First Phoebe of Spring

It was about ten days ago that we saw our first Eastern Phoebe of the spring. This was at Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia on the same day that we saw our first Kildeer, whose quick portrait topped the next to last post.

This watercolor, based on a photo from that day, was a quick one that I did this morning. It took 60 minutes at most. More than anything else I think it's an attempt to exorcise the darkness of the last watercolor ('Solomon's Seal, Meadow Rue, Birdbath'). It's also an attempt to start seeing and saving more lights in the painting, no matter what I actually saw. This Phoebe was buried in saplings, backed by a gray, overcast sky. Gray on gray. So I attempted to add a little color and some tonal contrast here. It's also just for practice. I love watercolor but am not yet all that comfortable with it. But a watercolor a day (more or less) may help improve that.

Blizzard, Sausage, American Redstart

Like much of the Northeast we've been warned that we might have our first real snow of the winter. Actually it's not all that uncommon to get big snows in early March here in Philadelphia.

While waiting for it I decided to venture forth in watercolor once again, this time based on a photo I took of an American Redstart on nest in a Witch Hazel on Pocosin Fire Road in Shenandoah National Park. Anyone who knows redstarts will notice something odd. This looks like a male. This photo is old so I don't remember the details now. But I really can't find a way to turn it into a female. There is the yellow-orange on sides of tail but I believe male has that as well. And the upper body just seems too dark to possibly be attributed to shadows. So I think we have a male on nest.



OK, you might ask, but what about the sausage? Well I've decided to include five photos that show the work in progress. It also is not done but I've lost all natural light here so I'm stopping for today. Some of these versions aren't exactly attractive or very hopeful. It's the equivalent of watching sausage being made. Still I think some people, especially artists, might find it interesting. There are points here where it almost looks hopeless. But I think things did get better.



As anyone who reads this blog regularly knows I'd prefer not to work from photos. But there hasn't been much activity at our feeders and the weather isn't great for venturing outside to work. So I'm going through old photos looking for sujbect matter. This is very limiting, and often not too inspiring. On the other hand art is where you find it and sometimes you just have to make the best of what's available.

This is the last wersion for today. I'm not sure when I'll get back to it. But in this case I know that it's not done as it is. There's just no richness of color, and not much of tone. I hope that will appear in the next version.

Thoughts On/From Famous Artists , No. 1

For various reasons I haven't been able to do much artwork so far in 2009. But I have been reading. Often I incorporate what I've been reading into my posts about work that I'm doing. But the quotes don't always fit in and I sometimes tend to forget them.

So this is the first of what will probably be a series on thoughts from and about artists. I've been rereading George Miksch Sutton's "To a Young Bird Artist: Letters from Louis Agassiz Fuertes to George Miksch Sutton." The section that seems worth quoting concerns values, and colors.

On page 25 Fuertes says in a letter: "We are naturally blind to all but the most blatant & contrasting values, & even great painters -- especially of the earlier schools & periods never did get discriminating in this essential matter....Many old school painters understood contrast thoroughly, & played it like the masters that they were....Color subtlety is simplicity itself compared to value subtlety, which includes every possible element of color variation as thoroughly as does white light itself. Great pictures are full of ingenious tricks of color to overcome the failure of the painter to achieve his values."

Fuertes' point here was to show Sutton how to actually see the color of the birds that he painted. So for instance the bright red of a cardinal does not actually look red when it is in shadow. But I was more struck by the last line about 'ingenious tricks of color to overcome the failure of the painter to achieve his values.'

As I read this I couldn't help but think about art I like the best. Like many artists I like many types of art so it's hard to generalize. But if I try to generalize about what I like the BEST, I think it often includes rich tonal variety, almost an orchestration of value. Even more I wondered if it helped to explain how I've chosen color, especially in my abstract work.

The accompanying photos are of a wholly non-objective painting that I did in Kentucky in the early 1980s. I chose it because I think it really is more about color and shape than anything else. The brushwork is simple. There's no recognizable subject. I think that when I did it I really was just concerned with color and shape. But artists are rarely all that self-conscious about what they do. I didn't think about color and shape as I did the painting. But something guided me in my choice of color and shape.

After reading this quote from Fuertes I had to wonder if what guided my choice of color was really a search for an orchestration of values. It really sounded right to me as I read that passage. So I Photoshopped the color version of this painting into a black and white version.

I'm of course not an objective viewer of my own work. But it does seem to me that there is a rich variety of tone in the black and white version. I'm happy with it and for me at least it has a singing tonal quality. I think I'd say this if the work wasn't mine as well. I could be wrong.

In either case I think that Fuertes was right in his way. I never consciously think about value in my work, neither 25 years ago when I painted this, nor now. But subconsciously I think that I was choosing my colors based on a bright orchestration of values.

I remember when I first started studying art, both on my own and in school. There were those horribly dull charts of black, white and every shade of gray in between. Dullsville! But many years later it's hard for me to think of anything that makes a painting, or drawing, more vibrant and exciting than a good use of values.

Flocking Robins, Pleasures of Fall

This will be a quick post because I just wanted to capture a few photos of the beauty of fall in our backyard. For the first time ever, at least that we have ever seen, robins are rampaging through the yard gobbling down the crabapples from our one tree. We planted it 15 years ago in the hopes of atracting birds but it really hasn't been all that successful. Until the past few days. The tree has been covered.


As you may be able to see an insistent, young starling also managed to get in to the crabapple and steal some fruit for himself.
Each October our zinnias seem to look their best. They are such pure, rich colors in a world that is starting to fade. In one more effort to save the suet for birds like Downy Woodpeckers and not from thieves like squirrels, I put up a clothesline and put the suet on that. Hopefully the squirrels stay off and the birds enjoy the food and the beautiful view of the zinnias.



Our very last color in the yard comes from salvias. Below is the first sign of color on a Pineapple Sage. Our 'Tula' salvia has not quite started to show its blooms yet. Soon however they'll both be in bloom: the last glorious color before the grays of late fall and winter.