Moku Hanga in Progress, and in London for SWLA

Spotted, Solitary and Least Sandpipers. Working  proof  of  moku  hanga print by Ken Januski.

I'm not sure if I've ever shown a work in progress from my Moku Hanga prints. But I easily could. That's because they take forever. I'm now on week three of this print. And I still don't have the final design, or colors. But  I'm getting close.

I had been planning to write my next post on my field sketches, both those done at Cape May in May and also those done around  here. But having three of my works in The Society of  Wildlife Artist's  annual show 'The Natural Eye': Purple Finch and Hairy Woodpecker at Andorra' has been a bit of a distraction, though certainly a pleasant one.

The three framed works waiting to be shipped off to 'The Natural Eye', accompanied  by  the  hope  that at least one of them would get in!

I'll go on a bit more about  the SWLA show later but for now I'll try to finish a thought and stick with this print. Though not a field  sketch it is based on and inspired by them.I think it was in May that I did some field sketches of both Spotted and Solitary Sandpipers at Morris Arboretum. They ended up being somewhat clumsy works but they still captured the life of the birds. And as I've said probably a million times over the course of this blog it's next to impossible for me to get that feeling of life when I'm working from photos. So it's much easier for me to be inspired by my sketches though I often will use my photos to at least see the details, and  then decide how important it is  to try to get them into the work. In this instance I also added two Least Sandpipers which I'd also seen and sketched  at Morris Arboretum in  previous years.

Once I get started on a work, particularly a print, though it used to be just as true in my large abstract paintings, my main concern becomes the orchestration of shapes, colors, textures,  and movement. Often I get seduced by the colors, shapes, etc. and find I've gotten too far away from the original impetus. So  I find it's always a dialogue/dance/or whatever you want  to call it between the original impetus and the logic and poetry of  the medium itself. I think that is why they always take so long for me to complete.

When it comes to most wildlife art, and again to repeat something I've said a million times, I  often find that it seems to get all of its emotional resonance from the reaction to  a PHOTO of something not to the real thing. That is why I love 'The Natural Eye'. Once again viewing the online gallery this year I find it positively thrilling. The art about nature  should  be as exciting as nature, or  even moreso in that it combines  the excitement of  both art AND  nature. It was particularly thrilling to be able to walk through  it in person last year both to admire and enjoy all the art work that was in it but also to honestly assess whether my own work really belonged there  or  perhaps  had gotten there by some fluke, twist of fate or whatever. Almost all artists and some time doubt themselves. I'm happy to say that I  left feeling that my work did  hold its own!

But that is not what is most important. What's most important  is  that this show demonstrates that it's quite possible to make the most ambitious, exciting, moving art possible all using wildlife as its subject. The Society of Wildlife Artists should be proud of themselves for coming up  with such a rewarding exhibit year after year.

Seduced by Sum Brush Pen Studies

Osprey. Sumi Brush Pen Studies by Ken Januski.

Ovenbirds. Sumi Brush Pen Studies by Ken Januski.

This hasn't been much of a June so far. Either too hot and muggy to spend much time outside, or too wet to spend much time outside. So I've spent far more time, and ink, using the Kuretake Sumi Brush Pen than I ever would have anticipated. But it is addicting nonetheless.

I think that there are a couple of reasons for this: one has to do with the pen itself -- it makes very fluid strokes. But the other has nothing to do with the pen. It is instead the thrill I've always found in sketches that capture animation, from Rembrandt to some cartoons. I do think there is an almost primordial appeal to art that translates marks into an evocation of a lively, moving body, whether it belongs to humans or animals. Almost like a magic capturing of spirit.

My background is as a formal, abstract artist. Among my many teachers was a famous woman artist in California whose somewhat diaristic art garnered her many avid female (mainly) students. Though I wasn't fond of the adoring followers or the diaristic aspect of the art it was honest as could be I think. I greatly liked her. But she did say one thing that stuck with me when she critiqued my work as a graduate student in art: it was very good formally she said but it didn't seem to be ABOUT anything.

This has never bothered me, the fact that my art was formal and not about anything in particular. But when I started to work from nature I suddenly found that it was ABOUT something. That in turn allowed me to indulge in my liking for art that captured animation, the sense of liveliness in subjects.

So once I started using the sumi brush pen I found that I liked many of my drawings, even though most were done from my photos, because they did seem co capture the animation of birds, the sense of the postures they take, the way the weight is distributed, etc., etc.

Palm Warblers. Sumi Brush Pen Studies by Ken Januski.

Least Sandpipers. Sumi Brush Pen Studies by Ken Januski.

And so with the weather keeping me inside more or less I've continued to do these 11x14 sketches of birds with the sumi brush pen. I'm up to about 40 pages in about 10 days I thnk. Besides the sense of animation there is something else that is very important I think that the pen forces me to do: SIMPLIFY.  I've actually not simplified that much in the sketches of Least Sandpipers immediately above and I think they suffer a bit from it. I got carried away I think trying to show too many of the beautiful feathers. Photography allows us to see the details in feathers and feather patterns that we don't really see with the naked eye. When they're right there in front of us in a photo it's tempting to try to put them all down. But it's far more productive I think to just suggest the feathers by simplifying. It certainly creates a more lively work by simplifying them.

So I may be able to make just two marks for the bill, one above and one below. Even the line separating the two may be too much. So I have to look closely at the photos and then decide which few lines I want to put down. Not all of these work. There are many mistakes and missteps. But there are others that I'm quite happy with. They simply capture the sense of the bird. And they look alive.

Northern Mockingbirds and Pintails Sumi Brush Pen Studies by Ken Januski.

As I said in another post I'm unhappy that I've been able to do so few field sketches with the new brush. Below you see my two newest attempts. Not much to write home about. I think part of the problem is that the sketchbook is too small for the brush, this being a much smaller Moleskine sketchbook. Also I don't have as solid a surface to paint on since I'm holding the sketchbook in one hand and that's not as stable as a table. And of course my subjects are quite uncooperative and move on me. But there are compensations with sketching from life: like the Great Crested Flycatcher eating a Red Admiral butterfly. I thought he had a dragonfly. Until I put the binoculars on him in his new location and saw the unmistakable outer wing edges of a beautiful Red Admiral.

I do like the very simple Gray Catbird at bottom right. And I'm confident that this brush pen will eventually come in very handy in the field.

Carolina Wren, Great Crested Flycatcher with Red Admiral and Gray Catbird. Sumi Brush Pen Field Sketches by Ken Januski.

Picture-winged Fly, Veery and Common Grackle.  Sumi Brush Pen Field Sketches by Ken Januski.

After I'd posted this I decided to try to combine sumi brush pen and watercolor, in my years old quest to get a vigorous watercolor that still looked like something more than random marks. This still remains a goal of mine. With that said this is a 12x16 watercolor with underlying sumi brush pen sketch on Arches 140# paper. It's based on a number of shorebirds, mainly Red Knots, Ruddy Turnstones and Dunlin seen at Cooks Beach, NJ in May.

Red Knot and Other Shorebirds at Cooks Beach. Sumi Brush Pen and Watercolor by Ken Januski.

Failure, Followed by a Mistake, Then Failure

Painted Skimmer. Watercolor Sketch by Ken Januski.

I'm of the philosophy that the quicker you make your first 1,000 mistakes in art, or anything, the quicker you'll make progress. I also have the impression that in many areas this type of thinking is considered old school, or just plain bad. Oh well. I have no doubt of its truth. Any endeavor involves more failures than successes. But if you build on failure it really isn't a problem. And it's the quickest way to success. I only thought of this because it's been 36 hours more or less of failures and mistakes.

Let's deal with the mistake first. Back in June I wrote a post that included a photo of a beautiful Halloween Pennant dragonfly. It reminded me of ones we'd seen last year and when I read in a guide of its fluttery butterfly like flight I confirmed it as just that. But recently I've been looking at my photos of birds and dragonflies from June and July as well as reading through my dragonfly guides. Uh oh, I thought. That may not be a Halloween Pennant.  Well today I finally investigated and discovered that it is in fact a Painted Skimmer. As reparation for my misdeed I did the quick ballpoint pen and watercolor sketch above.

That covers the mistake of the title. But it also covers one of the failures. The above drawing is somewhat off. The abdomen is longer and thinner than I've portrayed it. I do like the colors and I think it captures some of the beauty of a Painted Skimmer, but I also know it could be better. So in a way it's a failure, the most recent failure of the last 36 hours.

Least Sandpipers, Hairy Woodpecker, et al. Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Yesterday found numerous shorebirds at the Manayunk Canal. The page on right above includes three sketches of Least Sandpipers from yesterday along with a quick sketch of a Great Blue Heron. I partially did them to illustrate my working method elsewhere. In that explanation I said that I liked to start with field sketches, then perhaps do a more developed drawing or watercolor, probably incorporating details from photos that I'd taken, to reinforce what I learned about the bird drawn in the sketch.

So I spent an hour doing the pencil sketch below based largely on a photo from yesterday. I then added watercolor.

Least Sandpiper. Watercolor Sketch by Ken Januski

The second failure, or actually the first, of the last 36 hours. Normally I wouldn't have shown it here or on the other site. But it did illustrate my working method and here it fits in with the theme of failure.

Of course failure is completely relative. Some of my successes would seem like failures to others and some of my failures like successes. The point is that every artist, or actually any person who strives to accomplish something, will meet with failure and disappointment at times. I've managed to put a number together in just 36 hours. But they're a part of growing. And hopefully I'll remember what I've learned, including being more cautious about what I ID publicly.

97 Ox-eyes

Least Sandpiper, Wood Thrush, Great Egret et al. Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Even the Least Sandpiper met a violent end when the larger species were in short supply, though its minuscule roast would scarcely make a mouthful, bones and all: in one account ninety-seven of these "ox-eyes" were cut down in a single shot.  

Paraphrased from Arthur Cleveland Bent's Life Histories of North American Shorebirds in Peter Matthiessen's The Shorebirds of North America.

I was starting to reread the Matthiessen/Robert Verity Clem book on shorebirds quoted above when I ran across the quote about the Least Sandpiper. Since I've been seeing this bird recently at Morris Arboretum it seemed a pertinent quote. I also noticed that it is only six inches in length, just a half inch longer than many warblers, which always seem so tiny.

It's hard to imagine shooting such birds, as was common at least until the early 20th century. And it's equally hard to differentiate people who did it for food or income versus those who did it for some perverse notion of sport,  a term that also changes drastically by time, location, culture.

In the two pages from my primary field sketch notebook above is a collection of birds seen recently: the Least Sandpiper at bottom right, along with a Great Egret above, both seen at Morris Arboretum. On the left page a Red-eyed Vireo at top, seen from below, a Wood Thrush and just a wisp of a Great Crested Flycatcher.

They're not my best field sketches ever and each were done in less than a few minutes. But I do like the fact that they represent the variety of birds seen over two days. Of course I saw many more but these were the ones I chose to portray for various reasons. Hopefully this also indicates a change of time, culture and location: birds and other wildlife can be enjoyed, even harvested to make the analogy more fitting, as drawn images or I suppose photos, rather than as dead fodder for either food, economy or just egotistic self-aggrandizement.

They are a celebration of all that is around us and all that is constantly under threat by someone, who hasn't the slightest appreciation of them.

American Redstart. Watercolor Sketch by Ken Januski.

I've been meaning to do some more developed work with all the warbler photos and sketches I've accumulated over the last few weeks. I also read about someone using ballpoint pens with wash, so that the pen ink ran in various ways. I used to do this with a Pilot Razor pen I think it was. Recently I bought some new Pilot pens, V5 I think these were. In any case this is the first experiment with it using a recent photo of an American Redstart. One danger of running ink is that you can get an insoluble dark where you don't necessarily want it. So when I went to put orange watercolor where that color is on the tail I actually got a black, due to the running ink.

It's a trade off that working like this requires, and one I'm happy to live with. I've also made this bird a bit chunkier than it really is. And that's another trade off in working with ink. Once it's down it's down. There's no way to repair it, another trade off I'm happy to live with.

More Shorebirds and a Damselfly at Morris Arboretum

Semi-palmated Plover, Solitary Sandpiper, Least Sandpiper. Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

I checked out Morris Arboretum for shorebirds again today and found a new one: Semi-palmated Plover. It is not a rare bird but it is one that I've never seen at Morris before. Hopefully this influx of shorebirds will continue. The Semi-palmated Sandpiper was missing today but Solitary, Spotted and Least Sandpipers remained.

It may be hard to believe that the sketch above, on Stillman and Birn Delta sketchbook paper, is a field sketch like the others I've shown recently. Why does this one seem so more developed? There are a number of reasons. One, I planned it that way, assuming that the shorebirds would cooperate and two, and far more important, I was sitting down supporting my drawing pad on my knees.

Normally, even when I'm using a scope, I draw with my right hand, while standing and holding a small sketchbook in my left hand. This results in a very unstable drawing surface. My hand is not as solid as my knee, firmly planted on the ground.

Today I staked out what looked like a good area for viewing shorebirds, lowered my tripod to about 2 feet tall and put up a small, portable 3-legged stool to sit on. All and all it's a vast improvement over my usual method. But it only works if I'm pretty sure that birds will appear and stay in the location in front of my stool and scope. If we were talking about warblers it would be silly to set up the stool and scope since there's no way in the world that warblers would stay in the same place.

In any case it was a great pleasure to be sitting, drawing against a sturdy surface and having the birds be somewhat cooperative. Everything here is something I saw. I didn't finish off the legs on the Semi-palmated Plover or the flight feathers and scapulars on the Solitary Sandpiper because I never got a chance to focus on them.

Also these birds were never all together like this. I started with the Semi-palmated Plover then added the Solitary Sandpiper when the Plover left. The Least Sandpiper was a last minute addition when one appeared in front of me.

Working like this it's easy to get the birds out of scale in relation to one another since I never saw them all together. But I think the scale is pretty accurate nonetheless, with the possible exception of the Least Sandpiper being just a wee bit big. Many bird artists do developed field sketches like this. For me it's a very rare treat to be able to do so.



Female Eastern Forktail Damselfly. Photo by Ken Januski.

Both I and Jerene were at one point totally flummoxed by shorebirds, especially since we saw so few in Philadelphia where we live. But over time, especially with trips to the Cape May area we've gotten more familiar. But it's back to square one with damselflies and to a lesser extent dragonflies. Today I saw my first damselfly at Morris.

I took the photo above thinking that I'd be able to identify the damselfly. But no such luck on a first perusal of my two guidebooks. So it's time to start studying damselflies again, just as we did with shorebirds, starting 5-10 years ago. Either way it's a great pleasure to be seeing them again.

(A few hours later after a thorough perusal of Dennis Paulson's Dragonflies and Damselflies of the East and I'm pretty certain of the id: a female Eastern Forktail. The violet cast  to the damselfly is due to pruinosity.

We saw our first dragonfly of the year last weekend doing the PA Migratory Count at Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education. But we were birding, and talking, and all we noticed was a large, blue/green dragonfly. A wildly speculative guess says Eastern Pondhawk but it was there and gone and we'll never know for sure.

Field Sketching Around Cape May - 2012

It's hard to imagine anything I enjoy more than seeing birds that I don't see that often and being able to sketch them. For seeing a lot of birds, both in numbers and variety, it's always hard to beat Cape May, NJ and the surrounding area. There are probably/possibly other places in the US that are just as good. It's hard to beat Magee Marsh in Ohio for warblers. But Cape May is very close to us and it's the area I know best.

 One problem with sketching at Cape May is that there is just too much to see. Should I sketch or try somewhere else to see more birds? Should I also take some reference photos for birds for which I have no good photos? There are always such decisions at hand. But I've gotten better at spending more time sketching. And my wife humors me and doesn't complain about needing to move on.

 That said above is one of my sketches from this trip. All are ballpoint pen in a Moleskine sketchbook. Above three Black Skimmers on a spit of land, with a Laughing Gull off to the left.

Above is the first page of field sketches from the trip: an American Oystercatcher, in the water and preening. That's why you don't see the feet. Below a Bonaparte's Gull that started off in the water then moved to land. And finally a Piping Plover. The Piping Plovers and American Oystercatchers were both nesting in same area so it was a great opportunity to sketch both. We ended most days with a quick trip, and sketch, through that area.

One of the other endangered birds that are protected along Cape May beaches, along with the Black Skimmer and the Piping Plover, is the Least Tern. I was afraid that we were going to end the trip without seeing them. Then on our last night, on the far side of a pond at 'The Meadows' we saw one. That is him above, along with a Laughing Gull and the head of a Piping Plover.

I don't know all that much about shorebirds. But I have the vague recollection that they feed in different areas of any 'shore.' As in many things the bullies crowd out the smaller birds. So it took us a while to find one of our favorite little shorebirds, the Least Sandpiper. He is at top above, along with a Red Knot and a hovering Forster's Tern, just waiting for the right moment to feed.

My last sketch was done this morning as we used our last few hours at Heislerville WMA. There were thousands of birds there, probably 90% being Dunlin. But Black-bellied Plovers, Short-billed Dowitchers, Least and Semi-palmated Sandpipers were scattered about, along with yellowlegs and skimmers. In this last sketch I tried to pick out Black-bellied Plovers, Short-billed Dowitchers and Dunlin to show their comparative size and shape. These are less than half of the sketches and I'll probably show more soon. When I got home the mail included 'Bird Conservation' magazine from American Bird Conservancy. I was just realizing how much I enjoy seeing shorebirds and this new issue summarizes many of the threats these fascinating and beautiful birds face. It is well worth reading, and well worth joining American Bird Conservancy.

More Shorebirds in Ink

I picked up some acrylic paints and a couple of small stretched canvases yesterday. I haven't painted in oil or acrylic in about 20 years. But there has been a hankering, especially as I've gotten more comfortable using birds and nature as my subject. As I wait for inspiration, or perhaps courage, to hit me though and get me to start that first painting I continue to experiment with ball point pen and shorebirds.

I've always liked ink. It can be intimidating since it's permanent. You can't erase a line as you can with pencil. Since my lines tend to feel their way along, searching for the right contour, rather than precisely putting down the correct line as soon as the pen hits the paper this can present a problem. I'm likely to have a lot of exploratory lines. But this rarely bothers me. I tend to make the first lines light and then darken them when I'm more certain.

Of course this doesn't always work. Sometimes I make a dark line where I'm wanting to delineate the edge of a light object. The line looks wrong. But I just live with it. I think the appeal of ink is that it's permanent. So the same thing that makes it intimidating also makes it appealing. It's an odd thing. Still I like it. I don't have to worry as much about smudging as I do with pencil. And the end result almost always looks more like a finished work of art.

The 'quickest' line I ever found was made with a bamboo pen dipped in ink. It flew across the paper, often leaving huge ink drips in its way. I don't use it anymore. But there is a lot of speed in the Bic 537R ball point pen I'm testing out. There's nothing inherently good about quickness in a drawing instrument. But for me I think the appeal is that the pen can keep up with the speed of my thoughts or intuition on what to do next in the drawing. It just moves effortlessly, like there's a direct connection from my brain to the paper.

I have loved drawings for as long as I can remember. Not that I want to compare myself but when I try to render the mud and water in the drawings above I'm reminded of how much I used to love Rembrandt's drawings and the way his landscapes in pen and ink, and sometimes wash, seemed to so effortlessly portray land, water, sun and shade. They were a miracle of draftsmanship. I think it's partially remembering that aspect of his drawings and many other great drawings that keeps me interested in doing these.

As I said I do have some new acrylics and some new linoleum blocks. But for now I'm just captivated by pen and ink. The drawings are based on photos I took at Cape May in mid-August. I also did many field sketches and I'm sure that experience enters in as well. At top is a Pectoral Sandpiper. I probably should have elongated his neck just a tad. Below him the always striking Black Skimmer. I rarely see them as close as this one. So it was a great opportunity to sketch and take photos. Also in the drawing a small Least Sandpiper, hidden by some reeds. The Black Skimmer is such an unusual looking bird, and an elegant one, that I'm sure I will return to him.

More Least And ...

As you may have guessed I can't resist all the verbal tricks that are occasioned by an adjective that also functions as a noun.The 'least' I'm talking about is the Least Sandpiper a very small shorebird, and I believe the smallest US sandpiper.

Some artists I really admire at birdforum.net, Alan Dalton and Paschalis Dougalis, have recently shown work in ballpoint pen. As I recall both mentioned using the ubiquitous Bic pen, though  European versions are not the same as American ones. Still it was enough of an impetus to get me to find some Bic pens and give one a try. One reason for this is that I like the idea of the quick line available from a ball point pen. The line can move very quickly. It doesn't get stuck in the surface of the paper.

A White-rumped Sandpiper is the star of the drawing above. He's what follows the 'And ...' in the title. He's surrounded by Least Sandpipers, all seen at the ponds near the hawk watch platform at Cape May Point State Park. This  was one of many lifer White-rumped Sandpipers that we saw there. What I liked about the photo that this is based on is that it shows how different their poses are. In fact my drawing is a bit off in not having a greater angle in the White-rump. Its tail tilts up about 5 degrees more than I show. So in silhouette it really looks much different than a Least. And of course it is larger and more slender.

I often buy new media with the thought of trying them for field sketching, just like the people who first got me interested in them. But odd things happen and I often try them first at home in the studio. That was the case with this drawing. Now that I've tried it out I do anticipate giving it a try in the field. I really like the sepia Pitt Artists pens that I currently use. But I'd like to also give this a try. You never know where new media will lead

 When I lived in San Francisco in the early 70s there was a seemingly universal idea in the air: Try Everything. I didn't and in fact it sounded sort of foolish. It still does. But it's also foolish to get stuck in a rut. For me I've found that I need to digest one medium or method of work enough to get some feel for it. Eventually I'll want to try something new. And I do. But the idea of constantly trying something new is something that's always seemed silly to me. In any case I feel fortunate in being able to change media at a comfortable pace.

This is also done on Stillman & Birn Gamma paper, with a Bic 537R pen. .7 mm. point.