A Brush Painting, a Field Sketch, a Watercolor from a Photo

American Robin in Silver Maple. Chinese Brush Painting by Ken Januski.

In my lengthy digression into Chinese brush painting all of my previous examples have been on paper made for sketching. But I did break down and buy some practice quality rice paper for brush painting a month or more ago. Because it came in a roll I had to cut pieces to size and then flatten them. I started that process at least a month ago soon after I got the paper.

But I've been dawdling on them just as I've been dawdling/procrastinating with a return to prints. Today I again spent time looking through my sketches trying to figure out what might make a good print. Then an American Robin landed right outside my studio window on the flowering Silver Maple.

Mourning Dove and American Robin in Silver Maple. Sumi Brush Pen Field Sketches by Ken Januski.

I did the quick brush pen sketch above of it, right next to an earlier field sketch of a Mourning Dove in the same tree. Once I'd done it, in less than a minute, I decided it was time to try that flattening rice a paper. The result is at top. It is a very quick spontaneous process, at least for me. And it's foolish for me to even be trying it since I don't at all intend to devote myself to Chinese brush painting. But still I'd like to pursue it a bit more and I'll continue to do so. Who knows where it will lead.

Swamp Sparrow in Papermill Run. Watercolor by Ken Januski.

First of year birds are starting to make their appearance, this week both Eastern Phoebes and Swamp Sparrows. I didn't do any field sketches of the 1-2 Swamp Sparrows at Morris Arboretum this week nor did I get any decent photos. So the watercolor above is based on some photos I took at Morris a number of years ago. After I'd finished this I realized that I did another watercolor based on the same photo a couple of years ago. I must like the pose. I certainly think it is a handsome bird.

I've shown some very different styles today. I much prefer the former. But every once in a while, when I'm struck by the beauty of a bird, I like to try to get it down in a more 'realistic' manner. Though as you can see it will never fool anybody into thinking it's a photo. That type of likeness just scares me.

Free Paintings

Whimbrels and Lauging Gull at Nummy Island. Crayon and wash by Ken Januski



Swamp Sparrow in Papermill Run. Crayon and wash by Ken Januski.

No, I'm not giving away any free paintings. Instead I'm referring to the feeling I have when I've finished a Caran d'Ache Neocolor II water-soluble crayon sketch with wash on Stillman and Birn sketchbook pages. Used the way I'm using them they are actually more like small paintings than anything else. Best of all they allow more working, reworking, overworking than any other medium other than acrylic and/or oil. And I don't need to do it on canvas. I can use these small pieces of paper.

For someone who's not an artist this may make little sense. The main problem is that, especially with watetcolor, you can't do to much experimenting. It's extremely difficult to put a light color over a dark color if you decide that the dark color doesn't work. Continued working turns the painting to mud. There's no brightness left. And you need to use good quality watercolor paper if you're going to keep working and reworking what's there.

This combination of materials gets around that to a large extent because the Stillman and Birn papers are very hardy. And you can always go back into the painting with the crayons to bring back more brilliant color if things have gotten a bit muddy. The only thing that doesn't work is bringing back a brilliant white. For that you really need to resort to white gouache and even it may be a bit darker than I'd like. Still I've never seen a quicker or easier way for working through ideas for paintings. And as I've said before, if the sketch turns out well eough that you'd like to keep, frame or sell it, the quality of the paper allows you to do this without feeling guilty. I have done other sketches that I've always been reluctant to offer for sale because I wasn't sure how long the paper would hold up.

By the way the birds portrayed are numerous Whimbrel and one Laughing Gull from Nummy Island in New Jersey and a Swamp Sparrow, always elegant in gray and chestnut, in Papermill Run at Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia. I'm still wating to see my first Swamper of 2013.

Day Three and Some Swamps

Above is the result of three-four hours of work on the White-throated Sparrow lino. Yesterday I mentioned that you often make decisions that you later have to live with in lino. That has happened here and the print has headed off in a slightly more abstract direction than I at first anticipated. Still I get nervous with strict naturalism so perhaps this veer toward abstraction is both good and inevitable, at least for me.

This is a rough print, with the ink a little too tacky. That causes a loss of detail. In visualizing it with sharper lines however I think that it may be nearing completion.

I had some apare time yesterday that I couldn't really devote to the lino so I did a few more sketches from photos, in this case photos I've taken of Swamp Sparrows over the last couple of years. The one on the right shows the peaked head that they often exhibit. This is one of my favorite sparrows. A small watercolor of one hangs at the Manayunk Roxborough Art Center for one more week in 'Wild at Art.' I have the feeling though that it will play a part in another print or painting soon. They are a really striking sparrow.

The Neglected Sparrows

As I was walking at Andorra Natural Preserve yesterday the brilliant, clear blue sky coupled with the yellows, oranges, even deep purple blacks of leaves got me to thinking that nature seems to offer one last burst of splendor before turning to the cold grays and browns of winter.

The remaining birds however, with the exception  of the Eastern Bluebirds and a few others, are more muted. Perhaps because of that, perhaps because they can be numerous, or perhaps because many of them dip into cover as soon as you try to identify them, sparrows can be given short shrift, especially by birders.

If you look at them closely though they can be really  beautiful birds. Among the most common but also the most beautiful is the White-throated Sparrow.. The reds, yellows, oranges of warblers are striking. But the combination of yellow lores, brilliant white throat and sometimes supercilium, coupled with a subtly muted gray breast, deep brown crown stripe and eyeline, and more brown variations of mantle and wings  make for an equally striking bird.

I don't know my sparrows as well as I should so I'm always looking for the opportunity to see more and in particular to sketch them. Above is a field sketch of  a White-throat  coupled with a small watercolor sketch based on a photo I took. I did the watercolor in the hopes of solidifying what I saw while out fieldsketching. This is a matter of both understanding them better to aid in identification as well as just being able to draw and paint them better.

I also  saw a lot of small, flitting Chipping Sparrows yesterday.  But they were too small and too far away for me to get any sketches of them. I'd of course like to see and draw rare sparrows but I'm also always on the lookout for the opportunity to draw more common but still striking sparrows such as the Chipping and the Swamp. The blue grays of the Swamp Sparrow are a siren song to me. So one of these days I'll be back with them as subject.

Oh yes, I did stretch out that top White-throat a bit. I was concentrating on a mental  image that included the streaking on mantle,  the facial markings and the way the wings  hung down. While doing that I got the total proportions off a bit. Next time!
After posting this I did a few more ballpoint pen sketches from my photos. They are the lower photo at top.

Waiting on a Hurricane, and Tumult

I can think of better things to do than wait on the likely power outage and other discomforts that Hurricane Sandy will most likely bring to us in Philadelphia. We've been lucky in our years here to have escaped much serious storm damage. But it seems we'll need to be really lucky to continue that string.

So after  doing as much storm preparation as is reasonable and possible given how many things have been sold out at stores I decided it made sense to put the final touches on preparation for my  3 person Manayunk Roxborough Art Center show 'Wild at Art' which opens next Sunday. I've decided to exhibit mainly prints. I now have 15 framed and ready to go.

And I plan to show the large acrylic of the two immature Little Blue Herons at Morris Arboretum. But I'd also like to  show some watercolors. As I looked through them today I  finally decided on the small 5x7 inch watercolor of a Swamp Sparrow also seen at Morris Arboretum. I did some minor tweaking on it today and then decided to show it, assuming that is that there is enough room.

I'm very happy with my new watercolor of the Saddlebags dragonfly, Savannah Sparrow and Pumpkins so that was a certain entrant. It is shown newly matted and framed above. It looks a bit cockeyed due to poor photography. In person everything has the expected right angles.

Finally I decided on the watercolor of seven Piping Plovers seen at Stone Harbor last year.  I hate to think what some of my favorite birding places in Cape May and Stone Harbor will look like in a few days. There are a couple of reasons for including this. One is that some people write off bird art and wildlife art as 'pretty' art. It's easy to understand since much of it is. Given the beauty of birds it's a difficult task to show that beauty without verging into sentimentality. I don't think this painting could be considered pretty.

The other reason is a bit more serious. I've written about Piping Plovers in the past. Each time I'm newly struck by the fact that less than 2000 exist! When you see them they can come right up to you, the picture of innocence. They just don't seem rare or threatened for their very existence as a species. Just recently while flipping through a environmental/birding magazine I noticed a headline about 2000 being in existence. I've not had time to go back and read it. But it does remind me of just how rare these birds are. And how threatened they are, including by the idiots with the 'Piping Plover Tastes Like Chicken' bumper stickers.

I should add that the tumult of Hurricane Sandy seems appropriate for the tumultuous times in the U.S. and abroad. I try to avoid politics here, largely because I think people prefer places where they can take  a break from it, those that is who aren't on permanent break from it. And opinions obviously differ. I backed Obama as a practical matter not because of his oratory. That was a strike  against him to me and I think it's harmed his performance as President. Such facility, in art or in politics, can be helpful in the short run and harmful in the long run. So I have mixed feelings about him. Still I think there was no doubt that he clobbered Romney in the last debate and showed how shallow and ignorant Romney is when it comes to foreign policy. So I've been shocked to see intelligent talking heads talk about how he won or showed he's got the right stuff to be President.

I just cite this to show how thoroughly opinions differ. But one thing did strike me in the debate. Romney learned a new word: 'tumult.' The world truly is in tumult, just as areas affected by Hurricane Sandy will be. But the world is always in tumult if you're President of the United States. It's  not a game. It's a  complex world and I'm sure far, far moreso if you're the President. But one thing I'm sure all presidents of the last 50 years would agree on is that the world is tumultuous, as is the job. To look upon the world in tumult today as Romney  has and express dismay at it, as though peace in the world is as simple as just  saying it, immediately disqualifies him for the office.We really can't afford to have someone so vacillating and inexperienced in the world as our next president.

New Watercolors, Big and Small

When you work in a number of media as I do you might ask how I choose a particular medium. Well if you get somebody to answer please let me know! I really have no idea what prompts me to change from one to another.

The watercolor above, a larger than normal 12x16 inches on Arches 140# cold press paper, is based on a photo I took of a Northern Pintail at 'The Meadows' at Cape May a year or two ago. The photo above is missing some of the orange cast that dominates the watercolor but otherwise it's fairly true to the photo. And the photo reminds me pretty much of what I saw, and why I took the photo.

Still you have to ask yourself if it's possible to do a sunset painting and not end up with a horrible cliche. I'm not sure. I do know the fear of cliche is why I never attempted to paint this. But I've had second thoughts on donating my recent Great Black-backed Gull at Flatrock Dam watercolor to the Manayunk Roxborough Art Center fundraiser. I like it too much.

So I think it was the idea of producing another work for it that prompted this. I think it would have been easier in acrylic since it's so forgiving. But I like to keep pushing myself with watercolor, to make some vague attempt at mastering it. That's what I've done here.

There's probably more to do. But I decided I needed to leave it be for now, and see what it looked like when posted online, and in the clear light of tomorrow.

Though the boldly colored beauties called Wood Warblers are starting to appear here for their brief visit there are still some more subtle beauties around, such as the Swamp Sparrow. In this case I know why I chose watercolor. I wanted to be true to the bird and try to get the subtle variations in color in this bird. Watercolor seemed best for this purpose. I also wanted to try out my new 5x7 inch Fabriano Artistico watercolor block. I bought it with the idea that I'd take it into the field and actually do some field watercolors this spring and summer. We'll see. These particular Swamp Sparrows by the way are often found in the dappled sun and shade of a small streambed. That's what I've tried to capture here.

Out in October

We've spent most of the last three beautiful sunny days outside. Morris Arboretum, Carpenter's Woods, Wissahickon Environmental Center at Andorra and Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education are all very local birding spots and we visited them all, often more than once.

I'm never fond of the shortening days of fall. But days like the last three make up for it: blue skies, sun, comfortable weather, the smell of decomposing leaves, leaves starting to turn color, the familiar sound of migrating Blue Jays, but most of all the migrating birds. Most are passing through on their way south. But some are new arrivals from the north that will probably stay here.

So our lists for last few days are full of the former; Black-throated Green, Black-throated Blue, Magnolia, Tennessee, Northern Parula, Black and White and Yellow-rumped Warblers among them. At the same time some of the latter are also appearing, including the handsome Swamp Sparrow portrayed at top, White-throated Sparrows which will probably stay until next May, Field Sparrows, which may have been here all summer. Rusty Indigo Buntings are sparrows that are on their way south as is the White-crowned Sparrow.

The season is turning from one of warblers to one of sparrows. And ducks if we visit water. It's a great time to be out and see this variety of birds.

We saw a few Swamp Sparrows a couple of days ago at Morris Arboretum, the first of the fall. I did a field sketch that just didn't turn out. The watercolor at top is based on a photo I took of one at Higbee Beach in Cape May, NJ about this time last year. They are a truly handsome bird. They're not as bright and bold as warblers but still subtly handsome in their own way.

I'm not thrilled with this watercolor. Though I tried to sketch out some detail for the background it disappeared as I tried to get the color and light to work. But I'm not unhappy with the sparrow. It shows I think that wonderful combination of dark gray, dark brown and chestnut. Catching that was one of my main goals and so I'm happy to have gotten that.

If I'm lucky I'll have a few more weeks of warm weather in which to see and sketch these beauties.

The Year of Sketching Wood Warblers

I've been wanting to do successful field sketches of wood warblers for at least three and probably more years now. Wood warblers are my favorite birds and field sketching is my favorite type of art work, not that I'm accomplished at it.

But warblers move so quickly that so far I've found it next to impossible to sketch them from life. Of course I can do it from photos but it's just not the same. I thought of that again today when I deliberately left the house without a camera. Just my binoculars and a sketchbook.

And I'm happy I did. There's something frightening about trying to sketch them while they flit in front of you but also something exhilarating. I thought about my camera when I saw my first Common Yellowthroat of the season but was happy I didn't have it. With no such temptation I could try to really look at the bird and capture a mental image that I could then put down on paper.

Fortunately the male Common Yellowthroat was hanging out near a very small stream at Carpenter's Woods in Philadelphia along with one Swamp Sparrow, the first I've seen this year, a few White-throated Sparrows, many Ruby-crowned Kinglets and some Blue Jays and American Robins. So if I just stood still and kept my binoculars on the spot I could continue to get glimpses of the warblers and other birds.

At top is the second version of the male Common Yellowthroated Warbler. Beneath is a Swamp Sparrow, a Black-and-white Warbler, whose eye-patch I have a bit wrong, and two Ruby-crowned Kinglets.

For years I wrote about how impossible it was to sketch kinglets. But I'm finally getting the hang of it. Though I have to add that I only did these two sketches when I had at least 25 and possibly 50 different views today. But they move so quickly that they're gone by the time I get my binoculars up. Still I'm starting to at least get comfortable with them, and with wood warblers.

So far this year I've now sketched from life these wood warblers: Palm, Yellow-rumped, Black-and-white and Common Yellowthroat, along with numerous kinglets. The only one I saw but didn't sketch was a Pine. Hopefully I'll get another chance.

These sketches are not perfect by any means. But I think if I can at least get comfortable with sketching the general shapes that then I can start paying more attention to details, like all of the various markings on the Black-and-white warbler. I got the chest streaking correct today but completely botched the wings and face. I'm sure I'll get more opportunities.

All in all though I think that this might really become the Year of Sketching Wood Warblers. I'd be thrilled if I could add at least another 10 species. That's something to look forward to.

Next big question: Is it too early to consider a means of working with color in the field when sketching wood warblers? I don't want to get ahead of myself since I'm just starting to get comfortable with warbler shapes. On the other hand it seems criminal not to be able to include some sense of their striking color.