Bloodroot in the Wild, Etc.

Bloodroot Along the Wissahickon. Photo by Ken Januski

So you might ask, where else would you find Bloodroot if not in the wild? After all they are a wild flower. The odd thing is that we used to see so many of them while at Shenandoah National Park and elsewhere that we wanted to get some for our own small yard. So over the years we've bought such wildflowers from local arboretums and nature centers. Most of my previous photos of Bloodroot on this blog have been of our yard wildflowers. It seems like quite a while since I've shown wildflowers in the wild.

Today though I happened upon this small group, just about ready to fully open so I took a photo. I'd like to have seen the Louisiana Waterthrush that was singing today and possibly would have included a photo of him. But it was not to be. Even on leafless trees I could not find him, though he sang for at least 15 minutes. Soon enough though. In our yard Black Cohosh, Blue Cohosh, Trillium Luteum and most likely Goldenseal are all up as of this week. Soon wildflowers will be all over and just as soon they'll be gone.

Common Green Darners, Tree Swallow, Pied-billed Grebe and Canada Goose on Nest. Watercolor by Ken Januski.

Speaking of wild above is a new watercolor on the same theme as the last post: spring flight with Common Green Darners and one Tree Swallow. I'm happier with this than with the first pencil and crayon sketch.

It would be easy to complain about the lack of detail in this. In wildlife art detail still seems to rule the roost. Comments like "I love your detail" are common. But I have no interest. When I first started with bird art, almost nine years ago I immediately saw one of the biggest problems: what world do you put the birds in? Do you avoid the problem completely by just doing a vignette, where the bird is the focus and the background just fades away to nothingness. Do you crop it drastically, somewhat as I've done with the Tree Swallow above, and hope that viewers will be happy with just a partial view of the bird, or any other wildlife subject? This seems to be the most common method, but it's also a glaringly obvious method.

Some artists do try to include the background, or really the environment, foreground, background and everything in between. They try to put the bird in a world. And if they've actually experienced birds in the world, rather than just copying them from photos, then the paintings/drawings/prints tend to work. The real problem is that it is so easy to care too much about the environment, to feel that every little leaf must be portrayed. But no one sees or experiences the world that way. The world moves too quickly. If you're focusing on some leaves then your eye can't possibly be also focusing on feathers of a bird or fur of an animal. That's not the way the eye works, at least not in real life. How do you capture the environment and still have something that has even the slightest hint of wildness.

When I do a painting like the one above I  willingly give up a lot of detail. I'd rather get details wrong but get the whole scene right. Every time I do a painting like the one above I soon realize that something is wrong, some detail, if not something larger, is off. But I really don't care. It has taken me a long time to realize that this is my voice in art and wildlife art: to somehow or other portray the whole scene, sometimes more abstractly than others, but still to try to capture the actual experience of being outside and seeing birds in their world. As a consequence I do my best to value spontaneity and the overall scene over actual detail.

A few rare artists I think manage to do both, but only those who see the value of portraying the entire world and have the experience of being out in it and who also have mastered the structure of birds. For them the spontaneity is there but the shorthand they use is so sure I think that no one even notices that the details might not be there, or even more miraculously they also are able to include the telling details while still remaining spontaneous. I won't name any names but that is wildlife art at its best.

No I don't care a whit for detail in wildlife art. Please show me wildlife art that is wild, rather than the tamest thing in the world.

My Favorite Wildflower

This may seem a silly title. How can you choose a favorite wildflower? Could I choose a favorite artist, or even a favorite bird artist? Probably not. There are just too many of each that I like and admire.

Still it is possible to have favorites, even if they change from time to time. We've been fortunate in being able to buy many of the wildflowers that we've admired in the wild: Trillium, Bloodroot, Black and Blue Cohosh, among others. The pure whites of Trillium Grandiflorum and Bloodroot, coupled with shapely leaves make them very admirable in themselves. At times each has been my favorite.

And of course there are the orchids, including the ones we see most often: Yellow and Pink Lady's Slippers. Of the two the Yellow is the most striking to me. They are offered for sale occasionally but are quite expensive. I think if we had them I'd feel a bit like I had a Maserati parked on the street. It would be just too good, and gaudy, for the likes of us. And we'd worry about it.

We became most educated about wildflowers during our many vacations in Shenandoah National Park. That education was supplemented by our travels in Pennsylvania, particularly along the Wissahickon in Philadelphia.

Gradually we've bought many of the woodland wildflowers that we've admired at Shenandoah and elsewhere. But the favorite I show above is not I think a woodland wildflower. We first saw it at Big Meadows in Shenandoah National Park about 20 years ago. There is was in full sun.

There was just something about it that was striking. The warm and rich golden yellow of the flowers, the deep maroon of the stem, the shapely basal leaves coupled with fern-like true leaves. It was quite a combination. But we were never able to find a place to buy it. Then a few years ago we found one at Bowmans's Hill Wildflower Preserve. It's taken a few years to get established but this year it looks particularly good.

The one problem is that the stems are purple only as they start off on this particular plant. Then they turn green. I don't believe this is true with the beautiful plants of Shenandoah. Still we can't complain. I took these photos yesterday in a very strong wind. I particularly like the fact that the plants seem oblivious. The petite flowers are firmly anchored on those strong, if wrongly colored, stems. It's a hardy little beauty and my favorite wildflower, at least this year.

Palm in the Bloodroots

Yesterday Jerene and I spent over five hours enjoying a perfect spring day at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education. Sunny but cool. A perfect brisk day. Wildflowers were starting to flower: bloodroot, which we also grow in our yard, with its pure white flowers and foliage that looks like it comes from the best abstract sculptor in the world; bluebells, just starting to bloom; wake-robin; and trout lilies just starting to show their beautiful speckled(like a trout) straplike leaves.

We saw at least three Hermit Thrush, our first of the year, as well as our first Eastern Towhees. We saw just one warbler, a Palm Warbler. Unlike most warblers he just sat there. I knew he wouldn't do this though so I didn't get out my sketchbook and try to sketch him. I'd learned my lesson on that score at Carpenter's Woods on Friday. So what does he do? Just sit there for five or ten minutes. So I took quite a few photos.

Palm Warblers are generally the first warblers I see each year, even though Pines often arrive earlier. I just don't see too many of them though. But Palms are a little more common, often walking through another wildflower that looks like it might have been designed by an abstract sculptor, the Mayapple. It doesn't reach the abstract heights of bloodroot but it's still very attractive.

For years I've thought about combining a Palm Warbler and some Mayapples in a painting. But seeing all the Bloodroot yesterday made me want to try something that might even make a stronger painting: Palm Warbler and Bloodroot. I never saw such a scene. But it's not all that unlikely.

Given all of the good photos I took yesterday there was a great temptation to just paint a more realistic version of a Palm based on a photo. But I really want to pursue using my field sketches as well as making up composite scenes, not being limited by what photos give me. So that's what I did here.

It started well, then fell apart. I was about to toss it; or just give up on it when I decided to try just a bit more work. Mainly I added darks to try to tie the whole thing together. I think it's somewhat successful.

In any case it's successful enough to convince me to continue in this direction. I'd like to show greater imagination in my art.

Seven Simple Ways to Celebrate Earth Day

1. Start a garden
2. Plant a native tree
3. Plant a native shrub
4. Plant some local wildflowers (as above: Trillium, Bellwort, Twinleaf, Hellebore, and that old standby of this blog, Bloodroot)
5. Start feeding local birds
6. Make nature part of your day every day(It is whether you know it or not)
7. Stand up to those who get some perverse pleasure out of destroying nature (I guess this last one is here as a reaction to the somewhat wanton destruction of trees I've seen recently in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia where I live. As I've looked at the destruction it's been hard to think that there isn't partly just a plain hatred of nature involved).