White-throated Sparrow Mokuhanga

 

Most of the printed edition of 'White-throated Sparrow at Houston Meadow' mokuhanga. Copyright 2024 by Ken Januski.

I have finally finished an edition of a new mokuhanga print, 'White-throated Sparrow at Houston Meadow.' After years of just showing a closely cropped view of just one print I've recently gotten in the habit of showing part of the printed edition of my moku hanga instead. I'm doing that because so much of the technical effort that goes into each print goes into printing an edition with all prints looking more or less identical. This is quite different than the creative energy that goes into creating a print whose visual appearance I'm happy with. It is completely against my nature and goes against all my artistic training, which was as a painter not a printmaker, to worry about the similarity of each print.  Because I spend a tremendous amount of time and effort coming up with a print I'm happy with it seems counterproductive, if not actually unenjoyable, to print an edition. But it does give me something tangible to show for all the effort and also allows me to sell more of them at lower prices. I also just take some pleasure in showing that I've become accomplished enough technically to actually print an edition. That wasn't always the case! And I think anyone who does want to see a larger view of just one print should be able to zoom in on this edition photo.

The new print is based on my looking at and sketching White-throated Sparrows over the last few years. I think I have some field sketches from 2023 but I didn't find them in a quick search so instead I'm showing this sumi brushpen this  sketch of a White-throated Sparrow from 2022.  It is nothing spectacular but I enjoy it and most of my quick sumi brushpen field sketches. Because they are done with live birds I have to concentrate on what I'm seeing since they can leave or move at any moment. And using the sumi brushpen forces me to simplify. Almost unconsciously I very quickly decide what to concentrate on and start there. So for me these sketches often have an electricity to them that I like. 

 

Sumi brush pen and wash field sketch of White-throated Sparrow and Yellow-rumped Warbler, Copyright 2022 by Ken Januski.

Someone might ask why I bother to spend so much time looking at birds in the field and sketching them in the field and then don't worry too much about accuracy in the actual prints. To put it simply I don't think birds or anything needs to be put in a photographic straight jacket. I like to be able to understand birds, both their appearance and their behavior, but my goal as an artist is to interpret all of that through my own artistic sensibilities and artistic abilities.  If I were doing traditional wildlife art or illustration I might be more interested in more classic field sketching. But I'm not. When I look at my more classical sketches from when I first started, excepting the many that were complete failures, I may like them but they don't inspire me to make a painting or print based on them. In the end I think all the looking and the brushpen field sketches get me to see the artistic possibilities in a bird, the things that I think might make a striking painting or print.

 

Watercolor and sumi brushpen sketch of White-throated Sparrow. Copyright 2023 by Ken Januski.

I also have done some watercolor sketches based on photos I've taken. My intent is to both  explore the bird further and, I hope, to end up with a sketch I'm happy with.  I often accomplish the first goal but rarely the second. So in the works from photos both above and below I'm really not happy with the finished work. But in both I explored something that I had noticed in much of my viewing of the bird in the field, perhaps the striping on the mantle, perhaps the underside coloring, etc., etc. There is so much to see in birds that is far more interesting than identification characteristics.

Sumi brushpen and watercolor sketch of White-throated Sparrow at Houston Meadow. Copyright 2023 by Ken Januski.

Oddly enough the little watercolor sketch above led me to the digital painting below. That in turn served as the basis for the new print. I think that it is all the transmogrifications that take place, from field sketch, to watercolor sketch from photo, to digital painting and perhaps back again that makes me feel that I've gotten far enough away from the bird and especially from any photo of the bird that it is relatively easy to feel free to make any changes that I think make sense artistically. I do not want to be limited by the bird or any other subject, though I also want to make sure that I am still in some way true to it. That is where all the looking at birds in field comes in. I think it gives me a pretty good intuitive sense of what they should look like.

Digital sketch using Procreate on iPad of White-throated Sparrow at Houston Meadow. Copyright 2024 by Ken Januski.

The watercolor sketch below is a quick watercolor sketch from a photo of a White-throated Sparrow. Most of ny watercolor sketches are quick. I don't like labored watercolors. But as a consequence they are also often unsuccessful. Such is the case with this. Still it was one more step along the way to getting what to me is a successful mokuhanga. I am quite happy with it in the two fields which it inhabits: bird art and mokuhanga. I can't ask for more than that.

 

Watercolor sketch of White-throated Sparrow. Copyright 2023 by Ken Januski.

Moving Along at a Ferocious Speed

 

Three working proofs of new mokuhanga of a White-throated Sparrow seen at Houston Meadow.  copyright 2024 by Ken Januski

It has been a long time since I’ve posted, and also a long time since I’ve done a new print. As often happens after  I post something I realize that I’ve left something unsaid. In this case it was the desire to put down what you see in the world around you, probably the same impulse that goes back to the cave drawings and perhaps earlier. That is a basic impulse of mine, along with the more ‘sophisticated’ idea of building a picture. They can seem quite contradictory but I don’t see any reason that you can’t have both.

There were many reasons for my hiatus in both printing and writing but a small one was based on this idea of putting down what you see.  I had wanted to write more about that. But it is too late now and my focus is back on this new mokuhanga. I would just say that the impetus for it was looking at and drawing White-throats in the field this fall and winter. When I took some photos of a few in the snow I knew that it might be the start of a new print. Though the photo was the final impetus it was still the looking at and drawing White-throated Sparrows that made me think of them as a rich subject.

I am getting close to the final proofing of the print though there are stilll some changes ahead. The proof at top and on left are printed in Nishinouchi, the one on right on Shin Torinoko. When it is finished I’ll post my second post of 2024.

An Artistic Team of Rivals

White-throated Sparrow in Staghorn Sumac. Sumi Brush Pen Sketch by Ken Januski.

 

When the flush of newborn sun fell first
On Eden's green and bold
Our Father Adam sat under a tree
And scratched with a stick in the mould
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen
Was a joy to his mighty Heart
Till the devil whispered behind the leaves,
"It's pretty but is it Art?"

From 'The Conundrum of Workshops' by Rudyard Kipling, quoted in 'Lines from Nature' by John Busby, Langford Press.

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'"I have attained," he said, "a form filtered to the essentials."'

Henri Matisse speaking about his later cutout artwork, as quoted by John Elderfield in 'The Cutouts of Henri Matisse', George Braziller.

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Every animal, plant, or fish exhibits individual moods compatible with its nature. It is difficult to understand, but once understood their spirit expressed in your painting will be complete -- otherwise you are painting mere likeness. Few artists can express their subjects spirit -- the first rule for this is universal empathy. As you progress in this, not only will you understand the spirit behind the few animal motifs on which you are studying, but every creature will begin to be enlivened with mood and spirit. Later, when you meld the myriad creatures together with your emotions and nature through your brush you attain a 'dissolution of opposites,' a realm where both subject and object are transformed together. Every scene that passes your vision and leaves your brush becomes enlivened with your individual personality. The average person may not recognize this, but other artists will acknowledge your paintings as possessing both feeling and character. At this point painting becomes an art of life, perfected by transforming your disposition. Neglecting to mold your nature inhibits you from attaining a higher realm of painting. This is why abstract art has become an art for this modern, chaotic age.

Cheng Man-ching: Master of Five Excellences, translation and commentary by Mark Hennessy, Frog Ltd.
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I recently received the last book by John Busby , 'Lines from Nature' and was struck by the opening quote from Kipling. And I'm not sure exactly what Busby meant since his own work exhibits both direct observation of nature and art based on that as well as more formal aspects. Perhaps he just wanted to show that it is an age-old dichotomy.

Seeing a wonderful film recently called 'A Model for Matisse' about a nun who was a subject for many works by Matisse and was also instrumental in his late works for the chapel at Vence, renewed my appreciation for Matisse. There's no question that his work is ART.

Thus a dilemma: straightforward response to nature, which may or may not be ART, and ART that intends to be ART. I love them both.

So that got me searching through 'Cheng Man-ching: Master of Five Excellences', translated with commentary by Mark Hennessy for some of his thoughts on art. The one I quote is not actually the one I was looking for, about chi in art, but it's good enough and I'm not trying to write a research paper.

My point is really to show how many different attitudes there can be toward making art, and how one person, namely me, but I suspect most other artists as well, are influenced by many of them, even when they can seem contradictory. And out of all those contradictions comes ART. And I think the best art comes from an artistic team of rivals, not from just one source or one school. As I've been noticing so much recently while listening to Beethoven it is out of conflict that the most bracing, striking and honest beauty sometimes comes.

Since this really is more about ideas than pictures it was hard to know how to illustrate this. So I chose the only art I've made in 2017. This is a fairly quick sketch with a sumi brush pen of a White-throated Sparrow eating the seeds of a Staghorn Sumac. Perhaps it will eventually become a print, or painting, or perhaps even a cutout.

Garden Royalty and White-throated Sparrow

White-throated Sparrow. Acrylic Painting by Ken Januski.

Above is the finished 6x8 inch acrylic painting of a White-throated Sparrow. It's not as yellow orange as the photo indicates but close. I decided to leave it as is rather than fool around with it on the computer and perhaps make it less close to the actual painting.

In my many years of art I've always swung between what I think are it's two main elements, at least in two-dimensional work, line and mass. They both have tremendous appeal and at times I'll value one over the other. I think in good painting you get both but there are artists who manage to make a great painting out of mass alone. And of course there are great drawings out of line alone.

In any case now that I've taken up acrylic over the last week I realize how much I love being able to move mass around. That's the virtue of painting, especially oil or acrylic where you can keep painting over the first layer of color, unlike in watercolor.

Watercolor, especially in the hands of artists like Homer and Sargent, has a singing light that can't be beat. I much prefer the watercolors of both to their oils. But if you can't get that singing light then at least you have a better chance of getting the sense of mass right in oils and acrylic because you can keep reworking them.  I think that's what I'm enjoying in acrylic right now. But I'll never lose the desire to use watercolor like Homer and Sargent.

Early Wonder Tall Top Beets.

Pictured above are some of the last vegetables from the garden, pulled yesterday: Early Wonder Tall Top Beets, from Seed Savers Exchange. If I can I like to recollect at this time of the year, really the end of the growing season, just what has been particularly successful this year.

This changes, sometimes drastically from year to year, depending upon weather, pests, how much time we have to keep on top of the garden, etc. So here are what I'd called the Kings and Queens of the Garden this year:

1.Early Wonder Tall Top Beets. I've always hated beets. In fact I grew these for the greens at the top, not the beets in the ground. But out of curiosity we tried various methods of using the beets themselves: beet salad in the summer, and  roasted beets with other vegetables in the fall. They were a revelation to me. Now I see why so many people love beets.

2.Tasty Evergreen Tomatoes. These also are from Seed Savers Exchange. We usually grow some green tomatoes. They taste like red tomatoes and are eaten when fully ripe, not as 'green' red tomatoes are in an unripe state. We always try to grow one green tomato but most of the time we grow Green Zebra. We like green tomatoes for their less acidic taste. What was surprising about these was their larger size and their prolificness. I think they were our favorite tomato this year.

3.Hillbilly Potato Leaf and Cherokee Purple Tomatoes. A tie I guess. These are both heirloom tomatoes, as are all of the tomatoes from Seed Savers Exchange. The rainbow colors, and rich taste of Hillbilly Potato Leaf can't be beat. But each time I grow the purplish, almost bruised looking, Cherokee Purple I'm taken with it as well.

4.Clio Dandelion. This is from Johnnys Selected Seeds. We've grown it for a number of years now. In the spring and summer there is nothing better than wilted dandelion greens where you eat them raw with a warm bath of olive oil, vinegar, garlic and shallots. When I first tried dandelion greens I cooked them. Inedible!!! Only later did I realize that they are best raw. Not only do they taste good but they also taste healthy. I really can't describe that except that it strikes us that way each time we have them. This spring and summer their usual accompaniment was grilled chicken - a perfect combination.

5. Bennary's Giant Zinnias, already featured many times in this blog. Their bright appearance, popularity with bees, wasp and butterflies, and beauty even when dead in the late fall garden make them one of the very best plants in the garden.

6. Oregon Giant Snow Pea, also from Johnny's. Peas are always a bit of a problem for me. Are they worth the time it takes for them to fruit or do they take up too much of our little garden space for much too long? I'd stopped growing them, and garlic which I used to plant in late fall, because they weren't ready until June, often mid-June. But this year we got so many of these delicious peas that it was well worth the wait.

7.Basils. I can't remember all of the types we grew and where the seed was from. But basically they were these types: Genovese, Lettuce Leaf and Thai. We got them in earlier than usual, mainly because I planted seed inside earlier than usual, and we reaped the benefits: basil all summer long and lots of pesto now frozen in the freezer.

8.Beam's Yellow Pear Tomato. We grow this each year, and each year it gets out of hand, growing 10-12 feet high and long, escaping all constraints. But at the end of the year, when all else is dead, there is the Yellow Pear, with a few more tomatoes still there and waiting to be picked. You can't beat that.

And of course there are the annual duds and disappointments. For some reason the Fortex Pole Beans from Johnny's, royalty in other years, were disappointing this year. Perhaps it was just different weather. Dester Tomato, from Seed Savers Exchange, was very bland we thought, even though taste testers at SSE thought it one of the best tasting.

White-throated Sparrow Lino Edition

A few hours work and the edition of 15 White-throated Sparrow in Leaf Litter is done. The finished print uses Gamblin oil-based ink on Rives Heavyweight paper. The entire print is 7x9 inches and the image itself it 4x6 inches. It is for sale on my etsy store.

This is also the final weekend to see my show Wild at Art, including the work of local artists Lynnette Shelley and Melanie Fisher at the Manayunk Roxborough Art Center. Last chance!

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.

White-throated Lino - Day Two

A few more hours and about six more cuttings and proofs led to the proof above. I'm shocked how much there is to consider formally in a linocut. For some reason it seems that there are far more decisions to make than in a painting. I've made a number of decisions so far and they all have consequences as to how this will develop.
Stay tuned.

Birds That Shouldn't Be Here

Well at least according to ebird, the wonderful bird reporting site at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. I went to enter the birds I saw today including one Eastern Phoebe and two Red-breasted Nuthatches and ebird wanted confirming details because the birds are 'rare.'

I really can't complain about this. There needs to be some mechanism to screen out highly unlikely birds. But occasionally the screening process just doesn't match the facts on the ground very well. Normally I would call a Red-breasted Nuthatch rare in our area. But not this year. This is the fourth time we've seen them and we haven't really been birding all that much.

Same thing with the Easten Phoebe. It does seem a bit late for them but I'm pretty sure others  have seen them elsewhere in Philadelphia over the last week. Yesterday ebird questioned the 10 Chipping Sparrows we saw at Houston Meadonw. They were there and probably  in even greater numbers.

I didn't have  my camera with me yesterday but I did today. So  why didn't I take photos in case someone questioned what I saw? Because it's no fun and the birds weren't that rare. I don't enjoy taking photos but I do enjoy making sketches. If the birds had seemed rare to me I would have tried to get some photos. But doing so always takes away from sketching time so I never do it unless I think the  bird is 'rare' by my  standards.

I didn't intend to post these. But since ebird may ask for some proof here it is. Above you can see a young Eastern Phoebe at top  left, followed by two views of a male Belted Kingfisher and a Red-breasted Nuthatch hanging upside down with his head thrown back at bottom. On right is a poorly sketched Golden-crowned Kinglet that was just one jump away from landing on my hat, which seemed to be his target until he veered away. Finally a Canada Goose drinking some water he'd gotten from the pond at Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education. All of these sketches are from  today, on what may be our last warm day of 2012.

The sketches above are from the last week. On the left a couple of House Sparrows in the Silver Maple outside my studio and beneath them the first Hermit Thrush of the fall. On the right pages a House Sparrow from my studio window feeder, a White-throated Sparrow where I tried to concentrate on the streaking on nape and finally our first Brown Creeper of the year, hanging upside down like the Red-breasted Nuthatch. I have a long way to go in perfecting upside-down poses but it's always fun to try. These field sketches from life are a far cry from the sketches from photos I last showed. They're both useful but believe me these sketches in the field are a lot more fun!