Preliminary Show

With two big shows in November it's somewhat surprisng to be in another one in October. This is a smaller one, the Member's Show at the Manayunk Roxborough Art Center, a few blocks from our house. In it members of the art center in general can show not just the members of the Artists Coop. For me it's a good opportunity to show work that I might not put in November shows, e.g. 'Killdeer with Worm' above, a 12x16 watercolor, or works I've just finished and am eager to see hanging, e.g. 'High Tide at Nummy Island', a 9x12 acrylic below.

There is some possiblity that not all works will be hung because you just never know how much work will be submitted. If there's too much then not all work will go up. On the theory that there will be enough room though I'm also submitting the work below, a watercolor titled 'Great Black-backed Gull at Flat Rock Dam.' This work seems to be among my most unpopular recent works, at least judged by certain criteria. It was rejected from the 4th Annual Juried Show at MRAC this summer. It tops the list of least visited works at my Etsy store. Almost no one has bothered to look at it. And yet I like it quite a bit and it was well received when I showed it online when I first did it. In the end popular response is not important. I like it so I'm submitting it. I just realized I also showed it at the recent Manayunk Arts Festival and it got little response. Perhaps it's too dark, with a barely visible bird, and even a dark mat. Who knows? As I said it's something I like and it captures the scene of a huge gull dwarfed but seemingly unfazed by the giant dam behind him.

Some More Traditional Watercolors

For some people it may seem illogical to think that abstraction in art can only happen after the artist understands realism. Perhaps it's better to say that you can only simplify after you know the complexity of a subject well enough to simplify it, leaving out inessential parts. Until you're really familiar with the subject it's hard to say what's essential and what's not.
Some abstract/modern/non-objective art of course never understands the subject and isn't really interested in doing so. I'm not going to judge whether this is good, bad or neither. But for myself I've found that I do like to understand a subject before I simplify it.
So often I'll use photos as a basis for a painting if I think it will help me learn the birds better. I'm not sure that this works all that well. But I think that there is a mental process of trying to understand the structure of a bird that you see in a photo that can help in understanding. That's particularly true in the second watercolor which I'll show below. But it's also true in the watercolor at top, 9x12 inches on Arches 300# cold press paper.
This is based on the type of scene that I love, a variety of shorebirds. We rarely see the endangered Red Knot but we saw a number at Cape May this year, mainly on Nummy Island near Stone Harbor. He is at right along with a Short-billed Dowitcher, a Dunlin, and two Black-bellied Plovers in a variety of plumages. I hope that as I paint more shorebirds I'll get comfortable enough with them so that I feel free to simplify and abstract when the notion takes me.

I think that the breeding bird I see most often in summer, if I discount our yardbirds of House Finch, House Sparrow and Robin, as well as the ubiquitous Gray Catbird, is the Acadian Flycatcher. It's not really a common bird, but it is common in some areas that I bird, particularly Wissahickon Creek.
I've done many, many field sketches of it. Today I saw 4-5 and did more field sketches. And yet I feel that I still don't have it down. What is the shape of the head? What is the angle of the bill when seen from below as is so often the case? In an attempt to understand the structure a bit better I did the small 5x7 inch watercolor above. It looks very familiar and I think that's because it's one of the best Acadian Flycatcher photos I've taken so I've used it often. In any case that is the goal of the watercolor above. The new photos I took today of a bird perched just 6 feet away will also be used more than once I'd guess. But soon I think I'll be able to get an accurate field sketch and will no longer need photos.
I think some birders would get bored with the Wissahickon in spring and summer. Just the same old birds. That may be. But until I've mastered sketching them they're always a great opportunity in my eyes. There is always something new to see.

Sorting Dowitchers

I suppose in any field you hear a truism and assume it is true until someone tells you otherwise. I've always heard and read that Long-billed and Short-billed Dowitchers could really only be told apart by call. But shorebirds are not my area of expertise. Perhaps if I'd seen more of them I'd know this isn't true.

In any case the shorebird workshop mentioned in the last post spent a fair amount of time showing how to differentiate them. But even after all that when I saw the mystery dowitcher that I spent an hour sketching and photographing I thought it was a specific race of a Short-billed Dowitcher.

As I looked through my photos though I realized that one showed a longer, thinner bill than is often found on a Short-billed. When I looked at 'The Shorebird Guide' I found this regarding molting adult Long-billeds:

Head molt starts earlier than body molt so many late-summer birds have agray-headed, salmon-bellied look.

The Shorebird Guide, by Michael O'Brien, Richard Crossley and Kevin Karlson

The gray head with salmon wash on neck and going into belly was one of the most striking parts of this bird. That, the long bill, the rich colors of feathers, and the 'swallowed-a-grapefruit', hunched look all make me think this was a Long-billed. And I'm sure if I remembered everything from the class I could cite a couple of other reasons.

In the long run it doesn't make much difference. But for me part of the enjoyment of birding is trying to make difficult IDs like this.

One side note: hardly had I started this than our whole house shook. The cats appeared in the hallway with wide-eyed looks. Yes it felt just like one of those earthquakes I used to experience in California. And it was: a 5.8 one centered in Virginia and felt all the way to New York.

I think I wrote a few months ago about how the study of geology humbles you. And to actually feel geology is probably doubly humbling. It's so easy to think that our lives and what goes on in them, including the most idiotic headlines in sensationalist news, are what's important. Then the ground wiggles under you and you have second thoughts.

Fieldsketching Shorebirds around Cape May

It's been quite awhile since we took a birding workshop. We learned to bird taking them at Pocono Center for Environmental Education about 15-20 years ago. The last we took was at least 8 years ago, a week long course on Spring Migration at Cape May Bird Observatory.

But we've been getting more and more interested in shorebirds and CMBO was offering a course, 'Shorebirds With the Man Who Wrote the Book' last week. The 'Man' is Michael O'Brien, and the book is 'The Shorebird Guide.'

We couldn't have made a better choice. Michael, along with his wife, birder and artist Louise Zemaitis, is a wonderful and extremely knowledgeable birder and teacher. At the end of our three day course we finally feel somewhat comfortable with shorebirds. More than that we both feel that we've learned how to look at them, so that we can figure out what something is when we see it.

That said almost as soon as the course was over we were faced with a bird that looked exactly like a dowitcher, more likely Short-billed than Long-billed, but behaved much more like a Pectoral Sandpiper. Last night as I looked at my guides, photos and field sketches I still wasn't sure and started to lean more towards a Long-billed Dowitcher. That's really not important though. What I think we both find so exciting is that we are now able to look at a shorebird and figure out how to decipher what we see. The sketch above includes the mystery bird below and a Common Tern above. One bonus about this week was that terns were included free. Everywhere the shorebirds were we seemed to see some terns as well. They are also pretty unfamiliar to us so I spent a lot of time sketching them.

At top are some of the first birds we saw: two American Oystercatchers, a Piping Plover, and a Long-billed Dowitcher, facing away but with his head turned 180 degrees and buried in his mantle. As you can see I spent much of my time trying to sketch and annotate diagnostic field marks of the various birds.

We did see a wealth of birds. I'm amazed that I was able to sketch so many of them during the course. Below two sketches of a distant Marbled Godwit with a Least Tern in between.

Next a very small Osprey which seemed it must be an immature, except that his plumage indicated adult. And with him a Caspian Tern, that stayed just long enough for this sketch.

Next an immature Great Blue Heron drying his wings. I skipped most herons and egrets I saw this trip but this pose was too striking to pass up.

Now some young Piping Plovers, almost invisible on the sand of Stone Harbor. One of the surprises of this part of the trip was the discovery of Loggerhead Turtle tracks, seemingly there to lay eggs. A naturalist with the group recognized them. The local naturalists said they had no knowledge of any sea turtles ever trying to lay eggs in this area. I've not yet had time to read up on them or to find out whether this is a real nest or a fake nest, which is always a possibility with Loggerheads I guess. Local naturalists are pursuing this.

Moving from sea turtles to a Ruddy Turnstone with his head stretched out looking for food, and a juvenile Western Sandpiper, complete with notes as to why this is a Western and not a Semi-palmated.

A Short-billed Dowitcher with Least Tern below.

Two of my favorite sketches: a juvenile Semi-palmated Sandpiper with bright, fresh plumage and a distant Whimbrel who raised his wings momentarily. One of the things I love about field sketching is being able to capture moments such as this. The only way to do it though I think is with constant practice. The more you sketch the better you get AND the more chances you have to see something like this. As I've said before it can easily become addictive.

And finally two White-rumped Sandpipers and a Sandwich Tern, both birds we've never seen before.

Our vacation was short, just three full days and two partial days. But it was one of the best ever. Fresh, invigorating ocean breezes, new birds, a very knowledgeable and effective teacher and many field sketches. It's hard to ask for anything more.

Shorebirds in Flight

Even John Busby in his wonderful book about drawing birds from life, 'Drawing Birds', concedes that photography has allowed artists to see things that they haven't seen so well before. I think birds in flight is one of these. Though even there you can find examples, and he does in his book on Eric Ennion, of how an accomplished artists can still do a better job with his naked eye. There is a thrill in capturing movement actually seen firsthand that is not matched in working from photos.

All of which just leads up to the obvious: the watercolor pencil and watercolor sketch above is based on a photo I took at Heislerville WMA in April, 2009. Shorebirds are just not that familiar to my wife and myself, though they could be if we'd drag ourselves out of Philadelphia and the fewer than 100 miles over to Cape May more often. Nonetheless when we do get to see shorebirds it is a great experience. They are subtly beautiful birds in themselves but their story of lengthy migrations and the movements of whole flocks at a time all add up to make them one of our favorite bird types.

So when I got some decent photos I couldn't resist trying to make some sort of art from them. I'm recovering from a truly horrible virus of some sort and so this is the first new work in a week or so. I thought I'd use watercolor pencils for my first attempt. I think this was a combination of just wanting to continue to explore watercolor pencils and the added detail that they can bring to a painting. Because they begin as lines they are much easier to control than a brush, at least for anyone not accomplished in watercolor.

Knowing that I was going to try to be drawing birds in very confusing postures due to being caught at a moment in time by the camera I wanted all the help I could get. So drawing seemed a good idea. And I think it worked for getting some of the shapes.

BUT the still water has again defeated me. I tried to render it in watercolor pencil, then wash. When that looked bad I abandoned my vow not to go back into watercolor pencil when it was still wet and eventually went into it with abandon. Not much help. Finally, as a last ditch attempt, I went to straight watercolor. I didn't totally kill the surface as I did in the Greater Yellowlegs skecth of a week or two ago. But that's about it.

So there's still this dilemma with me and watercolor pencils. How in the world do you make a convincing area of large still water? I'm sure I'll continue to experiment. I'm obviously disappointed with the background and so I thought about just not posting this. But I am happy with getting some sense of the Short-billed Dowtchers and Dunlins in flight though, so I decided to post it for that reason. Shorebirds in flight are mighty impressive.

Dowitchers and Kinglets

The beautiful watercolors of Lars Jonsson and an uncooperative Ruby-crowned Kinglet, both mentioned yesterday, conspired together to get me to start a new watercolor today. The kinglet made another brief appearance but did so while I was busy with something else so I couldn't draw him. Rather than sit staring out the window waiting for him or other birds to appear at the feeder so I could work from life I decided to go back to working from photos.

I looked again at the Jonsson book yesterday and I think that pushed me towards watercolor for my new work. They are inspirational! This is the same dowitcher that appears in an earlier post as a charcoal drawing. In that post I said that it also might appear in a watercolor so here's the fulfillment of that 6 month old prediction.

I'll probably do more work on this but I'm stopping for today.
For now it's just great to be working again.

Birding by 'Osprey'

Yesterday, September 13, 2008, we spent a wonderful 2-2 1/2 hours exploring the back bays and sounds of Cape May, NJ on the 'Osprey', a shallow draft pontoon boat captained by Captain David Githens and his assistant Tom. This was part of a trip organized by Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education Bird Club.
The SCEE contingent on the boat included 12+ passengers and there were at least 10 other passengers. Most people, including Jerene my wife, spent their time enjoying the ride and viewing the birds. My time was spent between just enjoying being out on the boat on a beautiful, sunny 80 degree day, getting good looks at Short-billed Dowitchers, Black-bellied Plovers, Tri-Colored Herons and Clapper Rails among others, and trying to get photos like those that accompany this post. These photos will be used as the basis for later drawings and/or paintings.
I'll elaborate on this post and any artwork that may come of it later, but for now just wanted to get some of this online. The photos, by the way, include an American Oystercatcher, sandwiched between two Short-billed Dowitchers. The top photo is from the back of the boat as we neared the end of our trip. Though I've spent much of my life near water I've spent very little time on boats. Each time I do I realize how much I enjoy it.