checking my reference photos of the heronry I also ran across some photos of a couple of very striking Yellow-crowned Night Herons from this spring in Cape May. So I tried a couple different versions of them. Though there are no Yellow-crowned Night Herons in the heronry painting it seemed like a good idea to try them in two different media.

I like to work this way. I keep approaching the subjects from various directions. At one point I think all I've learned will come together in a finished painting.