GBBC 2015 Day Three - Playing It Safe

Carolina Wren and House Sparrows On Feeder. Watercolor Sketch by Ken Januski.

'Playing It Safe' is one of those titles that works on many levels: 1) with a temperature of 7 and winds of 30 mph when I woke it up I thought I might not get out birding today and might need to play it safe by sketching something I could see from the house; 2) I could also play it safe by staying in and not freezing to death on a day where a falling tree might be more likely than an unusual, or maybe even usual bird; and 3, the original reason for the title, the smaller Carolina Wren in this picture has learned to play it safe by actually getting into the feeder thus frustrating the efforts of the larger birds, like the House Sparrows pictured here, to bully him or her out of the way.

Quite a few years ago, when I did a lot more woodworking than I do today, almost all of it with handtools not power tools, I bought a multi-plane. I can't recall whether it was a Record or a Stanley. It was a beautiful plane with far more capabilities than a rank amateur like myself could ever use. Once I got it though I wanted to try out some of its cutters, specifically the ones for molding. I did so on a piece of pine I think though perhaps it was a harder wood. In any case I ended up with a nice fairly complicated piece of molding with no conceivable use. And then I thought I could make a little 3"x3" bird feeder.

That was 10-15 years ago and yet it remains one of the favorite feeders of backyard birds. I did coat it with varnish as I recall. Otherwise it could not have survived.  Carolina Wrens are often the first birds at our feeders in the morning and they often get the peanut pieces in the feeder all to themselves. But soon enough the hordes of bullying House Sparrows are there and drive them off. Finally at least one of the wrens got wise. It now sits itself down in the feeder where it is somewhat immovable. Finally enough belligerent House Sparrows may chase it off but it is able to eat a bit longer.

This pencil, watercolor and gouache sketch is done from memory and from photos I've taken of House Sparrows and Carolina Wrens and also field sketches I've done of them. I had to use white gouache because I realized I'd made the wren too large in relation to the House Sparrows. In fixing that I lost the white of the supercilium and throat. So out came the white gouache in the hopes of regaining it in its new smaller location. Once I add gouache I know that I'm on to a rougher type of watercolor. I'm no longer playing it safe. At this time only brute force, mainly of gouache and opaque colors have some chance of saving the day.

Such sketches almost always end up looking rough. But they also are among the sketches most likely to serve as the basis of a later painting or print.

If an unusual bird appears in the yard or I decide to brave the cold and windy weather later today I might post a bonus GBBC picture but most likely I'll play it safe and stick with this.

Feeding and Sketching Birds

Robin in Crabapple in Yard, House Sparrows at Window Feeder. Sketch by Ken Januski.

Droll Yankee Window Feeder hanging on my studio window.

Last year I got the feeder pictured above for Christmas. I thought it would be nice to sketch birds outside of my studio window, right in front of my drawing table with its table easel. Hah! December - no birds. January - no birds. February - no birds. I may exaggerate a bit. But I'm pretty sure that no birds, not even House Sparrows, would try it until March or so.

The idea of course was to get me to force myself to look at birds more closely and get better at this odd thing called field sketching. Well it was a great idea. But the birds didn't cooperate.

But things have changed. All of the field sketches on this page are from the last few days. Ninety percent of the birds have been House Sparrows and the other ten percent a recent fall arrival, Carolina Chickadees. At the top you can see another bird that has arrived in the yard but is too big for the feeder - one of many American Robins. They are having a good time in our crabapple, the one we were told wouldn't reach eight feet and is now about 25 feet high. But it does present a good view fro the third floor.

In any case it's been nice to have so many birds. But I'd sure prefer something more interesting, as we sometimes get in our backyard. For practicing sketching from life though there's nothing wrong with House Sparrows. Their constant quarrels and fights over food and feeding position mean that there are always animated poses.

And every few seconds they all disappear in a choreographed wave. It's always amazes me how they can all leave like this at seemingly the exact same nanosecond. One of these days I'll try to capture that in paint, I hope?!

Carolina Chickadees and House Sparrows at feeder. Sketch by Ken Januski

House Sparrows at Feeder. Sketch by Ken Januski.

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.