Wings Over Winecountry, Colleen's place (2 Viewers)

Neccesity is the mother of invention! A lucky find that natural brush!

Mike

Haven't done much bird work or any painting, took more work than I thought to get ready for a little show, my first ever public show of my animal work. I'd rather paint than show, but it does seem I'm being gently pushed out into the art arena more lately. It was a nice show, I sold several works, which is better than stuffing them in boxes under the bed. After weeks of perfect weather, the day of the show it shot up to 103 degrees, so I'm thankful anyone came out to see it.

The best part was, I hooked up with a local bird rescue group and they brought their birds for the show, a western screech owl( surprise! they don't screech and you can barely hear the soft little clicks) and a merlin. I was totally happy to see them so close, and I will be doing more work for the rescue after the BIA show in 10 days. Turns out the executive director of the rescue is a raptor expert who headed the raptor division of one of our very best vet schools. She has promised to mentor me when I start on that group.

They also put me on to a spot about 10 miles away where the rock swifts return each year....so it was a great success for me anyway, new birds and paintings to come. And some more $ to buy art materials and food with.

I started painting realistically and using animals as my subject matter at the same time about 4 and a half years ago. This put together my 2 great passions in live art and animals, and I have no idea why it took me so long to do this. The first year I did all pets, dogs and cats and one horse. The next year late 2007 I focused on cheetah. From there I branched out to other wildlife that I could go see,( I live close to an African Safari place, yes in the middle of wine country, which some of the staff who are from Africa say is very like their home only the trees speices are different) so there were cheetah, giraffe and Masai cattle in my work. Next I hooked up with Animal Ark in Reno Nv, and from there came foxes, cougars, white tiger, and siberians, peregrine falcon, great horned owl, more cheetah, its where the Moyo chase is from and some others. That brings us to this year and my start on birds.

Here are some of the Cheetah in the show, I did the small ones in amber varnish media and they simply glow like old master works, but the camera can't see that so what you see here is not nearly as nice as the real thing. When I work in Amber Varnish, I do a lot of layers of glazing, I guess that's what the camera can't see and flattens everything out.

There was one particular cheetah I fell in love with, she had just come from DeWildt perserve in So Africa, was about 1 yr old and still had some of the cub fur on her back. Her name is Sahara. In the one where she's by the rocks, she had spotted some of the guinea fowl out side her enclosure, and was stalking them, shortly after this scene, she took off running it was beautiful!

Congratulations on the show and the sale!! Both are always welcome, particularly if it gets you money for art supplies and food!

And thanks for the abbreviated art biography. I already knew some of this from what you'd written previously but still it's interesting to see it all in one place. And of course it's nice to see the works from your show. Let's hope you sell some more.

Thanks Ken,
The show is in sort of seedy location, so I'm happy to sell the 6 pieces I did, any more would be fab. It helped raise funds for several animal places so that is very nice too.

Went out to Bodega today, as I have work the next few days ,then will be getting ready for BIA, so this is the only day for birds in a week.

Saw something new and unknown to me so you bird experts chime in. I was watching the cormorants, and saw one with a completely white chest, I've never seen this, just a bit of white by the legs during nesting....can anyone tell me what's up. See the field sketch, it was all white where the paper is white. Managed a passable gull flight sketch. In the white pelicans...was drawing only from the scope( they were too far to see) it was hard! not used to that, I thought I'd see it and draw, but between the see time and the draw time something gets lost as you can see...more practice needed, but I think I prefer to be able to see and scope... I made a cartoon out of that one streching it's leg, and it was really so pretty...oh well back to the drawing board.....

Congrats on the sales Colleen - looking at the quality of the paintings it hardly comes as a surprise, though. Wonderful work - are these all pastels?
And the sketches continue to delight - the wing-stretch is a very tricky movement to capture (I know from horrible experence) - perhaps the wing is pointing a bit to the front, wheeas I would expect it to be coming backwards?
Your 'white-bellied' cormorant is a young bird.

The cheetahs are fab Colleen, really nice warm feel to them, particularly the two cubs. Congrats on the sales, it's a real good feeling and one that I don't get often enough! You know you're hooked when you get out at any little opportunity to sketch the birds! Nice work, the pelicans look great and you soon get used to sketching through a scope because, most of the time, it's the only way with birds!

Mike

Lovely work Colleen and congrat's on the sales

Forgot a little piece, on that wing Tim mentioned, the only part I got right was the black primaries showing, that's what made it look so special, it was only a second then gone, so trying to do it from memory that's the part that got down, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how the wing folded to get the black feathers in that position....still cant! tho I've folded my arm over and over trying to understand it...:-C

I can't be sure but I think this is the position that Tim's referring to. Most waders seem to stretch leg and wing backwards simultaneously. Maybe your bird brought it's wing up and away from it's body, effectively towards you before going into this backwards stretch position? Apologies for the rubbish photo BTW!

Mike

Thank you Mike, if this is a rubbish photo, you sure don't want to see mine...even in this the primaries are pointed back as Tim pointed out...I wonder if that flash of black I saw was another part of the wing, and being so brief I misinterpeted it somehow...I sure thought I saw pointed separated feathers....

It's very easy to misinterpret things in the field, next time, you'll be tuned in to see which part of the wing you saw and things should fall into place. Using Mike's example of our splendid all monochrome avocets, those black wingtips have ended up as black tailbands on my sketches more than once!

nickderry said:

those black wingtips have ended up as black tailbands on my sketches more than once!

Click to expand...

Mine too!

So there is a limit to "drawing what you see"o

I will look again as Nick suggests, more practice with the scope

Here are some trial sketches of osprey flight. I mostly see them so far away they are specs in the sky, but one day at Howath I got to see one a bit closer and took my specialty, blurry photos. I'm starting these as prep for my next section of study, raptors, which I will begin in earnest when I return from the BIA show. I will have a live model close then cause Bird Rescue has one that cannot be released into the wild that I will work from....

The "bird" I'm looking for at BIA is J. Busby, I hope to get a photo of him and me together so I have it for inspiration when I come home. I'm already packed, and leave in 2 days! It feels like at last it's becoming real, I feel like a teenager about to go see their favorite music group.

one more, didn't get through

Draw what you see - it is a bit of a falasy. Of course it really depends on 'how well you see it' - then all becomes clear. And of course slow-mo and pause would be really handy tools for the brain/eye (much like 20/20 in hindsight ) - and that's why, if we can't get close enough to the action, photographs can be a useful tool in helping to work out what's happening. And if the result of using photos is as satisfying and convicing as these are - then it's to be applauded.
After all - we had no idea about the forms and shapes wings make in true fight until the advent of highspeed slow-mo photography, or that galloping horses don't go 2 by 2.

On the subject of biomechanics and the revelations of high-speed photography -- Carl Zimmer has an excellent article on the issue here:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2009/01/26/the-flesh-of-physics/

He talks a little bit about taxidermy and illustration, and how, even today, many artists get it completely wrong. Amusingly, in one survey it was found that the worst offenders for depicting animals in completely inaccurate poses were anatomy textbooks!

That's an interesting link Jomo, thanks

Thought I should listen the experts here since I'm really trying to get the flight thing in hand so I got the DVD of Winged Migration, it cost me $250 US, that's right, :eek!: I got sent a bluray disc, it wouldn't play on my player, so I had to go get a new one,( well honestly mine was getting pretty cranky after 5 years of use, but it worked mostly) The new bluray player will play any DVD so now I should be ok for a while.

It is clearer ( I have an HD TV 20 inch screen) tho the softer edge of the old one is more like I paint.

My special edition disc has a lot of extras on it, including the director commentary( he claims no duck was shot) and that poor tern the crabs were after wasn't eaten, after shamelessly filming the event they just happened upon, a grip grabbed the broken winged bird and they gave the crabs another hunk of rotting meat and that's what we see. The most fascinating part is how they imprinted the various flocks of birds they filmed, the pelicans had never been done before, and invented new flight machines to film with.

Remember the geese that flew over the Himalayas? Well something spooked them and they flew off in to the mists and it took the crew 2 days to find them.8-P

Now as soon as I master the remote for slo mo, I'm on my way for study

IMO there has never been such a perfect movie made in all of film history, and I felt this way even before I was into birds, the music alone is astounding, and letting the birds tell most of the story is unheard of....I'll never tire of seeing it. So it's worth $250:-O

nickderry said:

It's very easy to misinterpret things in the field, next time, you'll be tuned in to see which part of the wing you saw and things should fall into place.

Click to expand...

In my very short time of working in the field I've found that I'm constantly misinterpreting and am tuned in, as Nick says, to see the things that were fuzzy or wrong the first time. That to me is one of the most valuable parts of working in the field: you develop this tuned-in way of seeing that you didn't have before.

After my abysmal failure drawing wood warblers this weekend I'll be much more tuned in next time I see them. But part of that includes looking at photos, guide books, other artists drawings to get a clue how they did it. Just today I was looking at how JoMo did the warblers that were so impossible to me. Next time I'm out I hope all that I've learned between last time I drew them and then will help me focus on what I see. I'm pretty confident it will.

From what I can see it's a very long, but enjoyable, process. Probably a life-long process..........

Well for now I'm standing by those black wing tip feathers, tho I know the rest of the wing is wrong, it was a windy day I will of course do exactly as you describe Ken, and have to say, it is how I've been working,

Drawing shows me what I don't know, where I'm confused or ignorant of the form. Then at home I do as you say, look things up and esp look at other artists rendition, then back in the field it gets easier to do.

Right now I'm copying photos of osprey in flight, so I can get the forms "in my hand" enough to be able to quickly sketch in the field. I think if one has sketched for years, then the vocabulary is probably already in place to transfer to a new bird. But for newcomers like me the ABC's are needed. I'm satisfied with my progress of 3 months, another 3 will get me at the reading words slowly level. But really one should start this very early say, childhood, if one wanted complete mastery, I'm going for facility and lifelong learning.....hopefully I'll get a clue soon on how I'm going to use the knowledge to make art.

Hi Colleen,

Not sure if I've caught you before you take off for BIA. But hope I have. Hope you have a great time there!

This was my third attempt to get in, and still another failure, though I really had no business applying my first year. If I'd known it was going to have John Busby as master artist I would have had my heart set on getting in! It's a good thing I didn't know until you mentioned it. I really got started in bird art after reading his 'Drawing Birds' 3 years ago. I so much liked what I saw that I decided I would try to do bird art myself. So I really would like to meet him, especially at BIA. Ah well...........

In any case: Have fun!!