Some More Sumi Brush Pen Sketches

Hermit Thrush. Sumi Brush Pen Sketches by Ken Januski.

Many years ago I used to do three hours of figure drawing five nights a week in San Francisco, this immediately after leaving my full-time job. I ate supper when I got home at 9-10 pm with a stop in between for an espresso or cappuccino at one of San Francisco's many coffee houses.

It wasn't the healthiest life style but it was exciting, especially as I did almost all of my life drawings using felt tip pens, or reed pens dipped in ink on paper about 18x24 inches. In other words I did many quick, large sketches night after night. There was something both mesmerizing and fulfilling about working so quickly and at such a relatively large scale.

I'm including three new sheets of Kuratake Sumi Brush Pen sketches. They are also very quickly done. That it just inevitable with the drawing tool. If you don't move it quickly you get a blob. I suppose it is possible to contemplate your stroke for awhile before you actually put it down. This in fact might be the best way to use the brush pen. But for now I'm doing these quickly. Each time I put down one stroke I quickly move to the next stroke.

These are done in an 11x14 Cachet sketchbook so they are somewhat large. I think it is the quick fluidity of the brush pen rather than the size of the paper that is the main factor in the effect created. And it thoroughly reminds me of the excitement of those figure drawing classes.

Great Egrets. Sumi Brush Pen Sketches by Ken Januski.

As I've mentioned, ad nauseum I'm sure, I'm not at all interested in detail. I want to scream when I read compliments on 'the detail' in someone's work. For me the telling detail is important, the one that through suggestion indicates both a knowledge and a feel for the bird, or any other object for that matte, but that is quite different than millions of little details that work against one another so that there is no focus in the work.

This brush pen, or just a regular sumi brush, forces you I think to go for overall impression and just one or two details. That's the goal I seek and I think working with the sumi brush pen will be very helpful along those lines. Eventually I'm sure at least some of these sumi sketches will appear in a new woodcut or linocut.

Great-crested Flycatcher. Sumi Brush Pen Sketches by Ken Januski.

Oh yes, these are all done from the many photos I've taken over the years. If the rain, and hot weather, ever stops I plan to try the pen drawing from life.

A Surprise Harvest and a Great Egret on One Leg

Harvester Butterfly at Manayunk Canal. Photo by Ken Januski.

It was such a beautiful, though cool, day today that I went out birding twice, once in the morning by myself and later in early afternoon with Jerene. Broadwings low overhead started the day at Houston Meadows and they were followed by numerous sparrows, though many of them I just couldn't see enough of to identify. Perhaps a Lincoln's and then again perhaps not.

In any case seeing so many sparrows seemed perfect for the first day of fall. The seasons are changing and so are the flora and fauna. The real surprise of the day though were 4-5 of the butterflies pictured above. A Harvester, the only carnivorous American butterfly. My first thought, as we saw them along the Manayunk Canal, was that it was a skipper that I wasn't familiar with. When I checked my guides back home though I realized it wasn't a skipper. Nor a checkerspot, nor a crescent. Eventually I realized that it was a Harvester. And the guides said they were rare enough to be quite a nice find. So there it was: a surprise Harvester on the first day of what I consider harvest season.

Eastern-tailed Blues and Duskywings were also about as were a number of Slaty Skipper dragonflies which I've seen the last few times I've visited the Manayunk Canal. We didn't really see as many birds as I would have liked but I can't at all complain. Today was just a day to enjoy being out and alive, regardless of what birds, butterflies and dragonflies we saw.

Great Egret on One Leg.Watercolor Sketch by Ken Januski.

I haven't stopped my practice of doing a watercolor sketch of birds that I've drawn in the field. About a week ago I saw this lone Great Egret at Morris Arboretum, standing on one leg for much of the time. This is a quick watercolor rendering of that scene. I made him  a bit too big to fit comfortably on the paper. And yet at the end of the painting I think it worked just fine. This is another drawing with a brush watercolor.

Keep Sketching, and Painting

Ovenbird at Magee Marsh. Watercolor by Ken Januski.

Great Egret at Morris Arboretum. Watercolor by Ken Januski

With the arrival of football season once again......... I know it's almost June but the weather has been reminiscent of early fall, with a real chill in the air. We started off birding on Friday morning, after dropping off one of our cats at the vet, in low 60 degree weather. As the rain continued the temperature plunged. Soon we were birding, none too successfully, in 49 degree weather.

When we returned from the vet I decided that I wasn't going to bird again until the wind died down and the weather warmed up. As I sat in my studio trying to decide what to do I looked through some photos and once again turned to sketching, again in my Stillman and Birn 5.5x8.5 Gamma sketchbook.

As Bob Kuhn, among many others, has said: you should always keep drawing. I think that's true. One loss I felt when I turned to completely abstract work was that of drawing. Though I still drew it wasn't from anything real. I always missed that. Now that I'm doing it again I remember just how satisfying it is.

At the same time though I'd add 'Keep Painting.' They really are two different methods of portraying the world, though often quite well merged in many successful artists. There's the desire for line and structure that drawing fulfills. And there's the desire for color, shape, texture that paint seems better at.

For some reason at least to me it seems that wildlife art relies more on the linear aspect of art, perhaps because of its desire for verisimilitude. But painting is about paint, whether oil, acrylic or something else. For me watercolor remains a difficult but rewarding medium. So after I'd done these two sketches I decided to continue on in watercolor. Particularly with the ovenbird it became much more a painting than a drawing with watercolor added. To me it's just as important to keep painting as it is to keep sketching. Do both, and eventually, you'll have something to show for it.

I'd much prefer if I could work from life like this, rather than rely on photos. But it is a learning experience, particularly in regard to learning watercolor. I'm sure it will eventually pay off in the field, the next time that ovenbird walks by.

Summer Egret in Neocolor II

Great Egret at Morris Arboretum Wetlands. Crayon and wash by Ken Januski

Sometimes a commission, deadline or other such thing will give me the impetus to stop thinking about what I want to do next and just do it. Such has been the case with the invitation to demonstrate some wet media work on Stillman and Birn sketchbooks next month.

Above is another 9x12 inch Caran d'Ache Neocolor II water soluble crayon work on Stillman and Birn Delta sketchbook paper. Like yesterday I started off with a pencil drawing. I'd say I spent about one hour on it and two hours on the painting. Once I had the egret looking the way I wanted, though his pose looks a bit off now, I started adding color.

I originally bought the Neocolors a few years ago because I wanted a way to quickly add color when working from life outdoors. Sad to say I never got them to work for that and in fact was generally too intimidated to even try.

Instead I used them in the studio after the fact to work from sketches and photos. As with any new medium there is a learning curve. The odd thing about them is that they are a linear medium, a medium that makes marks. But because they are water soluble they're also a shape and mass medium, a medium that makes areas not lines. That is the rub in learning how to use them.

A number of people whose work I've seen online seem to favor using them as a light wash to accompany the strong outlines of a pen or pencil drawing. And that's fine. It may in fact be their most appropriate use. But I find that I want to use them to make a painting. So I start off with the lines of the crayon but soon have a work that is mainly masses of color.

What I like about this, and about being able to use them on the Stillman and Birn paper, is I'm able to do a small scale painting with minimum fuss. I can get many of the richnesses and complexities of oil, acrylic and watercolor on a sheet of paper. And the paper holds up to all the work and all the water. I suspect this is why I think the combination is so good for working through ideas for future paintings.

One thing about the Neocolors is that they are fairly bright. Not everyone will like this. But for me it's just my cup of tea!

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.

Finished Acrylic

This is the finished version of the Least Tern, Forster's Terns, Mallards and Great Egret painting at 'The Meadows' in Cape May, NJ. I did add just the slightest bit of detail to the egret. And of course went over the reeds many times.
In contrast to the sense of animation that I mentioned in a recent post here I'm much more concerned with orchestration or perhaps design. Color, light, shape, texture and the subjects themselves should all add up and fit together in a 'certain' way. Who knows what that 'certain' way is but I think it's unique to each artist. You know when it seems right. For me in this painting a lot of it has to do with a feeling of beautiful calm that seems so typical of this area. The birds add to it but are not primary. It was trying to orchestrate all this that caused me to do the reeds over and over again, especially trying to make the back ones seem less important than the front ones.
The frame is simple pine lattice. It doesn't look great. But to me it looks better than almost any frame I can buy! For some this may seem hard to believe. But it's true. There are times when ornate frames look appropriate and actually add to the work. But I've always used lattice to frame my large abstract paintings. It's cheap but it also does what I want: put a simple edge to the painting that differentiates it from the background wall. When I switched to naturalistic painting I found that I wanted the same thing for my acrylic paintings. This it not true for my watercolors or prints, where I think the combination of mat and fairly simple frame work to set off the art and give it it's own little world to live in. But for acrylics I still think that just enough wood to give the painting an edge looks best. If I had more time though I would have preferred mitered corners to the butt joint that I used.

Least Tern in Acrylic

When I go birding, especially in a place like Cape May, NJ, where unusual birds are very possible, my goals are to see new birds and to see them well enough to sketch them. That's not to say that in places like Cape May I and my wife don't enjoy just being out in the environment. We do. Much of our birding, whether here or away, is in beautiful places.
We had hoped to see the endangered, and protected, Least Tern during our visit in late April/early May. Through the last day of our trip we still hadn't seen one.But as walked 'The Meadows' on our last night there we saw a smaller tern out on a spit. Sure enough we could see just enough to identify it as a Least Tern.
It was just too far away, even in my scope, to sketch. Instead I took some photos and hoped for the best. They still showed almost nothing to indicate it was a Least Tern. But it did show how small it was compared to the Forster's Terns to its left. And it showed one of the most striking aspects of this area, the bands of water and reed.
I always enjoy this view. It is so indicative of Cape May. I also liked the fact that the photo showed various birds all together in the same environment. This is what you actually see when you're outside, not individual birds, posed as though in a photographer's studio. As much as I like to show the beauty of birds I like to do it with them in a recognizable environment, not in the equivalent of a photographers studio.
This is on a 9x12 inch canvas. I'm not sure how much more I'll work on it. I have gone back and forth on the two bands of reeds four or five times. At some point all of the shapes, colors and sense of light will look good to me, or at least as good as I think I'm capable of doing. The birds will remain loosely defined. But that is the way that they really are at that distance. I do like the fact that this looks pretty much just like what you might see at 'The Meadows' in late spring.