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.

If You Like Art, Especially The Best Art,

and if you like talking, writing or reading about it, you might very much enjoy this site devoted to The Best Artists. I saw a link to it on another site I enjoy, this one devoted generally to drawing and painting birds and nature, Drawing the Motmot.

As anyone who has read this blog knows I do spend a lot of time thinking about art, probably more so than I do about birds and nature. But I think that there is a dearth of discourse on art today. I guess this is somewhat hard to believe given that with the internet and blogs it's unlikely that there is a dearth of discourse on anything! Nonetheless The Best Artists site is refreshing in that it offers the thoughts of one person on one artist or piece of art that they find striking. It's been a pleasure to read, and respond to occasionally. I'd really encourage anyone who has a love of art to take a look.

I especially like the fact that it seems free of art historical baggage that obfuscates so much art. This is a straightforward response of one person to the art he sees. Though I've studied Art History, and often enjoyed it, it can have a way of getting in the way of the art, interpreting it for you before you get a chance to interpret it for yourself. In my experience you never truly appreciate art if you don't interpret it for yourself. Art History might augment this but more often it prevents an honest response from the individual. I think this is especially true of the tapes packaged for art exhibits. Their intent may be good but they really disguise the art. It's far better to see an exhibit without any of this, experiencing it for yourself, seeing your own reactions, and then afterwards maybe going back and reading about it or using audio-visual aids. The Best Artists site allows you to read one persons direct observations of art. As I said I find it quite refreshing and enjoyable.

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.

Confusing Fall Flycatchers

Jerene and I spent most of yesterday out birding in Philadelphia. We spent the morning at Carpenter's Woods and the afternoon at Morris Arboretum. One of the surprises of this August has been the discovery that there are a number of migrating warblers, and other migrants, around at this time of year. I'd read that some shorebirds actually start their southern migration as early as late June, but I didn't realize until this year that warblers were also on their way by mid-August or earlier.

So I've seen a number of warblers over the last few weeks, most of them at Carpenter's Woods. They include: Blue-Winged, Canada, Black and White, American Redstart, and Common Yellowthroat. Yesterday we added Magnolia, Black-Throated Blue, and Chestnut-Sided at Carpenter's Woods. Despite the famous line about "confusing fall warblers", probably from Peterson's Field Guide to the Birds, we haven't really run into that many difficult fall warblers.

Over the last few weeks though, we have run into plenty of confusing fall flycatchers. The main problem is that many of them are neither singing nor calling. No 'peeaweees', 'che-BEK!s', 'PIZZZa!s' or 'FEEBEES' to give a clue. For the most part the birds are silent. When the view is only from behind, as it was for a flycatcher at Carpenter's Woods last week, is the bird an Eastern Wood-Pewee or an Acadian Flycatcher? Or yesterday at Morris Arboretum, what were the many flycatchers? The huge eye-ring of one, combined with color and tail-flicking, determined it to be a Least Flycatcher. But we didn't hear the familiar 'CheBEK' that used to waken us at Shenandoah National Park. Fortunately the other clues were enough for identification. But what about the other flycatchers we saw: strong white throat, light vest, yellow, lower bill and fine, narrow eye-ring? We finally narrowed it down to Willow/Alder. According to David Sibley first year winter Alder's have a 'distinct but narrow eye-ring'. These two birds both did but were they first year winter birds? I leaned toward calling them Alders due to their fine eye-ring but finally had to just call them Willow/Alder. If only one of them would have called.

As for the back view of the Pewee/Acadian I finally decided on Acadian, due to the somewhat oval eye-ring. The next day I came upon another flycatcher at Carpenter's Woods, this time a grayer bird with noticeably longer primary projection. He also flew back to the same perch, like Eastern Wood-Pewees often do. So I decided he was an Eastern Wood Pewee. Then, in an unusual occurrence for August flycatchers, he sang his plaintive 'pawee'. I was thankful to finally have some aural confirmation for my identifications.

All in all it has some very challenging birding, necessitating the weighing of many clues to make a final, but often tentative identification. So I stand with my headline: 'Confusing Fall Flycatchers.'

Turkeys, Watercolor, Winslow Homer

Over the last week I've been looking at the work of my favorite watercolor artist, Winslow Homer, in the book 'The Watercolors of Winslow Homer' by Miles Unger. Each time I do I'm reminded of just how good watercolors can be. Looking at the book, laid out in more or less chronological order, it's easy to see Homer's growth away from his drafting skills. Homer was a very accomplished draftsman and this is most obvious in his early work. Drawn shapes remain an armature on which to hang his paintings in his later work but they really are just that: an armature, with which great liberties can be taken. The introduction to the book mentions how watercolor can excel, especially in Homer's work, in capturing light and atmosphere. These are almost always present in Homer's watercolors. The introduction also mentions that Homer never shies away from letting the mistakes or other evidence of the work of finishing the work remain visible. I think it is the combination of light, atmosphere, and fearlessness about showing artistic process that make him so appealing to me.

While working on two pastel drawings recently I found it refreshing to be able to be more carefree with them than I can be with the less familiar, and forgiving, medium of watercolor. But I had some misgivings about the health effects of breathing the fixatif needed to fix the pastel powder to the page. My online investigations only made me more concerned. So I decided to stop them for awhile and go back to watercolor. In preparation for that I took another look at the Homer book mentioned above. One thing that struck me was the rich, luminous but inexact washes that Homer would often use for part of the background. I thought I might be able to use this in my next watercolor.

I and my wife have seen Wild Turkeys in three places in Philadelphia over the last 15 years or so: Tinicum, the Schuylkill Center, and Northwestern Ave. near Morris Arboretum. We spent three hours of a beautiful day with weather in the high 70s at Morris Arboretum today. We saw no turkeys, but did see a total of 28 birds, including a Solitary Sandpiper, Green Heron, Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, 20 or more Wood Ducks and at least 12 Cedar Waxwings. A Wild Turkey would have fit right in, but it wasn't to be today. We did see one at Tinicum taken Memorial Day weekend, 2008. A photo of it is the basis for the accompanying watercolor.

Though I had taken a number of photos of the turkey I've been holding off on trying to do a painting due to the iridescence of the wings. How was I ever going to get any sense of that? It wasn't of paramount importance but I also thought it couldn't be ignored. But watercolor, as evidenced in Winslow Homer, can create very rich coloristic effects. I'm not sure if the iridescence comes through in this photo but I think that it does in the original. I'm happy with it.

Watercolor is a medium that can turn from brilliant luminosity to MUD in a matter of seconds. I think it is a medium that is best used with a solid draftsmanlike armature underneath. But for me it is a crime to be ruled by the armature. It is there as a lifeboat, not as a prison. I think that this is how Homer used it. For myself I think that there's a great danger of MUD if I don't also have my own fairly detailed drawing to start. That anchor, which I know is always there, allows me the freedom to let the paint speak for itself. My artistic background tends strongly in this direction. But it is greatly helped by the example of Winslow Homer.

One last thing that I think draws me so much to Winslow Homer: his love of nature. I don't think he was probably a bird lover though. The few paintings I've seen that include birds aren't among my favorites. But birds can be intimidating. It's easy to feel that every feather should be rendered. Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but it looks to me like Homer was a bit timid with birds and doesn't use the brash abstraction that he does with other parts of nature. He's somewhere in between his usual brash abstraction and a need to portray all the details of the bird.

Acadian Flycatcher in Pastel - Surprise Shapes

I think that this drawing is done. I've let it sit for a week while I looked at it. I made some minor changes, the main one being the addition of darker gray/browns to the upper part of the drawing so that it wouldn't be misread as sky.

As I've looked at it I realized that it isn't as much about color as I'd thought. Like most of my work, abstract or realistic, shape is very important. I'm not sure why I didn't realize that about this drawing. Now that it's done I see how much the tree limbs stand out. Perhaps because they are fairly realistic, and not based too much on my imagination, I just didn't think about them playing an important part in the 'art' of the drawing that I mentioned in an earlier post. But they do.

MY Artistic Convention(s)

As I've looked at my other work over the last week I realize that most of it involves a love of drawing, especially drawing in the sense of carving an object out of the flat dimension of paper or canvas. Sometimes those shapes are realistic, and strive to capture the contours of what I see. At other times they are abstract and more concerned with carving a new object from nothing. In both cases they generally show some of the process involved.

Showing the process involved in a work of art is a 20th century art convention. In the eyes of some most conventions eventually seem to be cliches. The most noticeable example of this I think is the gratuitous painterly drip. Nonetheless it is MY convention. I don't feel right hiding all aspects of the act of illusion creation that is the basis of most representational art. So if someone might wonder why I might not do smoother, more finished drawings, especially as I create the shapes, this is why. I just don't like too much smoothness and the hiding of the process of creating the illusion. For me there is some work involved in getting shapes right. I like to let some of that work show. I realize this is a convention. It does not in itself create better art. But it's my convention.

Acadian Flycatcher in Pastel - No Details

I enjoyed switching from watercolor to pastel in my last drawing and decided to try it again today. Much more than watercolor it is an additive process, i.e. I can start out without a clear plan of what I'm going to do, knowing that I can improvise as I go along. I don't need to worry as much about using up something, e.g. the white of the paper, and then needing to get it back later. Though it's possible to use the clear white of the paper thoughtlessly, just as in watercolor, it is easier to get it back to some degree through the use of white pastel. Since pastel is itself opaque, the addition of another layer of opaque white is not as noticeable as it is in watercolor. Or better, it doesn't seem as bothersome.

This drawing is based on photos of an Acadian Flycatcher taken in Shenandoah National Park in May, 2008. The bird is even more distant than were the Wood Ducks in my last drawing and posting. Because of that I knew that any work based on it was going to have to devote a lot of space to the surrounding forest, with very little devoted to the flycatcher itself.

I didn't do much in the way of a preliminary drawing. If I had done so it would have focused on the tree limbs and foliage and not on the flycatcher, since he is so small. At the same time I had to do something with him so that he was the focus of the painting. This might have been somewhat easier in watercolor and pen/pencil since I could use the line of the pen or pencil to add some small detail. But detail with the broad edge of a pastel is not so easy. Basically pastel doesn't allow detail.

So my idea here was to start laying in color, knowing that there would probably be numerous changes as I tried to unify the drawing coloristically, remain true to some extent to the sense of the deep forest that is often the home of the Acadian Flycatcher, and make sure that he still stood out from the surrounding jungle of limbs and leaves.

The drawing so far has some sense of the deep forest, but the Flycatcher is a bit lost. And the upper part of the drawing reads like it might be sky when in fact it is just a deeper part of the forest. I may need to change the colors to remedy that. Still I think I've kept some of the sense of the way in which he sat and tilted his head. The colors may also have gotten a bit too monotonous, though that in fact is what they actually were. It's time to leave it be for now and come back another day.

So What Is this 'Art'?

In my last post I mentioned rescuing a drawing/painting that didn't include significant, realistic detail with 'art.' This was said half facetiously and half seriously. It could sound like I was saying that a work without significant detail was somehow lacking and needed 'art' to make it as presentable as a more detailed work. Many people think this, and I wouldn't be surprised if most people who like 'wildlife art' think in this way.

That was the partially facetious part of what I said. I think it's more important to think of realistic detail and 'art' as different, though not mutually exclusive, goals in art. Though there is some satisfaction for me in portraying great detail, as in the Robber Fly drawing in the last post, it is often not as strong as creating something that matches my notion of 'art.'

The three variations on a pastel and charcoal drawing of a wood duck and ducklings in this post are an example of what I'm talkng about. They are based on photos I took at Tinicum(John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge in Philadelphia) on Memorial Day weekend, 2008. In most the ducks were a fair distance away. When I began this work it would have been difficult, but not impossible, to show much detail because the photos didn't. If I had a more developed visual memory of wood ducks in particular or just birds in general I might have been able to do so but I don't. So why bother to use them as subjects? Because it was a striking and memorable scene and something that I wanted to express on paper. AND it seemed to present an opportunity to create something 'artful.'



So 'art' is something 'artful'? Perfectly clear. Well I suppose not. Let me just say that I thought that I could do something with this subject that would end up both giving some sense of what the scene was like as I saw it and allowing me to use color, gesture and shape in such a way that I was pleased with the overall visual impression.

It began as a strictly charcoal drawing. It is possible to use tonal variety in black and white drawings to create something just as colorful as a work in color. But I didn't feel that was happening so I decided to add pastel on top of the black charcoal. This was my first use of pastel in a realistic work in many, many years. As the work developed, and reading from top to bottom here, I added some color here, removed some there, erased more here, etc. The intent was both to create something whose colors worked together to create something vibrant and to remain true, at least to a large extent, to what I had originally seen. In particular I wanted to preserve the sense of a Wood Duck and ducklings in water.

As I worked on it, it was the rearrangement of color, more than anything that I kept changing. That was the driving force in continuing to work on it. And in this case I think it was the most important aspect of the 'art.' In other drawings it may be shape, or mark, or design, or numerous other things. All of them make up 'art', and for me they are the most important part of drawing and painting. The difference in my nsturalistic art is that I also want to remain true, to some large degree, to what I originally saw.

A Bird in the Hand.............Is Drawn Differently

Following up on my last post on precision in art I realized afterwards that one reason I've been able to do more precise work with insects is that I've caught the insects and then drawn them under a dissecting microscope. The detail I can see is strong AND the insect doesn't move. It is dead.

I don't know any bird artists personally. The ones I've read about sometimes work from study skins in museums, or dead birds that they may have happened upon. In that case the bird is also dead and allows more detailed study, though of course it is no longer alive. Still it does allow a more detached scientific study similar to that of an insect under a microscope. My understanding is that this was Audubon's primary method of work, after he'd shot the bird. It is probably the best way to see some details that can only be seen in brief glimpses in the field.

On the other hand some bird artists whose work I very much admire work primarily from life, i.e. they only draw and paint what they actually see. They don't use photos. This reminds me of the times I used to draw mayflies. Mayflies live only for a day or so. Moreover everytime I used to catch them they would shrivel up into pale husks of their former beautiful selves. Their beauty was evident only when they were alive. You either had to draw them as they flitted about while alive or draw a shrunken corpse that seemed to have little relation to the live mayfly. Without getting too philosophical about this I do think that it is an apt analogy.

More detail can be seen/drawn/painted when a bird or insect is no longer alive and not being such a nuisance moving about at unexpected times. On the other hand the artist always knows the insect or bird might move and he needs to be extra alert to capture what he sees as he sees it. A second later the bird may have moved. I think that this relates to why I prefer works done from life.

The drawing at top is a portion of a larger drawing. It shows a Robber Fly drawn while viewed under a microscope. The watercolor is based on a photo taken of a Warbling Vireo at the John Heinz Wildlife Refuge(Tinicum) in Philadelphia on Memorial Day weekend, 2008. As I mentioned last time I'm always more interested in creating a work of art when using birds as subjects than I am when drawing insects. That may be related to the fact that I can never see them with the same detail that I see insects. On the other hand it may also be that the lack of precision tells me that the drawing/painting lacks something. Maybe I can rescue it with 'art'.

Palm Warblers and Precision in Art

I got back my many bird photos from May trips to Illinois and Shenandoah National Park last week. Included in them were many photos of some very friendly Palm Warblers at Oakdale Nature Preserve in Freeport, IL. Part of their cooperativeness I'm sure is related to the fact that they spend much of their time close to the ground, rather than at the top of very tall oaks like many warblers.

The image above is a small colored pen and ink drawing with watercolor wash. It's based on one of the photos. Though this Palm Warbler was close enough that the photo shows a lot of detail, particularly of feathers, I opted not to include that much detail. The same is also true of the background foliage but I usually don't have much interest in foliage detail.

The warbler itself was another story. There was a temptation to include more detail, assuming that I could also do so successfully. But, at least for me, that would require a finickiness that I thought would kill the overall life of the painting. This is probably due to both my artistic history and actual physical habit. I probably couldn't control the watercolor brush well enough to show all the details in the feathers even if I wanted to. But my artistic background, which says that no one part of the painting is ever as important as the whole painting, probably had a much larger affect.

My insect drawings are far more detailed. But in a way they are more studies, whose secondary intent was art. In my bird art, it is art itself that always takes precedence, with the secondary intent being accurate detail. Perhaps as I continue to do bird art that will change. But I doubt it. More likely art will remain the primary intent, but on a more ambitious scale than many of the small sketches that I've shown here.