Song Sparrow on Oak Leaf Watercolor

I had a couple of motivations in doing this watercolor. The first was to try to solidify my knowledge of sparrows. When I see them as I have Chipping and White-throated Sparrows recently I try to memorize their features and then get that down in sketches(though as I mentioned in last post I'm rarely able to do any sketching with Chipping Sparrows). When I get home though and look at the sketches I often realize that something's missing or wrong. So then there's the temptation to work from a photo I've taken and do a new work that fixes the problem. I'm particularly interested in doing it in paint, mainly because it gives me a chance to add color.

The other motivation is my unending attempt to master watercolor. I love the sense of light and brighntess that are in watercolors that don't follow the paint by number method and actually let the watercolor breathe. But I'm rarely satisfied with the results. Or perhaps I'm satisfied but I'm not excited.

So as with field sketching or just about anything else I realize that I just need to try more. I think it's a given that you don't have success without failure. And you won't even fail if you're so scared of failure that you don't even try. My guess is that the most successful artists are the ones who just keep at it.

So  a couple of days ago I started this 11x14 watercolor on a Strathmore Field Sketch pad sheet. It's larger than I normally work and the reason for that is that I think it may make me less tentative. As you can probably see I also spent a lot of time sketching the bird and not very much on the stream, rocks/pebbles and leaf. The bird itself is the ubiquitous Song Sparrow. I was going through my photos actually looking for a photo of a White-throated Sparrow to complement the sketches I'd done earlier in the week. But when I came across this handsome bird, standing so alertlyon an oak leaf in Papermill Run at Morris Arboretum I had to stop and give him a try.

The Problem with Outdoor Cats

I've always known that feeding outdoor cats and feeding birds was a dangerous combination. I'd just as soon not feed the cats but my wife feels otherwise. One small cat has constantly had his eye on the backyard birds, especially the Song Sparrows. Even the recent addition of a collar and bell did not help the poor Song Sparrow above. The cat got him today as I was working on the Little Blue Heron acrylic.

This is a dilemma that I don't know the answer to. I understand the damage cats do to birds. I also understand that they are meat eaters and that this comes natural to them. My guess is that a bigger yard might help some but that isn't an option.

At least I felt that I should take the opportunity to sketch the dead Song Sparrow.

I had no intention of posting any photos of the acrylic until it looked significantly different. But since I'm posting the Song Sparrow sketch I figured I might as well include the painting too.

Learning from Sketching

It seems like every winter I spend a lot of time going through photos I've taken, looking for a subject for the next painting or print, but also seeing something new about a bird that I hadn't noticed before.

I don't advocate using photos in art. I think you learn so much more and get so much more engrossed when you're working from life or from sketches from life. But photos do have their use.

At this time of year I often find myself trying to do detailed sketches from photos. The purpose of the sketch isn't great art; it's to learn how the bird is put together, to just look at it more closely.

Recently I've noticed the difference in sparrow bills, more from photos than life since I don't really see a great variety of sparrows on a normal day. And Song Sparrows always surprise me with the large size of their bills. So I decided to do a number of sketches trying to concentrate on that.

Today's sketch is at top. After I'd done the pencil sketches I decided to try adding watercolor.

Yesterday's study is above. I originally intended to put another sketch on the right. But once I added watercolor to the sparrow on the left I found myself thinking that the only way to make it look halfway decent as a picture, even though a picture wasn't my original intent, was to continue the scene all the way across the page.

These might have looked better left as pencil sketches. But I also want to improve my realistic portrayal of birds in watercolor so it seemed worth trying to add watercolor to them.

Kingfishers, Blackbirds and Turtles

We birded for the Great Backyard Bird Count last year in two feet of snow or more. This year's GBBC starts tomorrow. Instead of two feet of snow though we had temperatures in the mid-60s today. A welcome change but one that can't, and shouldn't, last.

Still I took advantage of it to do some field sketching at Morris Arboretum. Like another trip there last Sunday a male Belted Kingfisher was evident. And he seemed to stay in one place so that I could sketch him through the scope. Normally he just doesn't stay in the same place or pose for long. I wonder if it's possible that there is less food available for him and so he just goes to a few choice spots overlooking the open water waiting to see fish movement. That's just a wild guess. In any case it's been a pleasure to have some chance to draw him.

All of the drawings but one above are done with Pitt Artists Pens. The other Kingfisher is done with a 4B pencil. These are very different media. Normally I like the greater expressiveness, due to fluctuating line weight, that a soft pencil offers. But I've never found myself happy with them when field sketching. Maybe the lines are too loose and inexact. I'm not sure. But for some reason I favor the more inflexible pen line. Out of curiosity today though I did one in pencil. As you may notice one 'bad' side of using a pen is that you can't erase. But that's fine. I know I'll have to live with what I put down so I don't worry it to death. In the case of the massive bill on the Red-winged Blackbird above though you sometimes have to live with some obvious mistakes.

Last Monday I heard my first singing Song Sparrow. Today at Morris I heard more as well as many singing male Red-winged Blackbirds, another first for the season. Along with them I believe the first basking turtles I've seen. Often I tell myself I ought to sketch them. Today was such a beautiful day and I had some free time so I also did a sketch of them. It could use more work. But often live field sketches are like that. You capture what is there and then use that as the basis of something more developed in the studio. I'm sure we haven't seen the last of these kingfishers or turtles.

Season of the Sparrows

Sometimes as I look out into our backyard and the tens and tens of House Sparrows at out feeders I forget how beautiful sparrows can be. But like much of nature, including the insects I used to draw, nature when seen close up is rarely ugly. Sometimes the beauty is bold. At other times it's more subtle. Such is the case with sparrows.

Last week we saw some particularly handsome sparrows: Swamp and Savannah. And yet they're really nothing compared to Lincoln's or LeConte's, the last of which I've never had the pleasure of seeing. I think I still had those sparrows in my mind when I started this watercolor of a Song Sparrow today.

Song Sparrows are common for most Americans I think. But they still have a striking beauty. This one has just picked off a worm from nearby leaves. It's a bit more toned down than usual for me but I wanted to keep the background toned down so that the sparrow could have his moment in the sun. This is done on 300# Arches cold press paper and is 9x12 inches.