Some Tiny Watercolors

White-rumped Sandpiper in Cape May, NJ. Watercolor by Ken Januski.

It seems that a few times a year I'm at a loss as to what to do next and so, in a manner somewhat similar to practicing on a musical instrument I'd guess, I do either sketches or small paintings based on photos that I've taken.

As I've said forever I don't like working from photos, mine or anyone else's. In fact I don't believe I've worked from anyone else's since I was a child. If I'm going to work from a photo I want it at least to be one where I have a personal recollection of the experience.

All of the small 5x7 watercolors in this post, with the exception of the Cattle Egret below, were done over the last few days.

Sometimes when I do work from a photo it's because I've seen a bird, perhaps done a field sketch of it, but want to get to know it better, both in my mind's eye and on paper or canvas. That's the case with the White-rumped Sandpiper above. I both wanted to understand it better and also do a successful watercolor of it. With their generally subtle colors shorebirds lend themselves to plumage detail I think. If you don't get the plumage subtlety, they all you have to work with is the shape, which in the case of shorebirds is actually quite a lot. But who wants to paint a feather map? Not me. So this type of watercolor allows me to see what I can do in getting some sense of plumage complexity and subtlety while still having the watercolor retain some spontaneity and fluidity.

Cattle Egret at Cape May Point State Park. Watercolor by Ken Januski.

The watercolor above was actually painted as a gift for the people who rented us their house recently while on vacation. So the motivation is somewhat different. But it was also exciting to see a Cattle Egret, actually two, so I wanted to get the experience down on paper. It is based on field sketches and on looking at a photo on my camera, about 1x1 at most I'd guess. So it is not particularly detailed. More importantly though I think it gets a good sense of Cattle Egrets and their fascinating movement.

Ruddy Turnstone at Reed's Beach. Watercolor by Ken Januski.

I'll rarely try to paint a bird in flight. Almost always they have the deadly quality of a bird painted from a photo. But in this case I liked the photo and decided it was time to give a try to a bird in flight. I guess that is one of the appeals of such small watercolors. You can't try out something new without worrying too much about a possible disaster.

Warbling Vireo at Morris Arboretum. Watercolor by Ken Januski.

Finally a Warbling Vireo from Morris Arboretum. I've always wanted to do a painting based on these photos. It's still not completely satisfactory but I'm not unhappy with it either.

One virtue of these small watercolors is that I learn more about the structure of the bird, well some of the time anyway. The end result might appear in a more finished, more detailed work or just as well, it might give me the confidence to take much greater liberties and do something abstract.

Brush Painting and Brush Pen Painting

Adult and Juvenile Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Brush Painting by Ken Januski.

I continue on my seemingly never-ending digression into Chinese brush painting and painting with a Sumi brush pen. I had originally tried a brush pen last summer because I wanted to experiment with line weight and shape in my woodcuts and linocuts, a la ukiyo-e woodblocks.

I soon found though that to create variety in line weight and shape using a brush requires a mastery far beyond me. I had to just stumble along. In the process I got more and more interested in brush painting itself, though more in the Chinese tradition than in the Japanese surprisingly.

As I looked more at Chinese brush painting in particular I appreciated how often rich almost coloristic paintings could be made with just the black ink of an ink stick and various amounts of water. But this then becomes much more of a painting than a drawing, as much or more about areas of ink as lines of ink.

The two drawings at top, both done today, have Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers as their subject. The one on the left is an adult male. The one on the right is the far less colorful immature sapsucker. But the richness of color, especially the dirty dishwater 'yellow' belly, is what convinced me to use a brush, with its various values of black and gray, rather than just line. I almost certainly will never use what I've learned in a print, mainly because it is so painterly. But the beauty of ink washes was just too much to resist.

In the western tradition artists as varied as Rembrandt and Richard Diebenkorn were masters of wash drawings, and I've always loved them. It is amazing what you can do with black and white and gray!!

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher at Bartram's Garden. Brush Pen Painting by Ken Januski.

Most of my work of the last week or more however has been done with a brush pen. Here line is king and it is very useful to force yourself to see birds or any other object strictly in terms of line. I do think this type of linear drawing is at the heart of most art of most cultures. Because ink is so unforgiving you either have to get the line right the first time or find some convincing way to either repair it or make it seem unimportant. This type of drawing can be a bit nerve-wracking since it is so easy to make mistakes. But it also forces you to take chances, to force yourself a bit further than you want to go. I've never been a big believer in the True Art Involves Taking Chances philosophy but in moderation it is often both useful and invigorating. Above the subject is a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher seen at Bartram's Garden.

The rest of the brush pen drawings below are pretty well explained by their captions. Most are done in less than five minutes. This is almost inevitable when you're using a brush pen. The lines move incredibly quickly and if you let your pen rest on the paper you'll soon have a blob rather than a crisp line. So the drawings/paintings move very quickly.

Snowy Egret at Jake's Landing. Brush Pen Painting by Ken Januski.

Spotted Sandpiper. Brush Pen Painting by Ken Januski.

In the drawing above I've tried to capture something that I always notice when looking at Spotted Sandpipers, their relatively thick and blunt bill. That's really all I was trying to show here, along with the combined horizontal lines of the front leg and the back underside of the bird. Sometimes something as simple as that seems worthwhile trying to get down on paper.

Juvenile Tri-colored Herons at Heinz NWR. Brush Pen Painting by Ken Januski.

FOY Warbling Vireo in Paperbark Birch. Brush Pen Painting by Ken Januski

Above I was interested in showing how the first of year Warbling Vireo was making a very common bird movement, wiping the side of his bill on a branch. If you've seen many birds you'll realize how common this is. As well I like the visual element of all the catkins and tried to capture that.

In the drawing below my only real goal was to try to capture the oversized legs of the Willet. I think I was successful at that but I made the torso itself a bit short and out of proportion. Still it looks like a Willet and so I decided to show it.

Willet at Reed's Beech. Brush Pen Painting by Ken Januski.

Wilson's Snipe at Ottawa NWR. Brush Pen Painting by Ken Januski.

Finally one of a number of Wilson's Snipe seen on some cold and wet days at Ottawa NWR a couple of falls ago right before thecongressional Republicans shut down the government and the nation's wildlife refuges. I do remember that Mr.'TrustTed' Cruz!

Highlights of the Natural Year - 2015, Part 2

Killdeer, Song Sparrow and Singing Red-winged Blackbird. Pencil Sketch by Ken Januski.

I mentioned in part one of this summary of the natural year in Philadelphia that I'd move on to spring, warblers, etc. But in looking back at posts from March I found this sketch of the first singing Red-winged Blackbird of spring. Some blackbirds can be found somewhere in Philadelphia almost all winter long but there comes a time when you start to see a lot. When you hear them singing then you know that spring has begun. I never did anything more with this sketch but I still like it so it still has possibilities.

Yellow-rumped Warbler. Watercolor Sketch by Ken Januski.

The day after I did the Red-winged Blackbird sketch we stumbled upon our first warblers of 2015. Often they are Pine Warblers but this time there were numerous Yellow-rumped Warblers, found in an area we almost never bird, except when we're looking for the first Pine Warblers of the year! At this time of year, mid to late March, it is generally cold and gray. When we do find warblers it almost seems wrong, like someone's given them a bad printed schedule to follow. But they are right and soon enough it really is spring.

Palm Warbler, Black Squirrel, Mourning Cloak. Crayon Sketch by Ken Januski.

The more we've been outside the more 'Black' Squirrels we've seen, especially this winter so far. They are really Eastern Gray Squirrels but with different pigmentation. Still their rich black always makes them striking. When coupled with the first expected warbler of spring, the handsome dipped-in-butter Palm Warbler and the first butterfly of spring, the Mourning Cloak they form a colorful grouping that is almost impossible to pass up if you're an artist. The woodcut that resulted from this is currently the header for this page. My guess is that most viewers of my work, either here or elsewhere, will prefer the more detailed Yellow-rumped Warbler watercolor above. But for me there is more excitement and reward in picturing an actual scene, as here, even if the individual subjects are much more sketchily done.

Bloodroot in the Wissahickon Valley. Photo by Ken Januski.

I see that I'm getting caught up in every single interesting sighting of spring and at this pace will need about 3-4 posts just to cover spring. So it's time to start editing what I post. Still the highlight of almost every year is the first appearance of Bloodroot, especially when it blooms. The brilliant white, whiter almost than snow it sometimes seems, is thoroughly emblematic of early spring. It would be a sad spring that did not include some blooming Bloodroot. Fortunately for us it blooms in our yard so we have a very good chance of seeing it there if nowhere else.

Yellow-billed Cuckoo at Carpenter's Woods. Watercolor Sketch by Ken Januski.

Black-billed Cuckoo at Houston Meadows. Watercolor Sketch by Ken Januski.

May is of course the time for warblers. And they are probably the most thrilling birds to see. But cuckoos are a bit rarer, or at least harder to find. So when I found both Black-billed and Yellow-billed at different locations in a period of just a day or two that was a real high point. I can't say that I've done them justice in these watercolor sketches but there's always another day and another art work.

One of our most sought after warblers is the Yellow-breasted Chat. We've yet to see one in Philadelphia. This May we saw many, at least 4 and possibly as many as 6-8 in Cape May. I did field sketches of them but since I didn't see them in Philadelphia I'm not going to include them here. Still they were a real high point. And like the cuckoos we knew they were around from their calls and/or song. Each year the increase in our ability to find and identify birds by their sounds makes birding all that more exciting. As I've often said it is something that just seems to grow in richness year by year. One other element of birding knowledge is learning, mainly through experience, what habitats certain birds prefer. That again helped with finding both chats and cuckoos.

Variable Dancer. Pen and Watercolor Sketch by Ken Januski.

Warbling Vireo. Photo by  Ken Januski.

Gray-cheeked Thrush. Photo by Ken Januski.

Spring is of course the most exciting time of year so it's very easy to let this post go on forever. As I look through my photos I notice all the birds we saw in a week at Cape May, especially the many Red Knots at Cooks Beach. But this is about Philadelphia, not Cape May. So for my last three photos I've chosen two that are somewhat common, but still representative of spring. The first is a Variable Dancer, seen at Morris Arboretum, one of many damselflies and dragonflies that we saw there, especially in summer. This is in ballpoint pen and watercolor. The original post talked about how difficult it is to use dragonflies in compositions. They are just so FLAT!! But it is a challenge that I continue to work on. The next photo is of one of the first Warbling Vireos of the year, seen at Morris Arboretum a great spot to see them. They are among the dullest of vireos and yet also the most endearing, possibly because of their innocent expression. For us personally though the Blue-headed is the most endearing, due I think to the combination of song, appearance, and the fact that they used to nest outside our cabin when we used to vacation in Shenandoah National Park.

And finally, the somewhat rare but somewhat nondescript Gray-cheeked Thrush. I almost never can get a good photo of them. This year was the first time I was able to get a  number of decent photos, enough to say without a doubt, ' Yes that really is a Gray-cheeked Thrush.'

So this ends part two, the time of colorful neo-tropical migrants. This year surprisingly it was more subtly colored birds, insects and so on that were most memorable. At least in Phialdephia.

Confusing Fall Warblers, And Vireos

Warblers and Vireos at Morris Arboretum. Sumi Brush Pen and Watercolor Painting by Ken Januski.
 

I ran into a large number of migrating warblers and vireos at Morris Arboretum last Saturday. But I had hardly any satisfying views of any of them. Some, for example a Blackburnian, were just too high in some Tamaracks to see well. Others were down low, right at eye level, but they were so active and there was so much foliage that again it was very difficult to get a good look at any of them.

The 12x16 painting above gives some sense of that. A Nashville Warbler in the lower right corner was the best seen bird, with the possible exception of the Warbling Vireo in the top right corner. The other were just yellow blurs, or a tail with black edging, perhaps fluttering wings.  Some of the quick looks were tantalizing, for instance the largish yellow bird at center top, but as soon as they were seen they flew behind other foliage.

Most likely the yellow bird was a Canada Warbler, especially as we've seen one at Morris two other times during the last week. But I can't say for sure.

Because of all of this uncertainty I decided to paint just that: uncertainty.  So I'm not trying to portray a recognizable species at center top. Instead it's reminiscent of what I saw. The fluttering wing at lower left and tail at top left don't indicate specific species. They represent instead the real experience that you can easily have at this time of year. Uncertain clues, here and gone before you know it. But that is the thrill of looking for warblers and their sometime companion vireos at this time of year.

This is another in my series of sumi brush pen and watercolor paintings. All but the Nashville warbler are drawn from memory. I used some of my own photos of Nashville Warblers as a minor reference. But in it also I tried to keep it free as in a drawing from memory.

A Bird in the Hand.............Is Drawn Differently

Following up on my last post on precision in art I realized afterwards that one reason I've been able to do more precise work with insects is that I've caught the insects and then drawn them under a dissecting microscope. The detail I can see is strong AND the insect doesn't move. It is dead.

I don't know any bird artists personally. The ones I've read about sometimes work from study skins in museums, or dead birds that they may have happened upon. In that case the bird is also dead and allows more detailed study, though of course it is no longer alive. Still it does allow a more detached scientific study similar to that of an insect under a microscope. My understanding is that this was Audubon's primary method of work, after he'd shot the bird. It is probably the best way to see some details that can only be seen in brief glimpses in the field.

On the other hand some bird artists whose work I very much admire work primarily from life, i.e. they only draw and paint what they actually see. They don't use photos. This reminds me of the times I used to draw mayflies. Mayflies live only for a day or so. Moreover everytime I used to catch them they would shrivel up into pale husks of their former beautiful selves. Their beauty was evident only when they were alive. You either had to draw them as they flitted about while alive or draw a shrunken corpse that seemed to have little relation to the live mayfly. Without getting too philosophical about this I do think that it is an apt analogy.

More detail can be seen/drawn/painted when a bird or insect is no longer alive and not being such a nuisance moving about at unexpected times. On the other hand the artist always knows the insect or bird might move and he needs to be extra alert to capture what he sees as he sees it. A second later the bird may have moved. I think that this relates to why I prefer works done from life.

The drawing at top is a portion of a larger drawing. It shows a Robber Fly drawn while viewed under a microscope. The watercolor is based on a photo taken of a Warbling Vireo at the John Heinz Wildlife Refuge(Tinicum) in Philadelphia on Memorial Day weekend, 2008. As I mentioned last time I'm always more interested in creating a work of art when using birds as subjects than I am when drawing insects. That may be related to the fact that I can never see them with the same detail that I see insects. On the other hand it may also be that the lack of precision tells me that the drawing/painting lacks something. Maybe I can rescue it with 'art'.