It's Not an Illusion

Willow Flycatcher in Swamp Dogwood. Two block Reduction Woodcut by Ken Januski.

As I look through my older prints, as well as my other work and the work of others that I admire, I often think about whether or not I want to create an illusion of reality, or maybe even just the illusion of a photograph, since many people think that reality and photography are the same. I've done work that is more illusionistic, though it rarely looks like a photo. And I can often admire such work, both by contemporary artists and older ones.

But I've pretty much decided that this is not the route I want to take. If I were more of a plein aire painter I would perhaps think differently. In that case the illusion I might try to create might be more in reaction to what is right in front of me and actually all around me, not just to the flat surface of a photo. But though I do field sketches I don't work plein aire. When I do my work from photos my skin starts getting prickly, as though I'm allergic to it.

So for me I've come to think that I'm best off working somewhat in the manner of this newest, two-block reduction woodcut. It is representational but it is not illusionistic. Just the color block by itself, before being overprinted by the black block and all its lines, looked somewhat illusionistic, more like a painting, and was appealing to me. I felt that to a certain extent I'd captured the diffuse light. But it wasn't the way I wanted to go. So I added the last black block, just as I'd intended to all along. I think this has created a more graphic, almost iconic image. That's neither good nor bad. But it seems to be the way that I want to go and the way that seems most fruitful to me. I suppose it is that impulse that also convinced me to change my cover photo recently to the woodblock print of a Gray Catbird guarding his walnuts. And just yesterday I saw another Gray Catbird in the middle of the road, seemingly as imperious as could be, daring a car to come near him. That reminded me of one of the reasons that I like my Gray Catbird woodblocks. I believe that they capture, from at least one perspective, the experience of seeing a Gray Catbird.

Illusion can be great but sometimes you just feel like something different.

This woodcut by the way probably took longer than any print I've ever done, even the 9-10 color reduction linocut of the Blackburnian Warbler at Magee Marsh. It wasn't really that complicated. But I felt like I needed to keep proofing different colors until I got the ones I wanted. And then I spent a week or two figuring out how to get a final black that printed full and rich and not splotchy. It's at moments like that that I wonder why in the world I ever got involved with such a technical medium!

Flight

Gray Catbird with Walnuts Version I. Multi-block Woodcut by Ken Januski.

Gray Catbird with Walnuts Version II. Multi-block Woodcut by Ken Januski.

I really wasn't sure how I'd name the post with the final edition(s) of the Gray Catbird with Walnuts woodcut. But the excitement of seeing birds, especially hawks, in flight today at Houston Meadows provided the answer: Flight.

I'm sure that there are many people who first get interested in birds through an admiration, perhaps even envy, of their ability to fly. I've never been one of those for better or worse, perhaps because I just have never seen all that many hawks in flight. But when you do see them soaring, like the juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk shown below, it is quite a sight. The sense of elegance, excitement, power is quite striking.

So I determined that I'd call the post Flight. I suppose it's a good thing that I'm happy with the woodcuts. Otherwise I might have needed to try something like Dive. But I am happy with the results so the title stays.

Juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk at Houston Meadows. Photo by Ken Januski.

As I said previously I printed on two types of paper, partially because I had a half sheet of Rives Heavyweight to use up. Once I started experimenting with the background color I decided it made sense to make the 12 prints on Shin Torinoko paper one color, yellow, and the 6 prints on Rives Heavyweight another, sort of gray olive. I've always preferred the yellow one but there's also something that I like about the more subdued olive gray print. Both images are 4x6 inches and the entire print is 7x9 inches.

They are now up for sale on my Etsy site(see link at right). I've also added some photos and an explanation of the process involved on my Facebook site(also in link at right).

Two Versions of Gray Catbird Woodcut

Gray Catbird with Walnuts. Two Versions State Four of Multi-block Woodcut by Ken Januski.

I realized that my fear of a background that was too dull were coming true the other day so I decided to experiment with a third block for the background. I was already printing on two types of paper, Shin Torinoko and Rives Heavyweight so I decided to also try different background colors on each paper type.

Originally I tried the yellow on proofing paper and I loved it. It seemed to liven up the print without taking away any of its simplicity. But when I added a bit of black to get a greener yellow and in fact got a very toned down green gray I still liked it. They are almost like a summer catbird and an autumn catbird.

The real test will be when I print the first black block on top. The thin lines have broken numerous times so far as have the lines created with wood putty to replace them, also multiple times. So I feel like I'm Kurt Gibson trying to limp into home plate in the World Series many years ago. If I can only hold that black block together long enough to finish the print!!

It will be at least a day before I dare print on top of this since even today the underlying ink was a bit wet. So perhaps it's time for a drawing with a brush break tomorrow. Time will tell.

Taking Artistic Liberties with Historical Markers

Baptismal Marker from 1723 along Wissahickon. Photo by Ken Januski.

When I quickly sketched the Gray Catbird who is the subject of my woodcut in progress I didn't really pay much attention to what he was standing on while he closely guarded his walnuts. I just tried to capture the pose of the bird. Today I happened to pass by the exact same area, with at least one walnut still in place but no Gray Catbird.

I was quite surprised to see what I eventually made the stump of a tree in the print was actually a very old historical marker, from 1723 no less!! Well my apologies to history and historical markers but I think that the tree trunk works better in the woodcut below. Still it is, at least to me, a thoughtful moment when I happen upon something that refers to events of 300 years ago. Of course the metamorphic rocks that litter the Wissahickon are just a bit older. How about 500 million years?! That is the claim of this study. It can be a humbling experience to see rocks that were formed that long ago.

Gray Catbird with Walnuts. Multi-block Woodcut Proof by Ken Januski.

Today I proofed the third color of the woodblock, not counting the black that will go on top. Anyone who is familiar with Gray Catbirds will know that their undertail coverts are a brilliant rusty brown, in stark contrast to the charcoal gray of most of the rest of their body. From the first I planned on incorporating that into the print. Later I decided that I might also use it in the tree trunk/ex-historical marker.

This is just a proof on earlier copier paper proofs. But it is getting closer. Once I decide on whether to change the color or shape of this color then I'll proceed to print the black on top of everything. Hopefully it will hold everything together. And I hope as well that it won't be too dull. I didn't remove the background thoroughly in the fairly recent crouching green heron print thinking that it might add to the print. When I discovered in the process that a plain background would be better it was too late. So almost from the first I've decided to keep this background plain, just the color of the paper. Time will tell whether that will work or leave the print looking flat and dull.

Gray Catbird with Walnuts. Multi-block Woodcut Proof by Ken Januski.

The morning after posting this I did a quick proof of the black block on top of the proofs from the colored blocks. So the final print will probably look somewhat like this. There is a lot of sloppiness in the proofs that will disappear to a large extent in the final print. For now I'm just trying to sort through the final decisions on color and shape. And of course the possible problem of the background just being too dull.

Chicken of  the Woods Tree Fungus. Photo by Ken Januski.

But dullness is not a problem in the photo above. I ran across this scene today along the Wissahickon as well. What a brilliant orange. I confess I know little about mushrooms and fungi. But a quick search for 'bright, orange tree fungi' when I got home convinced me that this is what is known as Chicken of the Woods mushroom, I assume because it tastes like chicken. Well as I said I know nothing about mushrooms so we're not having it for supper tonight. But you can't help but admire it for its visual beauty. On a cloudy day like today it was a burst of sunshine in the dark green foliage of the vegetation and the dark black of a fallen tree.

Picture Perfect Every Time

Gray Catbird with Walnuts. Early Proof of Multi-block Woodcut by Ken Januski.

That's the lot of the printmaker, even a part-time one like myself. No matter what you do it turns out Picture Perfect. Well not quite. I've always been a bit scared off of printmaking and printmakers I think because there seems to be far too much concern with technique in the field, almost like an arcane religion.

But the thing is that there are just so many things that can go wrong with printmaking that it's easy to become concerned with technique. I've already run into two of them with this print. First because I've used a black block composed primarily of thin outlines to tie everything together there's always the possibility that one of those thin lines will break, and end up lost on the floor with all the other intentional cuttings. That happened not just once but FOUR times! I think I know why but I won't go into details. It has meant finding a way to repair the lines.

A second problem involved inking up just a small area of the woodblock, for instance the green of the walnuts.  Sometimes I can just ink up the entire block knowing that some areas will be covered by a second color. That is the case with the gray here. I printed the entire second block in gray. There is one area where I would have preferred not to have the gray underneath, since it will affect whatever color is printed on top of it, but I decided I could live with it.

Sometimes I'll print the color and then wipe off areas that shouldn't get that color with a rag before I place the print on top and rub the ink into it. That was a possibility here with the green walnuts. But I didn't think I'd be able to clean up the aberrant green successfully. So instead I tried a stencil or mask. This is something I've experimented with before but not too successfully. In any case I tried it here by cutting out a section of mylar the same size as the print. The result is above on a trial proof. I'm still deciding whether I can live with it or should redo it before I print it on the actual edition.

So as you can see it's sometimes easy to get lost in technique when it comes to prints. I really try to stay away from it as much as possible. To me it never adds anything to a print. But it may help save a print, i.e. repair one.

When I print I experiment quite a bit on the way to the final edition. In the 4x6 (7x9 with border) proof above I first printed the second block, which will have all of the colors, in gray. I then printed the first block, consisting mainly of black lines, on top of it. After I'd cut the stencil I decided to print the green of the second block on top. This won't happen when I make the actual print. But for now I just wanted to get a quick look at what it might look like. The black lines, at least as far as my picture perfect plan foresees it, will be printed on top of everything else. So here there would be a black outline around the green walnuts instead of underneath the green.

In the end there's a lot of imagination and guesswork involved. I'm guessing what all of this will look like when I'm done. Of course it won't turn out that way, or is very unlikely to, and I'll then need to improvise. And perhaps I'll have to resort to technique once more to salvage what I've done. If that doesn't work there's always rationalization.

In other news sparrows and butterflies seem to be the most exciting visitors in the natural world right now. I'd love to have the time to do and show some artwork based on them but that will just have to wait.

Carving Catbirds and Walnuts

Gray Catbird with Walnuts. Early Woodcut Proof by Ken Januski.

Just as I enjoyed returning to watercolor a few weeks ago I've also enjoyed returning to carving woodblocks over the last two days. I guess it keeps things fresh. In any case above is step two in the early stages of a multi-block woodcut. I'm sure it will be multi-block because I want to use a separate block to print the gray of the bird, the rust of his undertail coverts and the green of the walnuts.

I was also looking through some of my older woodcuts and realize that I do like some of the ones that have outlines around the subject, as in the Piping Plovers. I realize that most of my newer prints are moving away from what might be called a recognizable scene toward something more graphic, linear and perhaps abstract. That's fine. I've realized that by keeping the outlines fairly accurate I can feel that I've been true to the bird without getting bogged down in detail. Then I can be much freer in other ways, perhaps color or texture or composition.

Gray Catbird, House Sparrow, et. al. Field Sketches  by Ken Januski.

I happened upon a squawking Gray Catbird a couple of days ago along the Wisshickon. He was feeding as far as I could tell on some broken walnut husks. I loved his strong pose and open bill. I also liked the fact that the pose showed how small his wings are, something that always surprises me since they are fairly large birds. In any case this seemed like a prototypical pose and I tried to capture it immediately after seeing it in the sketch above.

Gray Catbird with Walnuts. Watercolor Sketch by Ken Januski

When I got home I decided to do a watercolor sketch based on the field sketch but also incorporating information from my photos of Gray Catbirds. The end result is the woodcut above. So far I'm quite pleased with how it's worked out. More than anything it has a good sense of the pose of the catbird as he squawked out his displeasure with my intrusion. The sketch above give some sense of how I expect the colors to develop. The smudge in the upper left by the way is a very blobby Northern Flicker where I just used too much water. I ignored him as I sketched the Gray Catbird.

Homeboys(and girls) - Early June 2013

Zabulon Skipper, Acadian Flycatcher and Eastern Pondhawk. Watercolor by Ken Januski

Zabulon Skipper, Acadian Flycatcher, Gray Catbird, Veery. Field sketches by Ken Januski

Try as I might I can't find any lingering migrant warblers. They seem to have moved on and now it's mainly the summer breeders that I see on our walks. That's fine. It really is as it should be. But each time spring migration ends it is shocking how quickly it has passed. It almost makes you want to give up sleep during the month of May.

We have seen a few birds that I'm still not sure are migrants or breeders. The Willow Flycatcher at Morris Arboretum, which we see each year, is most likely a breeder but I'd like to prove it this year. The Yellow-billed Cuckoo that we saw at the Breeding Bird Census at Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education last Saturday is even more of a question. Could it be breeding there? The habitat seems suitable but I've never seen it other than in May or early June.

I wanted to include it in the watercolor at  top but it was hard enough  to torture the Acadian Flycatcher into the composition. A bird perched even higher like the cuckoo just would never have worked.

I didn't see all of the species seen here at the same time and location. The Zabulon Skipper was seen in our yard and then also today along the Wissahickon. The Eastern Pondhawk, another first of year species like the skipper, was seen at Morris Arboretum on Sunday. And this Acadian is from a field sketch from today. As  I think about it a Willow Flycatcher might have been a better choice since all three of these species would be likely at Morris.

The other species seen today include a very perky Gray Catbird, another Zabulon Skipper, one of many Veeries, and a very small Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. In a sense they are homeboys and homegirls. This is their home for the next few months.

The watercolor is done on Stillman and Birn 9x12 inch Delta paper. I've always liked all of the Stillman and Birn sketchbooks for working through compositional ideas. This is a somewhat outlandish composition. But I don't like dull ones for my own work. So I keep experimenting.

To me that is part of the fun - to show familiar birds and other fauna in unexpected ways. Eventually I hope to return to linocuts. This sketch is a possibility for one but my guess is that it is currently far too complex. But you never know. One day, soon I hope, one of these will seem just perfect for a lino.

Sketching Animation

It's easy to be a bit manic as an artist. There are so many interesting parts of art it's hard to know which to focus on. And it's easy to be seduced by one then the other so that you seem to move about erratically with no clear sense of direction.
In some ways it may be similar to a cook who has a mental encyclopedia of all the various enjoyable tastes and combinations of tastes that are available to him. But you can't use them all at once! My guess is that the secret of any successful artistic/creative endeavor is to learn to focus on one thing and sublimate others.
I had to think of this when sketching the House Sparrows that are at a window feeder outside my studio. They were particularly raucous today with at least 15 of them fighting for the space for three that the feeder allows. Some sketches of them are at top.

Seeing sketches that capture a sense of liveliness and animation reminds me of how much I love this in art. At times I can value it over everything else. I've never studied animation or cartoons but this type of sketch veers toward a cartoon. This could sound bad, something lower on the cultural hierarchy than more ambituous, finished art. But I doubt it's true. There probably is a reason that both cartoons and animation are so popular. They strike a fundamental human chord.
Among the other attributes of art I love are an orchestration of order, of color, tone, composition. This is almost the opposite of the spontaneity of field sketches. Soon I'm sure that desire for orchestrated order will come to the forefront again. But for now I'm happy to be trying to capture the sense of animation of the birds I see. Above is a Ruby-throated Hummingbird that has been frequenting our monarda. Below him two versions of a singing Common Yellowthroat. At bottom a House Finch also from the studio feeder.

Outside our kitchen a small and young Downy Woodpecker has been frequenting our various feeders. That is him above along with a Great Blue Heron at the Wissahickon striking a particularly elegant pose. Real-life poses that are caught on paper rank high in my pantheon of desirable artistic qualities. Also a far-off Red-tailed Hawk.

And finally the ubiquitous squawker of the summer, a Gray Catbird. They're so easy to ignore, especially as they mimic the sounds of other birds and can make a birder think the bird is far more unusual than it really is. But they're also very animated birds. I've tried to capture some of that here. To me this is far more exciting than putting down every little feather of the greater coverts and having it look dead as a doornail. With him is a back view of an Acadian Flycatcher. This is another ubiquitous bird of the Wissahickon and one I'd really like to master before the year is out.

Still Sketching

Garden chores, carpentry chores related to our garden, and a lot of birding and field sketching have argued against any developed work during the last week or two. I don't mind this. During winter I long for warmer weather so that I can actually sketch from life. So that's what I like to do at this time of year. And of course there are always the new arrivals to sketch. That adds some excitement. Above is a field sketch of the first Wood Thrush of 2012. Below it is a poor sketch of an Eastern Screech Owl. In these two instances and almost all the others on pages below I didn't have my scope. So the sketches are done by looking at bird in binoculars and then sketching the bird. It's almost three years since I started field sketching seriously. It is a daunting task. The birds are so often gone before you can put pen or pencil to paper. It seems impossible. And yet when I see field sketches by talented artists I can feel the excitement that they must have had as they drew. Sketches from photos, including my own, leave me cold by comparison. There's just nothing like a good field sketch. I imagine this is related to why I've always preferred Rembrandt's sketches to his paintings. There's an electricity in them that is not found elsewhere.

But it has not been an easy road. The excitement is always there but the results don't always seem to indicate much improvement. This is less so with field sketches done with a spotting scope and birds that tend to sit for more than a split second. And I'm very happy with those. With the sketches done in the manner of this page though I sometimes feel disappointed in my progress. That is starting to change though. I've learned that such sketching requires both mental effort and experience. Once you've gotten certain parts of a bird wrong enough times you start drawing it differently even in field sketches. More I think you learn what you don't know. As I've learned all the things I don't know about constructing a bird on paper I've started to pay more and more attention to those aspects when looking at a bird to sketch it. So even a field sketch that is done in less than 10 seconds may include years of experience and knowledge. I'm starting to feel that with the way I draw woodpeckers, thrushes, wrens, even those troublesome warblers. On the page above are some recent attempts at a Yellow-rumped Warbler, Pileated Woodpecker and Gray Catbird. They still leave much to be desired. But finally I feel that it won't be long before my field sketches show a full and convincing sketch of the birds I see. It is an exciting time.

Above some sketches of a Carolina Wren, all of whom seem to be perched in the open and singing at this time of year, a Red-bellied Woodpecker and a Hairy Woodpecker. I'm starting to feel at home with Carolina Wrens. Woodpeckers are more complicated but I'm starting to pay attention to the different shapes and sizes of their bills, the shapes of their heads, and the patterns on their face and wings. It's a lot to keep track of and generally I can only notice a few things before the bird has flown. But the knowledge is accumulating. I expect that soon my various woodpeckers will actually look like the species they are meant to portray. There is something tremendously exciting about being able to sketch birds as they appear, and disappear, right in front of you. By the way almost all of the credit for my improvement, outside of my actual practice, can be laid at the great examples of field sketching found at the Wildlife Art thread at birdforum.net.

Conjuring Up the Birds of Summer

Yesterday I took part in the Philadelphia Mid-Winter Bird Census. I don't think it got above freezing all day and it snowed during the 2 1/2 hours that my group birded. What a beautiful day. There's something about being out birding in the snow.

But the birds didn't seem to agree. It was the smallest count I've been in during my five plus years of taking part in the census. My guess is that most of them were hunkered down, waiting for warmer, dryer weather.

One of the many pleasures of birding, particularly birding the same area time and again, is that you get to know what birds should be there, what birds you've seen on previous counts. A Lincoln's Sparrow there. A late Eastern Towhee there. There the lone Tree Sparrow of the year.

In much of the area we traversed yesterday I couldn't help think: hmm, well a Gray Catbird could still be here. They are everywhere in the summer, non-stop chatterers and squawkers. And one or two will occasionally still be around for this mid-winter count in Philadelphia. But I saw none yesterday.

One close relative though, another mimic, the Northern Mockingbird, did finally make an appearance where he's been in previous Januaries. It was looking unlikely then up he popped. That's the virtue of knowing one area, often called a 'local patch', well. You know what birds are likely to be there. So you spend the time to check that area. Yesterday it paid off.

I've not given up on printmaking. Just taking a break, slowly looking for new subject matter. Printmaking takes a bit more planning that paintings and drawings. So I'm spending a lot of time looking for something that strikes me as a promising for a new linocut. In the meantime this fairly quick watercolor of a Gray Catbird seen this summer.