Palm Warbler Marches Along

I decided to use the Palm Warbler in the Bloodroot as the subject for my next linocut and began it yesterday. It's been awhile since I've shown the progress of a linocut so I decided to take some photos of some of the versions so far. At top is version 7.

Above is version five. You can see I've added a fair amount of complexity. Based on past experience I'd guess that somehow or other i'll simplify this now that I've gotten in complicated.

There are three balls that I'm juggling in this print: being true to the Palm Warbler, being somewhat true to his surroundings, especially the Bloodroot, and finally making a visually exiting print. These three goals often fight with one ahother. I won't go into any detail except to say that I always need to make some compromises. And I also need to take some chances. For instance when I decided to make the bold marks of the veins of the oak leaf I realized that though it might be accurate it might also make the print too busy visually. On the other hand maybe it will both be realistic and visually exciting. That's the beauty of art and prints. You take a chance, using your artistic intuition, and hope for the best.

Above is version number three, a fairly early version that shows the print starting to take shape. One thing in it is a lot of blank, black space. That is one thing that I realized early on I would need to fill. Just how I'm still not sure. Again this is part of the artistic compromise. I could just leave it blank and let the focus be on the warbler and bloodroot. But that wasn't what I saw. Both bird and wildflower blended into a complex scene. So I'd like to show some evidence of that without creating a jumbled mess.

And finally a better photo of the watercolor that I also did of this same scene. The print is based on a printed copy of the watercolor. I traced it onto the linoluem block and then started improvising.

I have no idea how this will work out. At this point it really needs do get organized and simplified in some way. But there is still too much flat black as well. So a combination of complicating and simplifying lies ahead. Also the curvilinear shapes fight with the straighter more geometric shapes and marks. That too needs a resolution.

The Abysmal Hermit

In case you're wondering, no, I'm not referring to myself. I don't feel abysmal and though I'm not the most social of animals I wouldn't consider myself a hermit. No the abysmal hermit the title refers to is my new attempt at a watercolor of a Hermit Thrush earlier today. I'm not going to show it. I used to show some of my failures because I thought this might be useful to others. Art is as much about failure as sucess. But this one is just so far below par that I'm leaving it.

The reason I'm posting at all is that it was just two years ago on April 19, that we saw Hermit Thrushes while out birding at Fort Washington S.P. then came home to find another one in our backyard. I posted about it here. Last Friday we saw three and perhaps four at Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education. They were the first we'd seen this year. Then today we spotted another in our backyard.

Given that we have a small urban backyard and each year the neighborhood loses more big trees I'm always astonished when we get any migrants. So I thought I'd celebrate with a quick watercolor of a Hermit Thrush, just like I did two years ago.

I based it on a field sketch I did on Friday. That's at top, along with a Red-tailed Hawk, Northern Mockingbird, Northern Rough-winged Swallow, Eastern Phoebe, Pileated Woodpecker!!, and a Red-bellied Woodpecker. The rest of the birds were also seen during the last few days.

One thing I realized in the Hermit field sketch is that the angle of the bill is always very important. It may not seem like it but I think it often is much of what gives a certain personality to a particular species. This seems especially true with thrushes. You can see that I struggled to get it right but never quite made it. So I was hoping to correct that in the watercolor. But not in this watercolor. Maybe next time.

My next project will most likely be a linocut of the Palm Warbler amidst the Bloodroots, or perhaps one of the Pileated with some Trout Lilies. The Pileated is one of our favorite birds. 18 months of not seeing one was a very long dry spell. I'm glad it's over.

One other note. When we saw Trout Lilies at SCEE last Friday they had just come out of the ground. There were no flowers at all and the leaves weren't more than three inches long at the most. Then yesterday I saw thousands of them along Forbidden Drive at the Wissahickon, just about three miles away from SCEE. The oddest thing is that I would guess SCEE gets more sun not less. So you'd think those wildflowers would be ahead of the ones at the Wissahickon. In another life when I have more time I'll have to explore this more. In any case it was great to see them in full bloom. Like Bloodroot they are striking in both shape and color, just crying out to be put into a painting or print.

Palm in the Bloodroots

Yesterday Jerene and I spent over five hours enjoying a perfect spring day at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education. Sunny but cool. A perfect brisk day. Wildflowers were starting to flower: bloodroot, which we also grow in our yard, with its pure white flowers and foliage that looks like it comes from the best abstract sculptor in the world; bluebells, just starting to bloom; wake-robin; and trout lilies just starting to show their beautiful speckled(like a trout) straplike leaves.

We saw at least three Hermit Thrush, our first of the year, as well as our first Eastern Towhees. We saw just one warbler, a Palm Warbler. Unlike most warblers he just sat there. I knew he wouldn't do this though so I didn't get out my sketchbook and try to sketch him. I'd learned my lesson on that score at Carpenter's Woods on Friday. So what does he do? Just sit there for five or ten minutes. So I took quite a few photos.

Palm Warblers are generally the first warblers I see each year, even though Pines often arrive earlier. I just don't see too many of them though. But Palms are a little more common, often walking through another wildflower that looks like it might have been designed by an abstract sculptor, the Mayapple. It doesn't reach the abstract heights of bloodroot but it's still very attractive.

For years I've thought about combining a Palm Warbler and some Mayapples in a painting. But seeing all the Bloodroot yesterday made me want to try something that might even make a stronger painting: Palm Warbler and Bloodroot. I never saw such a scene. But it's not all that unlikely.

Given all of the good photos I took yesterday there was a great temptation to just paint a more realistic version of a Palm based on a photo. But I really want to pursue using my field sketches as well as making up composite scenes, not being limited by what photos give me. So that's what I did here.

It started well, then fell apart. I was about to toss it; or just give up on it when I decided to try just a bit more work. Mainly I added darks to try to tie the whole thing together. I think it's somewhat successful.

In any case it's successful enough to convince me to continue in this direction. I'd like to show greater imagination in my art.

First Warblers of 2011

Each year my belief in working from life is put to the test with Wood Warblers and Kinglets. I'm almost reduced to tears, at least to the state of rank beginner, when I try to sketch or paint them from life. And yet I do plod on. The main reason for this is that they're such beautiful birds. It's always a pleasure to see them, especially the warblers. But the temptation is always to just grab for the camera and forget about the futile attempt to sketch them. I confess I often do just this. But it always bothers me.

And when I see the work of artists who do work from life and manage to capture wood warblers I know why I pursue this. Their works seem worthy of the birds. They capture their beauty as well as their vitality and the actual experience of seeing them. I've done many drawings and watercolors of warblers based on photos I've taken. I like them. But they don't compare to how much I like the work of artists who work from life and capture warblers. I was reminded of this while rereading Darren Woodhead's 'Up River' the last few days. All of his work is in the field. And it shows. It just overflows with brightness and life. Since he's in the UK there are no wood warblers but there are similar birds there, as well as butterflies, another subject that looks best when done from life.

We had some high 70s weather here on Monday so I thought it might be worthwhile to go out and check for some migrants coming in with the warm weather. Sure enough: my first Pine and Palm Warblers of the year. As well as Golden-crowned Kinglets. They're all portrayed in the watercolor at top. This watercolor is based primarily on my field sketches, which are also at top. I also used my photos but only to check some detail that the field sketches missed. As you can see it leaves something to be desired. But I forced myself to work this way and will continue to do so. The work I admire most does not primarily rely on photos. There is an exuberance to it that I think happens precisely because it does not rely on photos.

Other birds seen the last few days have included Brown Creepers, Hairy Woodpeckers, Eastern Phoebes, Northern Flickers, etc. Still waiting to see an Osprey overhead, or maybe a Bald Eagle like last year, and of course one of my favorites, the Blue-Headed Vireo. Speaking of which it's hard to believe but soon the main song in the woods will be the Red-eyed Vireo. Spring and then summer are on their way.

Painting Early Spring

I was tempted to title this 'Painting More FOYs' but realized that not everyone recognizes the FOY acronym. It stands for first of year, and usually refers to the first example of a particular bird species seen each year. So each spring birds like Eastern Phoebes are FOYs in March, at least in Philadelphia where I live.

But I don't want to get lost in birding lingo. So I chose the current title. My first reaction when I think of 'painting spring' is a landscape in light greens, yellows, maybe pinks. Or at least some foliage or flowers in those colors. Spring is often first seen in the changing of dull gray and brown vegetation to brighter colors.

What about the brilliant orange of the Eastern Comma seen above though? Isn't it an example of spring? Yes it is along with other butterflies, moths, insects, birds, frogs, etc. For me it's these members of the animal kingdom that are even more indicative of spring. The Eastern Comma, which I always confuse with the Question Mark, first appeared a week or two ago at Morris Arboretum. Yesterday we saw another one, along with our first cabbage moth of the year. So this is probably my first attempt at a butterfly in watercolor. I also did a live field sketch yesterday, but like a bird the butterfly flew off after I'd barely gotten started.

We also saw about 10 Tree Swallows yesterday. It was hard to get an accurate count because they swoop by so quickly and travel large distances on each exuberant swoop. We never really saw more than 6 in front of us at one time. But seconds later we'd see a few more quite a distance away. We're they the same or different. My best guess is that at least some were different. So I came up with 10 as my best guess count.

Tree Swallows are also some of the first birds to arrive each spring. This painting is based on a photo that I took a week or two ago, also at Morris. But unlike the watercolor of the Eastern Comma, where I tried to be meticulous and spent hours on, these Tree Swallows were done in 15 minutes. A flash painting.

I've posted this type of painting numerous times in the past. I guess it's a bit like a 'gesture drawing', where you have less than a minute to draw something, generally a human model, in a pose. The virtue of this type of drawing or painting is that you have to simplify, almost have to feel and empathize with what you see, rather than think about it. I love these types of drawings and paintings. They're almost always lively. They have a sense of life, unlike more detailed paintngs, which can get many of the details that you might find in a photo, but lack any sense of life. In any case I've been at a bit of a loss as to my next subject for a print or painting. Flash paintings always help to get me over the hump and onto something new. And when you're doing them you feel a bit like a swallow in full swoop, confident that you won't belly-flop into the water.

Elegy for a Junco

Last Sunday I intended on doing some final tweaks to the geese and goslings linocut and then printing an edition. But when I stepped out the front door I found a dead junco on the sidewalk.

Though most bird art, at least western bird art, had been based on dead specimens until at least the mid nineteenth century and the invention of photography, I've never worked from a real specimen, either my own or that of a museum. But obviously it's a long and honored, not to mention necessary, tradition. It's surprising to read about John James Audubon going out hunting for specimens and talking about having a good day hunting. But that's the way most bird art, or naturalistic, scientific study has been done. We tend to forget that with our high powered optics, whether in binoculars, scopes or photographic equipment.

So, sad as I was to find a dead junco, I still decided to bring it into my studio and do a drawing or watercolor of it. The result is at the top. It was informative in that I could really see how the bill is built, how the feather tracts lie, etc. Recently I read that dead birds shrink in size so that my partially explain why it seemed so astonishingly small when I picked it up. Largely though I think it's just that birds are really small. That makes their migratory accomplishments all the more impressive.

In any case I was happy to have the opportunity to portray this unfortunate bird.

On Monday I finished tweaking the linocut and printed an edition of 12 on cream Rives Lightweight paper. Most of the copies are for sale at my etsy site. I'm still not really sure what to make of etsy. At times it seems that it's hard for anyone to ever find anything. And yet many people, mainly crafters, do seem to sell a fair amount of work. Fortunately there is the printsy blog site that lists etsy members that are also printmakers and members of printsy. That's at least a starting point for finding prints there. Printsy also includes interviews with printsy members, including yours truly, selections of new work, and occasional tutorials. I think I might not have tried etsy if it weren't for printsy. As it is I have a few non-print items on my site but soon it will be only prints. All of my work is available for sale at my primary online store. But I thought it would be interesting to try etsy and to have more inexpensive works, specifically prints, for sale there.

Geese, Gosling, Sunlight

Just a quick post since it's been awhile. It was almost exactly a year ago that we saw two Canada Geese with their goslings lit by brilliant sunshine. It made the down of the goslings glow in such a way as to make them look as though they had halos.

I did a quick watercolor back then and this is based on that watercolor. I knew there would be one serious problem though. Light is best portrayed with areas of tone, as in watercolor. It doesn't work so well with lines. But linocut thrives on line, not tone. I know. But I finally decided to do it anyway. Sometimes you just have to take chances.

The two photos here are the exact same state of the lino. They're just printed in different colors. I had been using a burnt siena/yellow mix that gave me a bronzish color. I thought that would add to the sense of light. But on the last print I decided that maybe it wasn't working. So I printed the image again with some black added. So that's why there are two colors.

I"m going to let this sit overnight and probably will do some minor tweaks tomorrow. Then on to an edition.

FOY Field Sketches

This time of year is always First Of Year time, first birds of a particular species seen in any given year. Some might also call it spring. It surely is indicative of spring.

Though Icterids, the blackbird family, are the true FOY migrants in our part of the country they're not quite as closely associated with spring, perhaps because they arrive before there are any other real sings of spring.

But Eastern Phoebes, Tree Swallows and Kildeer really do signal the start of warmer weather. I and my wife Jerene often go out in search of FOY birds starting in early March. I used to also bring my camera, take photos, and then do artwork based on them. I couldn't wait to get the photos developed and then do some paintings based on them.

But today I really wanted to force myself to do field sketches first and photos second. That's exactly what happened. And the birds cooperated. All except the four Eastern Phoebes. You would have thought with four of them that at least one of them would have sat still long enough for me to sketch one. But no. The best I could do was get part of one, then hope that another view of him or one of the others would allow me to complete the sketch. That's how this Eastern Phoebe got down on paper.

For some March is the thrill of March Madness and the Road to the Final Four. I used to enjoy that. But now it's easy to skip that in favor of getting outside on a sunny but brisk day like today, seeing the first migrants of the year and getting them down on paper. That is the true March Madness.

Wood Ducks Return - Spring 2011

Hypnosis. There are certain bird species that are just so beautiful in themselves that someone looking at them, and in particular someone trying to portray them, can get hypnotized by their beauty. I had this experience when we drove by our first Ruffed Grouse in the Dolly Sods Wilderness Area in West Virginia last fall. I guess it was fortunate that I was driving and didn't have my camera at the ready. Otherwise I would have tried to get some photos and then eventually try to render that in some artistic medium. The problem, as with the male Wood Duck, is that you get hypnotized by the complex patterning and often end up with a lifeless artwork.

Far more important in wildlife art, or any art really, is getting a sense of life. If you can get the sense of life AND intricate detail and pattern fine. If not my feeling is that you should skimp on the detail.

I saw my first returning Wood Ducks in Philadelphia a week or two ago. But over the last few days I've seen them in numbers, between 12 and 18 altogether on the Wissahickon is an educated guess.

One of the hardest parts of wildlife art, especially bird art, is capturing the subject on paper before it moves. Both Tim Wootton and Nick Derry emphasize in Tim's new book mentioned in my last post that most of your time should be spent looking, not pushing the pencil around the paper. So with that in mind I resolved to put in into practice over the last few days.

But it ain't easy! Ducks are perhaps more difficult, at least if they're being whisked out of sight by a current, but Wood Ducks are even worse. My brain almost short-circuited as I tried to figure out what I was seeing, make a visual memory of it, then put it down on paper. Even on the less gaudily patterned female that huge eye spectacle complicates things vastly. I often end up with a blob with a weird eye in the middle. My attempts at field sketches are above.

The end result was that I also took photos. And when I got home I decided to try a larger, ca. 15x11 inch, watercolor based on the photos. But I ran into the exact problems that I expected. The pattern of the ducks, especially the male, is so complicated, and beautiful, that I concentrated on it above all else. I did this even knowing of the danger. But that's one problem with photos. If it's right in front of you you're sorely tempted to just put it in. In the field you can't do this. You have to make quicker, and probably better, decisions as to what to keep and what to skip.

I think I resolved this successfully. But it's interesting to compare it to the first wood ducks of the spring that I painted last year on almost the exact same date. I also did some horrible field sketches that day. This is based on a photo. But in that case I didn't worry about detail. I was more concerned with the overall painting. In some ways I prefer it.

But enough of art theory and practice. It's always happy sign of spring and summer when the Wood Ducks return. I kept thinking there was an abundance of American Goldfinches yesterday at the Wissahickon also. And then I realized it was the squeak toy greetings of the Wood Ducks.

A Worthwhile Way of Spending Time

And I don't think there could be any more worthwhile way of spending time than with nature and with art.

Tim Wootton, 'Drawing and Painting Birds'

When I first started using birds as subject matter in late 2006 there was really only one person, place, thing that inspired me: 'Drawing Birds', a book by John Busby. So thrilled was I by it that I wrote a review of it at Amazon. 'Inspiring is the Word' was the title of my review and I think it summarizes my feelings pretty well. It was, and still is, inspiring.

Most inspiring was the liveliness of the work, the sense that the illustrations of work by various artists was actually done by someone who had seen the actual bird and felt the excitement of seeing and portraying it. No lifeless photographic imitations that reminded me more of photos than of nature and birds.

There was just one problem. I loved the work I saw in the book, and I loved the philosophy of drawing from life espoused by the talented artist/author John Busby. But where could I go next? How could I follow this path of working from nature. Very few American artists that I could find did so: namely Barry Van Dusen, whose work was in the Busby book, and Debby Kaspari, especially in her various posts about drawing birds. These were a start but still I felt like I was operating alone in the wilderness. This was particularly true in my desire to meld art and nature, not just do illustrations of nature.

Then about two years ago I stumbled upon the work of Nick Derry. His seemed the best contemporary melding of both art and nature that I'd yet seen. I mentioned how much I liked his work to
Jocelyn Oudesluys on the Art section of The Nature Blog Network and she mentioned that he hung out at the Wildlife Art section of birdforum.

To make what's already a lengthy story a bit shorter I finally found a world in which I no longer felt myself an alien. Working from life, combining art and nature were all as natural as can be. And the most generous, thoughtful, constantly available person there was Tim Wootton, the artist and author whose book I've illustrated at top.

I'm sure I've mentioned before what a bunch of talented, helpful, interesting artists hang out there. Many of the most talented have their work showcased in his new book. Since I know many of them, at least as 'online' friends, I can't really give a very objective review of the took. I recieved it this weekend and have read it fully once and flipped through every illustration twice. I'm sure I'll be going through it many more times. That tells you something.

I do think Tim's book will join John Busby's as classics in the field of wildlife art and art based on nature. The one thing that I can quite honestly say is that if you are interested in being a serious bird artist you'll run into many questions: Should you work from life? If so how in the world can you draw something that moves so quickly, that may move as soon as you put your pen down to paper? What should you do about the background? Can you fake it with just some impressionistic foliage? Do you just leave it blank? Will amorphous colors running into one another fool anyone? Is there a more exciting composition than another warbler perched on a branch? How can you make your work look like art, have the dynamism of art? Should you use photographs as a help? What about video? How do you portray water? Do you also need bo learn to be a landscape painter. I could go on and on.

My point is that in my five years of doing work based on birds most of these questions have crossed my mind. Tim's book touches on almost all of them. I don't think Tim would say that there is a definitive answer to any of them, just as there aren't to most complex questions. But he gives you his thoughts and the thoughts of other artists. These will all help any bird artist I believe, particularly those who are just starting out and feel a bit like an alien in a strange world. This book makes working from life in nature, and making art based on it, seem like the most normal and exciting thing in the world.

I ordered Tim's book directly from his blog. This is the British edition and will cost extra for shipping and possibly dollar to pound currency conversion. Amazon has said it will be available in the states in July or August and I'm sure the shipping will be much less. I thought I'd hold off for the American version but eventually I just couldn't wait any longer. I'm thrilled that I made that decision. If you're not a bird artist but do enjoy art based on nature I think you'll also enjoy the book. It is full of lively and artful renderings of birds.

If you do come from a fine art background you soon find out how different it seems to be from that of wildlife art. And yet it shouldn't be. And here it's not. As Tim says it's hard to think of a better use of time than being in nature and making art.