Cape May Field Sketches - Part Six

Each time I post on this blog it seems like a longer time since the last post. In this case I've been holding off until I had a little more progress on my latest moku hanga print. But then a vacation to Cape May, NJ interfered with that plan.
When we got there I discovered that I'd forgotten my camera. Nothing could have been better for me. I'm never all that satisfied with photos anyway and the lack of camera forced me to spend much more time sketching.
So I'm adding another episode of field sketches from Cape May, this the longest yet. Below are pencil field sketches of various shorebirds.

Field  Sketch of American Oystercatcher on Nest at 'The Meadows'

Field Sketch of Dunlin and Short-billed Dowitcher at Heislerville WMA.

Field Sketch of  Semi-palmated Plover, Short-billed Dowitcher and Greater Yellowlegs at  Heislerville WMA.

Field Sketch of Willet at The Wetlands Institute.

Field Sketch of  Wilson's Snipe at 'The Meadows.'

Field  Sketch of Least Sandpipers  at 'The Meadows.'

Field Sketch of Least Sandpiper at  'The Meadows.'

Field Sketch of Ruddy Turnstone  and Greater Yellowlegs at Heislerville WMA.

Field Sketch of Semi-palmated Plover at Heislerville WMA.

Field Sketch of Short-billed Dowitcher at The Wetlands Institute.

Field Sketch of Mating Willets at Cooks Beach.

Field Sketch of Short-billed Dowitcher at Heislerville WMA.

Just to give a bit of a break to all these undifferentiated photos of drawings I'm continuing to divide by species, more or less. The following are pencil field sketches of gulls, terns, waterfowl and wading birds.

Field Sketch of Black Skimmer  at Heislerville WMA.

Field Sketch of Bonaparte's Gull and Lesser Black-backed Gull  at 'The Meadows.'

Field Sketch of Brant at The Wetlands Institute.

Field Sketch of Forsters Tern at The Wetlands Institute.

Field Sketch of  Glossy  Ibis  at Heislerville WMA.

Field  Sketch of  Immature Little Blue Heron at 'The Meadows.'

Field Sketch of Adult  Little Blue Heron at 'The Meadows.'

Field Sketch of Tri-colored Heron at The Wetlands Institute.

And finally some other birds, and of course the Diamondback Terrapin from The Wetlands Institute.

Field Sketch of Diamondback Terrapin Swimming in Tank at The Wetlands Institute.

Field Sketch of Eastern Meadowlark in Field on Sumner St.

Field Sketch of Marsh Wren at Jake's Landing.

Field Sketch  of Northern Parula at Cape May Point State Park.

Field Sketch of Osprey on Nest at Garrett Family Preserve.

Field Sketch of Prairie Warbler at Vine St. near Belleplain SF.

Field  Sketch of  Red-headed Woodpecker  at Garrett Family Preserve.

Field Sketch of Yellow-throated Warbler at Belleplain SF.

If you made it this far perhaps you like drawing or perhaps you like drawing of wildlife. I'm always torn between the desire to put down on paper what I see in the world in front of me and the creation of a work of art, something that can be related but that is often quite different. Now it's time to get back to creating a work of art in the form of a moku hanga print of an American Woodcock.

Sketching the Natural Wealth of Cape May - Part Two

About six months ago I published a post called 'Sketching the Natural Wealth of Cape May.' It was a celebration of both the bird diversity of the Cape May, NJ area and of the value and excitement of fieldsketching.

Well it's time for part two of a probably recurring theme. We spent the last week in the Cape May area, seeing over 100 species while we were there. They include shorebirds, warblers, raptors and others. The sketch above was based on tens and tens of Semi-palmated Plovers sitting before us at Heislerville WMA. Though a single bird might have been more artistically successful there were many birds and I wanted to show that.




We also saw many Short-billed Dowitchers, both at Heislerville and elsewhere. They're at the bottom of the page above. At top right is a brief sketch of a Prairie Warbler. The wood warblers are among the most beautiful birds that visit or breed in the U.S. so we always love to see them. But they flit actively about constantly in search of food. Though this was probably the most good looks at a Prairie Warbler that I've ever had this still was the best I could come up with. So as you can see there is still a lot of room for improvement. Many people know how hard it is to even see wood warblers, let alone photograph them. I think most people who know this, as one person said who was watching me try to sketch them, realize that actually sketching them is like some sort of extreme art sport. But it's not just a sport. It's an interaction with a living creature. You can't fake it. Either it works or it doesn't but often the thrill of even trying shows in the drawing.




There is a movement in food called 'Slow Food', and I've heard of such things as 'Slow Art.' I haven't actively investigated their meaning but I think that they are a reaction to a non-stop world and a realization of the pleasure that is lost in not taking time to enjoy things, whether food, art or something else. The same can be said of birding. We're slow birders. So we don't get alerts on our cell phones about the newest rare bird 25 miles away. But we do almost always end up with memorable experiences with certain birds, and perhaps other animals, on our vacations. Last year it was the Piping Plovers at Cape May. This year among other things it was American Oystercatchers. For three or four days they were at the same place at 'The Meadows' and allowed a very close approach. Above are two of the better drawings I did of them.



Another benefit of sketching the birds that you see is that you look at them more closely than you would if you were just trying to identify them or photograph them. I think the reason for this is that in IDing a bird you just need to see enough characteristics for your brain to decide on the ID. This is of course a complex and enjoyable process. It's part of the reason I think that many people love birding. But to draw a bird you need to know more than just some charateristics, or field marks. You need an exact pattern so that you can copy the entire bird.

Getting an exact pattern is almost impossible though. Almost no birds sit still for you. So you need to look extremely intensely trying to grasp the most important features so that you can get them down on paper. The top and bottom drawings are me trying to draw a Least Sandpiper and also making sure that is isn't the very similar Semi-palmated Sandpiper. One clue is a downcurved bill. That was obvious on the birds I saw and I was trying to capture it here. Unfortunately due to foreshortening it's not very legible on the bottom drawing on the page above. In between is a quick sketch of a Whimbrel.



Along the same lines the last page above includes numerous shorebirds, starting off with the very small Semi-palmated Sandpiper and ending with the large Black Skimmers. The small size of the Semi-palmated was made all the more evident to us by some bird-banders at Heislerville. One researcher held the bird in his hand while he banded it and we saw how truly small the bird actually is. It was an amazing experience. In between, going to larger and larger sizes are a Dunlin and another Short-billed Dowitcher.

These are less than half of the drawings that I did. Over the next few days I'll show the rest.

More Shorebird Drawings

I finally got a chance to return to artwork today. As usual the first process is to figure out what medium I'm going to use. The three that I've used exclusively over the last two years are charcoal, pastel and watercolor. Right now I just don't have time to undertake anything new, like for instance printmaking. So today the first hour or two was spent deciding on a medium. I'd almost gotten out my watercolors to try to remedy a very bad watercolor I started a week ago of a robin in our crabapple when I decided that might be like throwing good money after bad. Instead I decided to return to shorebirds and charcoal instead.

I wrote on Museworthy's blog recently that I once spent three hours a night, five days a week doing figure drawing for a couple of years while living in San Francisco. I always did this after working at a very dull job and it helped to bring something creative to my day. Work certainly wasn't! I mentioned that I thought I was still influenced to a great extent by all of that figure drawing. And I think that is one of the appeals of drawing shorebirds. For some reason they seem to take more anthropomorphic poses than other birds, for instance warblers. Or maybe warblers do so but they just don't sit still long enough for you ever to notice. They're constantly on the move.

But shorebirds often amble along, like the Lesser Yellowlegs above, taking a somewhat human pose, and offering the artist a chance to capture that sense of movement. I hope that I have captured the movement here. Now I need to add a little background detail, hopefully without taking all of the life out of the drawing. Only time will tell.........

Drawing Shorebirds Continued..........

Well the first drawing from the birding/boating trip in Cape May, NJ aboard 'The Osprey' is done, whether I want it to be or not. There's only so much compressed charcoal you can grind into a sheet of paper before the pristine whiteness of the paper disappears forever. That's the case now. Actually I'm very happy with the Short-billed Dowitcher but I do wish I could get back just a wee bit of pristine white paper. I leave it to the viewer to guess where that might be.

Though I would rather work from life I just don't have time right now so this is based on a photo. When I chose to begin this work the first thing I asked myself is what medium I should use: charcoal, pastel, watercolor? I eventually chose charcoal. As you can see the way I used it has created a drawing that almost looks like a woodcut. A watercolor would have been much different. I expect that I'll soon also try a watercolor of the same subject, It will be quite different and yet I think both will be true to the subject. That is one of the beauties of art.

Drawing Shorebirds

As promised I've started the first artworks based on the photos taken last week at Cape May, NJ on the 'Osprey'. This is the start of a charcoal drawing of a Short-billed Dowitcher. I had done an even earlier stage but the first thing I noticed is that the gesture was completely wrong, and lifeless. The current version shows some darker, stronger lines meant to simplify the drawing and retrieve a sense of the actual movement of the Dowitcher. As I work on it I hope to improve the sense of movement, and grace, in the Dowitcher. And eventually there should be a greater sense of the feather pattern. These are truly handsome birds and I hope that the final stage of the drawing will show that.