I Break for Curlews

Curlew and Great Cormorant at River Deben. Acrylic in progress by Ken Januski, copyright 2020.

Over the many years of this blog I've written occasionally about the sideways nature of my progress in art, or perhaps assumed progress. My point is that I often head off in a different direction and/or medium at some point. I think the reason for  this is pretty simple: I need a break, though maybe I didn't  realize  it.

I wasn't really planning on a break from my moku hanga printmaking but a notice that it was World Curlew Day prompted me to take a look at my photos of the only Curlew we've ever seen, both in England about 18 months ago. Looking at them convinced me to paint the watercolor that is further down in this post. It was a quick one so that I could get it painted on the correct day.

This is  a fairly accurate portrayal of the scene. I just moved the position of the two birds closer together so that I could get them both in the picture. I also decided, intuitively, that a vertical format seemed best. So that's why there's so much seemingly empty space at top.  It was a fortuitous accident I think.

But it also reminded me of one of the main problems  I, and as far as I know just about everyone else, have with watercolor. You really can't  change much. Much of its appeal is the sense of freshness and light. If you try to paint over what you've already painted the painting often seems turgid, muddy and stale. And I know I've seen a lot of such paintings, including many of  my own.

After I'd finished the watercolor below I still felt like I'd like  to make some changes. I'm not sure why, perhaps it was just a matter of feeling like I had more time on my hands due to staying at home due to Covid-19, but I decided to try to repaint the scene in acrylic.

Most of my artistic career has been as an abstract painter in acrylic and later oil, though as I continue with both watercolor and printmaking that statement will eventually no longer be true. I think  I still try to  paint in watercolor as though it is one of those media. Every mark is put down just to see what it looks like  and then I can change it  if  I don't like it. But  of course watercolor doesn't work that way. And neither by the way does most printmaking. I suppose the amount of pre-planning and deliberateness necessary in both could easily build up a desire to return to  a more spontaneous and forgiving medium.

So it has been enjoyable to return to a medium where I can change  things over and over and over. The painting at top is close to being done. I guess the nature of a painting that can be changed endlessly is that it possibly could  NEVER be done! But most artists I think realize that you eventually just need to move on to something new. So I don't think I'll too much more on this.

I don't know how long I'll stay with acrylic. I'm enjoying it now and have ordered new canvases and some new paint. (Finding my large jar of white completely dried out will tend to get me to order new paint  given how  important it is!!).

I think it's important to keep art enjoyable. Sometimes that means changing media, subject or who knows  what for a while. I always find that I'm happy to return to other  media, like moku hanga perhaps, when I eventually do. 

Curlew and Great Cormorant at River Deben. Watercolor by Ken Januski, copyright 2020.

A Century of My Watercolors, or Perhaps Just Eleven Years

American Wigeon. Watercolor  by Ken Januski.

Well!!! It's been a long time since I've posted anything here. But not quite as long as the time between the two watercolors of Pine Warblers below, that being almost eleven years. As I said in 2017 I eventually found that there wasn't much of  an audience  for  the blog, if you ignored hackers or  other undesirables, and I also found that writing time took away from painting time.

Still art is a balance I think between work and thought and one should not be totally ignored for the other. So there are a couple of thoughts for this post.

One I was reminded of by Robert Greenberg in his Great Courses course on Concert Masterworks. I think  he was talking about Beethoven. He said that composing music is much more than just writing a  melody; it's also about rhetoric and logic, basically organizing a piece of music.  In terms of art it means that a representation of something is not enough, no matter how many details an artist might include. It's got  to hold together logically and also captivate an audience. That captivation is through expectation and surprise. We should all understand that from our own experience so I won't go into it.

Another thought: watercolor is  not my forte. But I keep going back to it. For one thing I've found  that it can be a way to quickly explore an idea or subject. But another is  that it is one of my favorite mediums, but only when done by a master like Winslow Homer or John Singer Sargent. It can be such a bright, fresh, light-filled medium and it seems perfect for portraying birds and the outside. I did a maximum of three watercolors in all my years as an undegraduate and graduate(at 2 colleges) student in studio art. It was only when I decided to use birds as subjects in late 2006 that I turned to  it. And boy did I have a lot to learn. I guess that's why I'm showing  the brand new watercolor from today below as well as one of the same subject from eleven years  ago  in 2007. They show, along with the other watercolors here, my progress over the years.

A final thought: sometimes it can take a long while to figure out the right medium for a subject, for instance woodblock, watercolor, charcoal drawing, oil painting, etc. I spend much of my time looking at photos I've taken or sketches I've done from life, waiting for one of them to spark an idea, some possible way to create a piece of art that I'll be happy with. In other words I'm looking for inspiration. But inspiration is not easily found. Recently I decided that when a subject seemed interesting but where I still couldn't figure out the medium to use,  or the composition or some such thing, that it was best to just do something  at  that time, rather than let if  fade into my memory because inspiration wasn't there yet. Most of the watercolors here, outside of the old Pine Warbler watercolor, were done with that motivation.

Both the American Wigeon and the Prothonotary Warbler were based on photos that I'd taken and that struck me. But I still couldn't figure out either the medium or  the composition. So I decided to just do fairly large watercolors and see what happened. At 12x16 inches they were too small, at least for me, to just be studies. But there also wasn't the pressure to do a finished work of  art. I'm happy with them and with the method. It seems like a better way to get to more developed work than to just file away an idea for another time.

Pine Warbler. Watercolor by Ken Januski.

Often in the past I've done quick pencil and watercolor  sketches  of birds that I've just seen. I often want to commemorate the sighting in some way. So  the first step is a sketch. That was the motivation for the Pine Warbler above. A very early one appeared very briefly outside my studio window two days  ago. But I also wanted to get away from small sketches. Such small sketches are nice in that they are too small to  create worry about failure. On the other hand they are also too small to motivate much ambition. So I'm  trying to work larger and on better paper when I want to commemorate experiences. Some will be failures. But I  also might get a more finished work of art. Right now I'm using watercolor  for this but the other day I  was a bit tempted to go back to  acrylic again. We'll see. In the meantime I'm relatively happy with this. And it is an improvement, though not  as much as  I'd like, over the watercolor from 11 years ago below.

Pine Warbler. Early Watercolor by Ken Januski

I've already talked a bit about the watercolor of a Prothonotary Warbler below. Since it is a rare bird for Philadelphia, and especially for anywhere  other than John Heinz NWR, I was really happy to see it. This is the second watercolor I've done of  it. The other is in sumi brush pen and watercolor  and is based on the same photo. So there is some similarity to  this. But neither of them fully portray the experience as I'd like to, even though I'm quite fond  of the watercolor below. That I think gets back to what Greenberg said about being more than a melody. Good art or music uses its language to create something much larger. So that will remain an ambition for my experience of a Prothonotary along the Wissahickon. It may very well be that only an abstraction, in one medium or another, will do the trick!!

Prothonotary Warbler. Watercolor by Ken Januski.

Recent Work - Moku Hanga, Watercolor, Field Sketch

Yellow-billed Cuckoo with Worm. Moku Hanga print by Ken Januski.

It has been a very long time since I've posted anything here. One reason is an old one: I tend  to  write more  than make art on this blog. Though I  obviously  have an interest in thinking  about things, especially artistic things, I often feel that is to the detriment of  actually  making art. So a year ago or more I decided to limit my writing here.

A newer motivation is  both a seeming lack of  interest from readers and moreso a belief that most viewers are interested for the wrong reasons: hacking or some other motive not related to my art. This isn't just paranoia. It's based on reading the stats of who visits, who links, etc. The great majority are from countries known for their hacking, especially for the purpose of  identity theft, or from sites that aren't legit. This  didn't use to be the case but it  is now. So I have no reason to write posts for  hackers and others who just aren't interested  in anything I want them to be interested in.

Of course a lot of  this came about as social media became more popular. I finally relented and joined Facebook a few years ago, mainly to have access to some artists whose work was hidden without a Facebook logon and perhaps a friend request. I didn't like any of this but I finally decided to try it. All in all I'm not unhappy. But Facebook reminds me of what I used to call 'snippet journalism', journalism whether in print or online or television that was too breezy and short to be of much value.  There is something there but it certainly isn't the more developed, thoughtful discursive material that is available in something like a blog.

So perhaps blogs will return to popularity. But I used to think that eventually print, especially printed newspapers and magazines would make a comeback. It seems crazy to me that this has not happened but there's no doubt that is has not.

So.............I'm just going to show some recent work here, though without a lot of  theorizing.

At top  is the finished moku  hanga print of 'Yellow-billed Cuckoo with Worm.' Traditional moku hanga includes very finely painted,  carved and printed lines. Contemporary moku hanga has largely abandoned line for color fields. This makes sense for various reasons, but I  still miss line. So below you see a trial proof of the same print using lines just on the cuckoo. Another proof shows only color fields with no line  at all. The color  field proof was done much  earlier in the process and the linear one as I made the final edition.

My long history with abstract art has taught me that you really have to be careful about precious areas of  a painting, areas that can seduce the eye but that don't add much to  the entire painting or print.  There is  an aesthetic that says that this is just fine but it's not MY aesthetic. The proof without lines has a lot of areas I  like but they just don't fit with my idea of the  print. The proof below with minimal line was my attempt to keep the color fields and just use the most essential line. But in the end I decided that I needed all of the lines. It took a long time to come to this decision but I finally did. And I'm happy with it.

Yellow-billed Cuckoo with Worm. Trial moku hanga proof by Ken Januski.

Yellow-billed Cuckoo with Worm. Early state moku hanga proof by Ken Januski.

All of my work desires spontaneity in some form or another. And I rebel against too much detail and too much adherence to what something looks like. On the other hand, especially with wildlife art and particular species, I can't very well just ignore the specifics. So I try to do what I can to learn them but to let the actual prints and paintings look spontaneous, or at least not constipated.

Further down on this page are some field sketches I did  at Cape May a few weeks ago, mainly  of  Sora, Virginia Rail and Wilson's  Snipe. I wanted to capture the actual scene of Sora and Virginia Rail all together, constantly moving out of view and back into the reeds. The sumi brush pen and watercolor painting below is the result of  my attempt to capture the scene, be spontaneous but still be at least somewhat true to what the species actually looked like.

Inevitably this will not have the detail or the realism of more fastidious detailed work. But other than as a learning tool I have no interest in painting in such a manner. And I think my prints show that this is also true with them. In any case I'm happy with this  12x16 inch painting.

Juvenile and adult Sora and Virginia Rail. Brush Pen and Watercolor  painting  by Ken Januski.

Since the day I started wildlife art, specifically bird art, over 10 years ago I knew some things I didn't want. I didn't  want portraits, where cute animals were centered on the canvas or print as though posing in a photographers studio. I didn't want cameos either, where the bird is in focus and the background just fades out into mist. I also didn't want a totally flattened picture plane, with cropped subject and an interesting design. I used to admire this in Degas and in Japanese prints, including some moku hanga. But  today it seems easy and a bit too decorative.

I also knew, how could I forget, that I didn't want labored art. I'm always shocked at how artists, especially wildlife artists, will talk about how much time they spent on their work. Who cares?  That 's a bad sign not a good one. To me the best art looks effortless, regardless of how much work went into  it.

So I had a huge list of what I didn't want my art to look like. One thing I've realized is that I do want a sense of life, a sense of artistic knowledge and ambition, and more and more a sense of space and depth. The latter is not inherently good. It's gone in and out of artistic fashion over the centuries. But to me it seems to be a way to help the subject open up, to help it breathe. It seems to me that especially in wildlife art the subjects should breathe!

So that is what I attempted to  do in the 12x16 inch  watercolor below of a Black-bellied Plover and two Dunlin below. It's quite simple and has an extraordinarily  limited palette for me. It also leaves a lot of white space, something that is harder than anything else for  me to accomplish  in watercolor.

Black-bellied Plover and Dunlin. Watercolor painting by Ken Januski.

As I said above I still like to be able to portray my birds and other subjects with some sense of accuracy. The best method for  that bar none, is to work from life. I may not get the detail that I might if working from a photo but I get a sense of life and I also learn to make decisions about what is important in my subject in the brief seconds or nanoseconds before it moves. Because of that I always enjoy the chance to draw birds from life.

It is  still a bit difficult to do, especially with rarer birds, when my camera is hanging around my neck ready to use. And I do use it. But it never has the thrill of sketching from life!

Juvenile Sora. Field  Sketch by Ken Januski

Sora. Field Sketch by Ken Januski

Virginia Rail and Common Gallinule. Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Virginia Rail Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Wilson's Snipe. Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

But Why Should It Look Like an Oil Painting?

Glossy Ibis. Watercolor by Ken Januski.

The show American Watercolor currently on at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is a quite timely counterpoint to these recent watercolors and watercolor studies.  We've seen it twice and I'm currently reading  the massive catalog that accompanies it. Both are well worth the money  and time if you are interested in watercolor.

As long-time readers know I've had a very mixed history with watercolor. I love the results in the hands of masters like Winslow Homer  and John Singer Sargent but my own work  has often led  me to near despair, or at least mild cantankerousness. I've also never had much interest in various watercolor  societies, because based on the little I've seen it seems to value control over everything else. And yet it  has such possibilities as a medium!

To make a long story short I've looked at a lot of watercolors, done a fair number myself and read a few books about watercolor, mainly American watercolor. (I'd be happy to read about British watercolor  but have not  yet heard of  a good, and affordable, book that covers that topic). In any case the end result is that I've thought a fair amount about the styles of  watercolor I like and those I  don't  like.

What is  so refreshing about the American Watercolor show is  that it covers  those same topics except in a broader range, with far more knowledge than I have, and with living, breathing examples. Because it is  such a huge subject and such a  huge  show I'm  not going to say much more about it. However I will say that you  can find great examples of so many different ways  of painting  in watercolor, from the extreme detail of  the followers of John Ruskin and the American Pre-Raphaelites, to those who seemed to think that it served no other purpose than to imitate large, exhibition oil paintings, to the 20th century abstractions of John Marin  and Georgia O'Keeffe, with many, many artists, many of  whom I'd never heard, both male and female along the way.

For me personally it has helped to crystalize what I  want in my own watercolors, though to a certain extent I already knew: Homer  and Sargent. So much  wildlife art seems so similar to the Ruskinites, artists who painstakingly tried  to portray every little  detail of nature. Tellingly most of them  eventually gave up. It is too much work for too little reward. More important to me is that though they can be quite beautiful they  also seem to live in a world with no air, where nothing  breathes.

So I've always preferred a looser style, that allows imprecision,  but that also allows light and spontaneity,  two of the elements that seem to be the greatest inherent strengths  of  the medium. I  won't  go on about  this. I  think that  if  you  like  watercolor you'll like the show  and you'll find examples of  the style  of watercolor you like. But you'll also find examples  of other styles  of watercolor  and you might walk away appreciating them as well.

Many early American watercolorists eventually gave  up  because they  just  did not  sell. They  weren't  'real' art works, like oil paintings. I've had my own dissatisfaction with watercolor but it really is  more related to the difficulty of  the medium,  at least when highlighting its strengths of light and spontaneity, than it is  to sales. Printmaking is now my primary medium. But I can't help going back to watercolor every so  often, as I have in this recent work.

One last comment about the show, though it is more noticeable in the catalog than in the show itself. That regards watercolor sketches as used by naturalists. Early on the book mentions a few types of  watercolor  that are pretty much outside of  the subject of the book, that seemed to proceed on their own, regardless of  movements in the art world  or watercolor  world itself. One of  those is the watercolor sketch of naturalists. It is  an interesting side note and perhaps explains at least to some degree why there are so many talented wildlife artists, especially in terms of  field sketching who use watercolor, and yet who seem oblivious  to or perhaps  even opposed  to everything that happens in the wider art world. The show does  include by the  way a wonderful watercolor  by John  James Audubon of some Black Rats.

Eastern Screech Owl at Rea Farm. Watercolor by Ken Januski.

Hermit Thrush. Pencil Sketch and  Pencil Sketch  with Watercolor by Ken Januski.

I really don't have much to say about my own works that I'm showing here, except to say that they were all done in  the last  week or  two. Most are a little bit more  finished, and a little bit less spontaneous, than my  ideal  watercolor.

Louisiana Waterthrush at 'The Magic Bridge.' Watercolor Sketch by  Ken  Januski.

Northern Harrier  at Dixon Meadow. Watercolor Sketch by Ken Januski.

More Sora and Rail

Sora, Virginia Rail and Mallard. Sumi brush painting by Ken Januski.

Sometimes I seem to want to go fairly deeply ( I will not say 'deep dive' thank you very much) into a subject. That's been the case with sora and rails recently. I can't explain it other than the desire to get familiar enough with them that I think I can eventually do a fairly spontaneous work with them as subject. Today's newest foray is seen above, a sumi brush pen and ink painting of a Sora, Virginia Rail and Mallard, all seen a few weeks ago at 'The Meadows' of Cape May, NJ.

Every time I return to sumi brush painting I'm reminded of how extremely little I know about it, how low my skill level is, but also how much I love the rich tonalities and vigorous brushwork that it can allow. I'm using an extremely old sumi ink, one bought back in San Francisco when I was a student and my guess is that the lack of true black in this painting is at least partially due to the quality of the ink. Once of these days I need to buy a better ink stick.

Sora at Heinz NWR. Watercolor by Ken Januski.

I've also been experimenting with more detailed works and you can see them above and below. They are both based on photos of Sora at Heinz NWR that I took last year. Both are in watercolor.

Sora at Heinz NWR, version 2. Watercolor by Ken Januski.

Sora at Heinz NWR. Watercolor sketch by Ken Januski.

Before I started the watercolors I did a quick watercolor sketch, seen above, and a couple more ballpoint pen studies. But there are only so many ballpoint pen studies I can do. At some point they just get too frustrating to me and I need to move to a looser medium.

Sora at Heinz NWR. Ballpoint pen sketch by Ken Januski.

And speaking of loose media, the sumi brush or sumi brush pen may be among the loosest. The synthetic brush pen, used below, seems to me to be mainly a linear medium. You can't use it like a sumi brush and ink to get both line AND tone. But that also means that mistakes, generally impossible to correct, jump out at you and the viewer. But the feeling of spontaneity that it allows is well worth the risk involved.

Sora at Heinz NWR. Sumi brush pen sketch by Ken Januski.

Lino In Progress; Odds and Ends

Falling, Fighting Gnatcatchers. Linocut. Early proof by Ken Januski.

A few months ago Jerene and I had the oddest experience while walking along Forbidden Drive in the Wissahickon Valley in Philadelphia. A large grayish object came floating down in front of us, somewhat like a Sycamore leaf but of the wrong color. When it hit the ground it exploded into a flurry of blue/gray, black and white. It turned out to be two fighting Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, more or less locked together as they fell.

Soon after I got home I did the sumi brush pen sketch below, completely from memory because there was no way in the world to have gotten a photo. It all happened too quickly. But I did think that I'd like to make a print of it. So at top is a fairly early proof of a two block linocut. I'm running out of wood blocks to carve so decided to try this old piece of mounted lino.

Currently I'm debating whether or not to add another color or two to the color block. Most likely I'll add at least one more color.

Fighting, Falling Gnatcactchers. Sumi Brush Pen Sketch by Ken Januski.

I'm sure I've mentioned before that I get varying responses to my work. Some people love the more realistic watercolors, as in the Blue Grosbeak below. But others turn their noses up at this type of work and like the more abstract work of the newest Gnatcatcher print. I've come to the firm conclusion that I'm best working abstractly. My work is I think somewhat personal when I work like that. With watercolors I could look like many other painters, just not as good.

Blue Grosbeak at Higbee Beach. Watercolor by Ken Januski.

But I still admire the way some people can use watercolor, and by 'some' I should say I definitely do not mean the color within the line school of very deadly watercolor. I've never understood that claustrophobic way of working. Watercolor begs to be used freely, even if that is the most difficult way to use it. In any case I always learn something when I work in watercolor, about the bird portrayed, about the use of watercolor, or in this case about how difficult it is to render grasses in a free, yet believable way. It's a bit like learning to dive. I try a new watercolor, perhaps am happy with it, then do a big belly flop. It can be a painful way to learn. But I keep coming back. Still I think I'll never develop the individuality I have in my prints in watercolor.

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. Sumi Brush Pen Memory Sketch by Ken Januski.

This is a very lucky time of year for people, at least people in the Eastern US, because during much of July and probably all of August and if you're lucky much of September as well, you can have Ruby-throated Hummingbirds as daily visitors. For all my years of watching them I've come to the conclusion that the best way to portray them is not from a field sketch and not from photos. Instead I stare at them for a number of minutes, try to memorize what I see, and then put it down on paper.

Inevitably I realize how much I have forgotten in the five seconds it takes to switch from looking to drawing. Still I keep trying and I keep learning. Hopefully I'll have some drawings I'm happy with before they depart in September or so.

Recently a friend of mine, who is both an accomplished artist and a lover of music posted a note about the recently deceased composer Einojuhani Rautavaara. It included a link to one of his works: Concerto for Birds and Orchestra. It is almost 20 minutes long but well worth listening to. It reminds me of how ambitious 'wildlife art' can be if it wants to. It can be aware of art of the century in which it is created, i.e. 21st not 19th or earlier, and yet still be true to and appreciative of the 'wildlife' itself. I realize that not everyone will enjoy this. But as with many things it seems criminal not to at least alert people to the existence of such strong pieces of art.

Comparative Success Rate in Prints and Watercolors

Seaside Sparrow and Marsh Wren at Jake's Landing. Watercolor and Brush Pen Painting by Ken Januski.

An odd title for a blog on art right? It sounds more like some sort of scientific study. But I was knocked over the head by my high failure rate with watercolors when I looked through all of my old ones in preparation for a small sidewalk show at Morris Arboretum on June 19, 2016. I plan to mainly show my linocuts and woodcuts but thought I should show some watercolors too, especially since so many have been based on birds and/or dragonflies seen at Morris.

Unlike many artists I don't rip up unsuccessful paintings and prints part way through in utter disgust. But it's easy to understand the impulse. Sometimes things just go horribly wrong on the way from intent to finished art work. As I looked through my storage box of watercolors though I realized that about 90% still looked bad. There were at least 125 of them and that doesn't include the 100s of additional watercolor sketches, works that were more quickly done with less focus on the finished product. I was tempted to ask why I continue with watercolor.

At the same time I'd been going through all of my linocuts and woodcuts. Though there were a few that were very disappointing, often where my ambition far outstripped my abilities the vast majority were successful. At least to me it looks like I know what I'm doing with prints whereas that's often not the case with watercolor, especially when I try to do a more expressive and spontaneous watercolor.

But that is in fact the rub. Watercolor when done well is one of the most expressive media, especially when it comes to light and the sense of fluidity and spontaneity. Trying to get some of that keeps drawing me back in spite of my numerous disappointments.

That said I'm always looking for a personal way to use watercolor, just as I do with printmaking. The recent works on this page are two examples. Above is a sumi brush pen and watercolor painting of a Seaside Sparrow and Marsh Wren both seen at Jakes Landing near Cape May, NJ over the last two Mays. Below is another painting using the same media. It shows four very active American Oystercatchers seen at 'The Meadows' in Cape May last week.

American Oystercatchers at 'The Meadows'. Watercolor and Brush Pen Painting by Ken Januski.

Both of these paintings are very loosely done, and due to a large extent to all the lines from the brush pen, look somewhat cartoonish. For many viewers I'm sure that this detracts from their appeal. Where is the detail, where is the subtlety? Well the fact is I just don't enjoy that type of work, certainly in my own work, though I can enjoy it in others. I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing here but I think some of it comes from a desire to show the liveliness of both the birds and their environment, to show a sense of animation, just as you see in many cartoons. Additionally this method and these media seem to lend themselves to studies for prints. So I think eventually some of this type of work will end up as a linocut or woodcut. And my guess is that, at least to me, they will seem successful.

One Good Thrush Deserves Another

Veery in the Wissahickon. Watercolor Sketch by Ken Januski.

I've written before about the simple pleasure of watching nature unfold in a more or less predictable manner. One bird follows another more or less, in returning to the area, either to stay and breed or to move further north for breeding.

The first thrush, outside of the American Robin, is the Hermit Thrush. It too can be here during the winter so it's not really the first migrant thrush. That honor generally goes to the Wood Thrush, pictured below in a pencil and watercolor sketch of a Wood Thrush seen in the last week or so.

Soon after the Wood Thrush comes the Veery, which will also breed here like the Wood Thrush. It is pictured above. I finished this pencil and watercolor sketch today based on some photos I took yesterday. The Veeries had been calling but not showing themselves for the previous 2-3 days.

Wood Thrush in the Wissahickon. Watercolor Sketch by Ken Januski.

Along with the predictable arrival of wildlife is the predictable arrival of wildflowers and flowering shrubs. You can bet that when you see the beautiful Pinkster Azalea in bloom that Wood Thrush and Veery will be very close by. It would make an absolutely prototypical woodland scene if I were to paint or print a Pinkster Azalea with a Wood Thrush or Veery nearby.

Pinkster Azalea in Bloom in the Wissahickon Valley. Photo by Ken Januski.

In the past people have experienced the opposite, flora and fauna not appearing when they should or in the numbers that they should. Occasionally this happens and it's often an unpleasant sign of something wrong in the environment. I hate to see the day when I'll live through such an experience. At the moment there are a reasons to be optimistic: Bald Eagles, Osprey and Peregrines are almost plentiful around here after drastic declines. But in grassland areas, with which I'm not that familiar, there are great declines. Only time will tell if people here and around the world will continue to care about nature and its preservation.

Happy Easter/Spring/Whatever 2016

Cottontail Rabbit at 'The Meadows' of Cape May.Watercolor by Ken Januski.

It seems that rabbits have always, at least in my experience, been associated with Easter. They also play a big part in much wildlife art, especially British wildlife art from what I can tell. I've often wanted to use them as the subject for a painting or print but every time I see one in the wild they are gone before I've put down more than a few lines of a sketch or taken a largely out of focus photo.

Nonetheless I decided to try this one yesterday. I posted the result on my Ken Januski Artist Facebook page and then shared it elsewhere. One comment  on the share, well intended I'm sure, liked the drawing but suggested that watercolor was a difficult medium and perhaps I'd prefer colored pencils or pastel.

But I consider this one of my most successful watercolors. I'll let the viewer guess why. One thing I can say is that I've always hated color pencils. They seem to reinforce the idea of coloring between the lines and perhaps even worse mistaking the surface of a bird, animal or anything as somehow representative of that living, breathing thing. Though I wish my grasses and background had a bit more substance here, I love the rabbit. It looks like a rabbit, a nanosecond away from bolting, but made of patches and marks of color that don't at all look like the exterior of a rabbit and yet from a distance resolve into a believable representation. To me that is part of the magic of painting. And it's something you never ever see in the eminently safe method of colored pencils. I'm sure someone somewhere has made exciting lively art using colored pencils, but I surely can't recall seeing any.

Birding Your Own Patch

Indigo Bunting on Cherry. Watercolor by Ken Januski.

Quite a few years ago I also painted an Indigo Bunting about this time of year. It seemed like a strong antidote to the cold and gray of winter. But I made this painting today more as a reminder of the value of birding your own patch as they say.

We used to see our first Indigo Buntings of the year in Shenandoah National Park in early May, often with temperatures in the 40s. It was a thrill to see them, made all the more thrilling by the fact that we knew we probably wouldn't see them again until the following year. We knew we wouldn't find any in Philadelphia, our home.

Now, less than 10 years later I guess, it's more a question of just how many we'll see in Philadelphia. I'd guess we see them at least 10-25 times each year, and always within five miles of our house. I often look through photos I've taken in winter, when it's difficult to do much sketching outdoors due to the cold. As I did so this year I've been impressed by how many photos I have of birds I once thought rare: Least Sandpipers, Indigo Buntings, Black-throated Green Warblers, Louisiana Waterthrushes, et al.

These were birds that we used to think that we needed to travel to see. But the vast majority of photos are from birds seen in Philadelphia. It is amazing how many birds are here. I'm not sure if that's true everywhere or if Philadelphia is slightly unusual. It really doesn't make much difference though. What's important to me is how rich the natural world is right in my own backyard.

The watercolor by the way is 9x12 inches on Arches 300# cold press paper. Though are a few things I'd like to change on it I think I've learned enough over the years to know it would be foolish to do any more work on it.

End of a Sketchbook, Continuing Sumi Brush Pen and Watercolor

Turkey Vulture and Ruby-throated Hummingbird. Sumi Brush Pen Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

I'd guess it was a year or so ago that I vowed to try to do more field sketches during the coming year. I do 90% of them in a Moleskine sketchbook, mainly because that is the one sketchbook that fits comfortably in  my back pants pocket. Over the last 5 plus years it has taken me about 14 months on average to fill one up, even though there are only about 100 small pages, counting each side of the paper as a separate page. But the last one took much longer. Thus my post about trying to do better this year.

BUT guess what? Above are the last two pages of the sketchbook. On the left a Turkey Vulture with Ruby-throated Hummingbird below, an actual scene at the Manayunk Canal last week. On the right a Ruby-throated Hummingbird at our trumpet honeysuckle in the backyard, done from memory.

And it's almost 14 months since I started the sketchbook. I think if I hadn't switched to the sumi brush pen for most of my sketches it would have taken at least another month to finish. I do intend to continue with the brush pen though so maybe the next sketchbook will fill up more quickly. I guess another possible solution is to make sure that I don't take a camera with me!

Turkey Vulture and Ruby-throated Hummingbird. Sumi Brush Pen and Watercolor Painting by Ken Januski.
 

Though the sketchbook pages at top are different scenes I liked the way that they fit together. So I tried a new 12x16 sumi brush pen and watercolor painting based on them, though it's not all that likely that the trumpet honeysuckle would be growing in this environment. I also changed the hummingbird to one based on a photo I took a few years ago. I was reluctant to use it because though it showed many aspects of the hummingbird that I wanted to show it also had an odd perspective on the foreground wing. On the other hand it showed the fingers of the wing pivoting in a different direction that the rest of the wing, something that happens, though too fast to see, in most birds. So though I knew it might be very hard to read correctly I decided to try it anyway. I'm not quite sure it worked but nothing ventured nothing gained.

I'm not thrilled with this painting but I do like the combination of subjects. As I've written in the past, and a propos the recent John Busby quote, I often find that my best prints are ones based on unlikely scenes such as this, often rendered initially in a rather crude way. But the important part is not the detail, it is the entire scene.

Photographic detail is rarely enough of an emotional stimulus to prompt a painting or print for me. To me it's sort of like watching TV and hoping to be inspired. A portrayal of an actual scene, though, even if crudely done, often has enough emotional resonance for inspiration. At least in my book(ALIMB).

Return of the Common Yellowthroat - In Nature and on Paper

Common Yellowthroat on Birch Tree at Houston Meadows. Sumi Brush Pen and Watercolor Painting by Ken Januski.

About a month ago we ran into some Friends of the Wissahickon Trail Ambassadors. One of them asked if the Common Yellowthroats, which always seem so common at Houston Meadows, were scarcer this year. I said I didn't think so. But when I saw eight of them yesterday I had to reconsider. That is far more than I saw most of the summer. Were these migrants? Or were they maybe the offspring of the birds that had bred there just now making themselves more evident?

I really don't know. Perhaps we thought that there were a lot there but we mainly saw them in May and the early fall and didn't realize that they were scarce in July and August. I'm not sure. In any case I was struck by them and vowed to do at least one sumi brush pen field sketch. It is below, along with a Great Blue Heron seen along the Manayunk Canal recently.

Great Blue Heron and Common Yellowthroat. Sumi Brush Pen Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

I've done a fair number of sumi brush pen and watercolor paintings this summer, pretty much to the exclusion of everything else. I thought that maybe I'd get back to prints after the 'Confusing Fall Warblers' sumi brush pen and watercolor painting. But I wanted to try out the Common Yellowthroat in Birches in those media.

It may require some handcuffs on my wrists but I'm going to try my best not to do any more work on the painting. I'm always seeking to keep watercolors fresh, and then always managing to make them darker and muddier as I tweak them. I've already done a bit of that. But I'm going to do my best to leave this just as is.

I think it will also work as a print. But I'm not sure right now whether I really will turn back to prints or just keep on with the sumi brush pen and watercolor. Why quit while I'm ahead?!

Confusing Fall Warblers, And Vireos

Warblers and Vireos at Morris Arboretum. Sumi Brush Pen and Watercolor Painting by Ken Januski.
 

I ran into a large number of migrating warblers and vireos at Morris Arboretum last Saturday. But I had hardly any satisfying views of any of them. Some, for example a Blackburnian, were just too high in some Tamaracks to see well. Others were down low, right at eye level, but they were so active and there was so much foliage that again it was very difficult to get a good look at any of them.

The 12x16 painting above gives some sense of that. A Nashville Warbler in the lower right corner was the best seen bird, with the possible exception of the Warbling Vireo in the top right corner. The other were just yellow blurs, or a tail with black edging, perhaps fluttering wings.  Some of the quick looks were tantalizing, for instance the largish yellow bird at center top, but as soon as they were seen they flew behind other foliage.

Most likely the yellow bird was a Canada Warbler, especially as we've seen one at Morris two other times during the last week. But I can't say for sure.

Because of all of this uncertainty I decided to paint just that: uncertainty.  So I'm not trying to portray a recognizable species at center top. Instead it's reminiscent of what I saw. The fluttering wing at lower left and tail at top left don't indicate specific species. They represent instead the real experience that you can easily have at this time of year. Uncertain clues, here and gone before you know it. But that is the thrill of looking for warblers and their sometime companion vireos at this time of year.

This is another in my series of sumi brush pen and watercolor paintings. All but the Nashville warbler are drawn from memory. I used some of my own photos of Nashville Warblers as a minor reference. But in it also I tried to keep it free as in a drawing from memory.

To Neither Paint Nor Print Nor Bird

Juvenile Baltimore Orioles at Houston Meadows. Sumi Brush Pen and Watercolor by Ken Januski.

Last Friday I learned that the work I submitted for Society of Wildlife Artists 52nd Annual Exhibition had passed the first stage. That meant they had to pass the second judging in London to get into the show. That in turn meant a whole lot of logistics: finishing matting and framing, finding supplies with which to ship, contacting an art courier in the UK, etc., etc., and then getting everything off, without breaking the bank, on a very short deadline.

That coupled with a vet appointment and then a cat emergency have made the last week or so incredibly hectic. There's been no time for birding, painting, printing or much of anything.

But I got the works shipped off on Wednesday and Jerene and I made some progress on the cat emergency later that day. That of course is when the car AC starting overflowing liquid into the front of the car but that emergency was taken care of yesterday.

So FINALLY, this morning I birded Houston Meadows. There were three juvenile Baltimore Orioles feeding quite openly in one area, mainly on insects on some saplings. I got a kick out of them, and not finding anything more visually compelling, I decided to do this quick 12x16 painting sumi brush pen and watercolor.

I knew that given the scale of the birds that they wouldn't get much attention or detail. But my plan was to make their bright color help them to stand out. This isn't a very developed piece. I probably only spent about 2 hours on it. And I may do a bit more. But basically it's just a quick piece to celebrate my life getting back to normal again.

Now let's just hope for success with the SWLA. Due to the extraordinary expenses involved I didn't submit to the show in 2013 and 2014 after having been in the 2011 and 2012 shows(much to my happy surprise). But as time has gone on I've realized that there is only one place that I really want to show: SWLA. It's sad that this is the case. But it certainly is. There is an adventurousness and a familiarity with nature in the SWLA work that makes it extremely appealing. So I've decided that it is worth all the effort and expense. Now it's just a matter of waiting for the results to see if I'll be in this year's 'The Natural Eye' exhibit.

Pushing On With Watercolor and Sumi Brush Pen

Adult and Juvenile Sora at Tinicum. Sumi Brush Pen and Watercolor by Ken Januski.

I'm not sure why it is that members of the rail family are among our favorite birds. I'm sure partially it's due to their relative rarity and to their general secrecy. But when you see them you also realize that they have a very subtle beauty to them. Not exactly Scarlet Tanagers or Cape May Warblers but striking all the same.

We were at Tinicum (aka John Heinz NWR) the other day looking for some of the collection of unusual birds that have been there recently. These sora were among them and they were very cooperative in staying out in the open for us to look at them. There was also a third adult that made a brief appearance.

I did a couple mediocre sumi brush pen field sketches of them and of one of the two Tri-colored Heron. I'm not showing them because I pretty much ruined them by trying to add color back in the studio. But I did take a number of photos. Because they were so striking I decided to do another 12x16 sumi and watercolor painting of them. It's based on a number of photos, and my memory of the birds.

My favorite watercolor artists generally use it in a much more gentle, fresher and more subtle way than I do. I can greatly admire their work. But when I try to work in that way I'm generally disappointed with the results. But I still want to work in watercolor. The sense of light and freshness that it can have is just too desirable to ignore. So I keep trying. This is the fifth of the larger, for me, 12x16 paintings with watercolor and sumi brush pen.

Eventually I'll turn back to printmaking but for now it makes sense to keep pushing on with this combination of media. It feels liberating to be working at a larger scale, though it's nowhere near the 72x96 inch abstract paintings that I used to do. In any case I feel like I might finally be able to get to where watercolor is a comfortable, or at least somewhat comfortable, medium for me if I continue working at this size and with these media. So I will keep at this for awhile.

Though I did start reading a new book on Japanese woodblock printmaking, and that is already teasing me with the thought of returning to wood blocks.

Another Killdeer Painting

Killdeer and Chick. Watercolor Painting by Ken Januski.

I'm still hoping to do another large watercolor and sumi brush pen painting over the next few days but there was something that kept nagging me about the young Killdeer that I saw along the Manayunk Canal. last week. So finally I broke down and did this small 7x10 watercolor of one adult and one of the young. It is very closely based on some photos that I took.

As I was doing this I was also listening to some music by Igor Stravinsky and reading about him. Though I'm not an expert, not even  a pseudo-expert, nor even an aficianado of classical music I think it's safe to say that he was the most revolutionary 'classical' composer of the 20th century and the most influential. Everything I hear by him sounds fresh.

When I think about most wildlife art, or for that matter art period, it often seems of another era, perhaps reminiscent of baroque music, perhaps romantic 19th century music, or in the case of fine art, stuck in an endless loop around Marcel Duchamp's 'Urinal' of about 100 years ago. There is not much that seems as fresh as Stravinsky.

I don't know the answer to this, nor do I know if it needs an answer. I still love music by Handel and Bach, to name just a few older composers. It is thrilling to listen to today even if it doesn't seem timely. The same is true of the art of Piero della Francesca, Rembrandt, Velasquez to name just a few older artists. It's hard to criticize contemporary art that emulates people like that.

I only mention this because I think the watercolor above is more an homage to much older work than anything else. Much of my other work tries to achieve the freshness of Stravinsky, though I think it rarely does. Still it is a worthy goal.

Raptors Overhead, Watercolor Off the Easel

Adult and Two Juvenile Great-crested Flycatchesrs. Watercolor and Sumi Brush Pen Painting by Ken Januski.
 

I think I mentioned recently that I've been hoping to do some more developed work for an international competition whose deadline is fast approaching. After all those sumi brush pen sketches I finally bit the bullet and started work on the 16x20 inch watercolor and sumi brush pen painting above. I've wanted to make a painting of a scene similar to this for the last 18 months or so ever since I saw one or two adult and two juvenile Great-crested Flycatchers all together at Morris Arboretum last spring. This is based on various photos from that day. We've seen another 3-4 Great-crested at the same location over the last few weeks so maybe that is what spurred me on to this subject.

I still have a bit of time before the competition so there may still be one more painting using this medium in the near future. In the past I've entered this competition twice and had my linocuts accepted twice. But I lost money on all the various costs involved. Even if I'd sold I would have lost money because prints are almost by definition less expensive than paintings. So this year I've decided to enter some paintings and perhaps a couple of woodcuts. We shall see.

Peregrine Falcon Flying Over Backyard. Photo by Ken Januski.

It was after a 12 hour day exhibiting at the Manayunk Arts Festival in 2012 that I hiked up hill to our house. As soon as I got a block away from Main St. and the festival I heard a shrill cry. When I looked up I saw at least one and maybe more raptors. Almost immediately I realized that they must be part of the peregrine family from the nearby church steeple. That was in fact the case and just a half block away were birders keeping track of the adults and the newly fledged young. Later that summer we often heard the same shrill cries overhead in our backyard and saw up to three peregrines at the same time flying high overhead.

We heard and saw them again in the summer of 2013 then not at all in 2014, though they had again bred at the church. They bred again this year, though I never saw them in my few trips to the church. But just this week Jerene heard their cries again. She heard and saw them briefly on Tuesday and Wednesday. So yesterday I sat out in the back with camera binoculars hoping to do the same. No luck. Then at the same time today we heard then saw two of them. I was ready with binoculars and camera but almost immediately they flew into the sun and were gone. I was only able to get the one grainy photo above, most likely a juvenile.

It's amazing to me to know that they breed near here. It's almost more amazing to see some, and I assume that they're the same ones, flying over our backyard!!

Osprey Flying Over Manayunk Canal. Photo by Ken Januski.

Not quite as surprising but just as welcome a sight was this Osprey seen about a half mile downhill along the Manayunk Canal yesterday.

Two Juvenile Killdeer at Manayunk Canal. Photo by Ken Januski.

This time of year can also bring shorebirds and sometimes Night Herons to the canal so I've been looking recently. I've often suspected that Killdeer breed there. Yesterday that was confirmed when I saw these two very young Killdeer with one of their parents at the canal. They always look like a ping pong ball on stilts. I did a couple of not quite successful sumi field sketches which I'm not going to show here. But I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually appear in a print or painting.

July is often considered a dull time for birding. But that certainly has not been my experience.