JTMB's Bird Art (2 Viewers)

John,

Love it all.

Keep going out and sketching is all I can say. The more you do the more you learn, and the better you will get.

Experience distilled to essence makes a fine fine end-product!

ps. A bit jealous over the Pileated Woodpecker! GRRRR!

woodpecker has so much character...strong pattern in it...

phil baber said:

John,

Love it all.

Keep going out and sketching is all I can say. The more you do the more you learn, and the better you will get.

Experience distilled to essence makes a fine fine end-product!

ps. A bit jealous over the Pileated Woodpecker! GRRRR!

Click to expand...

I'm jealous of the Pileated as well. We have one or two or three in the forested area a mile from where I live. But that area is a narrow strip of land that goes on for about 5 miles with little offshoots here and there. You never know when and if you'll see any of them. I think I heard one a few weeks ago but never saw it. So they're always a real treat to see.

And good work on those House Finches. They are surprisingly difficult birds to draw I find. Especially in the winter they and House/English Sparrows constitute 90% of our feeder birds. But I always prefer to draw the House Sparrows. They seem to have distinct heads. The head of the House Finch just seems to sneak into the body. And then there are those non-descript lines on the female that also don't add up to much. Just a tough bird all in all. But I'll be back to trying to portray them soon enough. I just wish some more interesting feeder birds would show up as well!

Thanks Phil, Colleen and Ken!

Sorry about creating the bird envy.... Not to make it any worse, but I got around to checking the video I shot yesterday, and it turned out really well - several minutes of the Pileated easily knocking big chips of wood out of the dead tree it was working on. I'm brand new to doing any video - have been a still photography in the past - but when/if I get an edited video that's of sufficient interest up on YouTube, I'll post a link for those interested.

Ken - you'll appreciate this regarding the Pileated. Two years ago on our annual trip back to PA to visit my sister, my wife and I went to Tinicum to do a couple hours of birding and lucked into a guided field trip and tagged along with them. We were near the water and I happened to look up and be the first one to see a Pileated winging its way directly toward the group over the water. I casually said 'Here comes a Pileated...' not thinking it was any big deal, and all the locals in the group looked up, saw it and went nutso. Apparently it's quite rare at Tinicum, in good part due to the immaturity of most of the forest - just not many mature and dead trees for them to work on. Plus, the total size of the forest there might be a little on the small side, as they have big territories.

Don't worry - I've got the sketching bug big time and will be out as often as possible.

John: Regarding sketching with pen ala Mr. Busby--I have used a plain old Bic black ballpoint pen for field sketching for many years now. First got the idea when I read that Robert Bateman does all this sketches that way. The Bics draw smoothly and with different amounts of pressure you can do a surprising amount of shading various values. I also like ink drawings painted with watercolor. Very nice sketches. You are already progressing!

Green Heron Sketches

Hi folks,

This morning the rain that was in the forecast held off for the time being, and so I headed out to an oxbow slough nearby where I knew there were two juvenile Green Herons that have been pretty active near a potential sketching spot. Sure enough, I got there and found them both, though one promptly disappeared into some vegetation. The second one periodically perch-hunted in a relatively close and visible location, and stayed still long enough to get a reasonable start at least. Again I sketched in pen to eliminate the eraser temptation and just 'went for it'. This produced a couple of not-so-great sketches (but just fine in the spirit of learning) and a couple that I felt pretty good about. After sketching for some time, I walked around some nearby fields and woodlots and found a big mixed flock of migrants, which was a nice added bonus. (No, I didn't attempt to sketch the warblers from life quite yet...:-O.)

A wonderful side benefit of the sketching was seeing behavior that I would likely not have seen but for the focus required for drawing. One of the herons caught a good-sized frog while I watched and quite quickly the unlucky frog was down the hatch and the heron's food needs were met for some time.

These sketches are in my 9x9 inch sketchbook.

All critiques and input welcome and appreciated...!

Coming along nicely John. You've done a good job getting some of those typical hunched Green Heron poses. They are fun to draw aren't they?

Glaucous-winged Gull Sketches

Thanks, Ken. I've always liked the wading birds as a family, so it has been fun to sketch them.

I've decided to do at least one sketch from life per day (no doubt I'll have to miss a day or two) to see if the volume of work can to some degree compensate for my very late start in art and bird life drawing. Hopefully I'll have enough good years left to progress decently, though I'm having enough fun as is that I'm not going to be too concerned if I don't get 'there'. Wherever 'there' is on the open-ended scale...!

So today I packed my 14-year-old Yellow Lab into the back of the car, and off we went to a parking lot on Puget Sound that is right off the beach. I figured there would at least be a few gulls around, and there were - not many, but enough to provide some subjects. None were close enough to avoid the 'look through the binocs, sketch a few lines, look through the binocs again, sketch a few lines...' routine, but it worked out ok. They are reasonably cooperative subjects.

Our gulls in this area are mostly what some colloquially call 'Puget Sound Gulls'. The reason for the non-standard nomenclature is that we are in a major hybridization zone between Glaucous-winged and Western Gulls. Some ornithologists argue that in our area there are very few pure examples of either one, though I still think that there are a lot of Glaucous-winged's out there. They are kind of boring gulls in that the mantle color is fairly light, and the primary tips don't contrast with the mantle (theoretically, in a pure GWGU). Westerns have relatively darker primary tips, so a bird where the primaries are slightly darker than the mantle is usually judged a hybrid.

Anyway, here are the two pages I did in pen today in my roughly A3 sketchbook (14 x 11"). The very quick (and poor) heron sketches were of a bird that showed up briefly as I was packing up to leave.

Looks good John. It looks like you're starting to get a bit of individual character in them.

As you say it's good to remember that you don't have to get 'there', wherever 'there' is. I was really frustrated when I started. Things seem to fail in so many ways. But over time I found the medium that was best for me, the paper, a scope, etc. Finally it just got to be fun and I could stop worrying about doing something horrible. They may still be horrible but now I just don't worry about that!!

Northern Flicker Sketches

Thanks for the encouragement, Ken, although I think any personality I'm giving them at this point might be a warped personality - :-O.

Today's life sketching was Northern Flickers - one of the birds we have in the yard every day (thanks to two suet feeders). I was going to wait to start sketching them until winter sets in, but the weather was pretty soggy today to go anywhere else, and there they were. So...a' sketching we went.

These are Pigma Micron black ink in my 14x11" sketchbook. I feel ok about a couple of them, for where I am on the learning curve. Plus, I'm pretty familiar with these guys. We have had as many as 8 in the yard at once, probably a family group, as those types of numbers usually happen in the summer.

Any critiques and advice are much appreciated...!

John: Pretty good looking flicker sketches. You have captured all the various poses right on. I recognize all of them! I notice you are making many small sketches. I always did that too until I realized I wasn't coming back from the field with any larger drawings I could add watercolor to and maybe make a painting of. Try slipping in a few larger drawings, maybe 3/4 to full size, once in a while.

Good advice, Sid. I will definitely do that!

Swainson's Thrush - from an expired specimen

I went out to a nearby natural area this morning looking for birds, and specifically for birds to sketch. Then I found a young Swainson's Thrush that appeared to have flown into a wire fence, and was in the process of expiring when I found it. So, taking the advice of Tim and others here, the bird went home with me and I set up (in the kitchen) to start sketching and painting. The spouse came home (she is also a birder) and I wasn't sure about her reaction, but all she said was to make sure it was frozen after I was done for delivery to a natural history museum for a skin. Of course, this bird was not, uh, odiferous...which probably would make a big difference.

The first view I started in graphite lightly and then did watercolor. I overworked the watercolor pretty badly, although part of the issue is that the sketchbook paper, while set up for wet media, isn't as robust as my normal Arches paper. Still, it was another first - a painting in one sitting from an expired bird. The second view was done in graphite. The sketchbook is 9 x 9" so the pieces are both just about life size for the bird in question.

Advice, suggestions and critiques always welcome!

you've really caught the bug now...and that last study is so strong! you're moving along quickly...

Very nice John. I especially like the graphite one. I found that once I started using scope and could see birds in greater detail that my sketches improved. Maybe you'll find that being able to draw one right in front of you like this also pushes you forward.

Should be just about time for Swainson's to start moving through here on their fall migration.

This is now Ornithology. You are beginning to record that which will benefit others.

And the art is fine, and I like it.

A few annotations, as to observed details on the little corpse, would "flesh" it out more.

I am sorry it ended. But we are benefitting , through you, for its demise!

Hi John,
Just been looking over your recent posts. Some very encouraging efforts here. It's good to see you tackling difficult subjects so early in your artistic days. Keep these and compare 'em in 12 months time to see how you've developed. Oh to be young and impressionable to the masters of BF!

Russ

Thanks Colleen, Ken, Phil and Russ! I really appreciate the feedback. I must admit I got a good chuckle out of Russ's comment though - I like to think I'm young, and I try really hard to act young but the calendar says I'm 60 years old, a bit closer to 61 than 60 actually. I try to tell myself that I'm very young as far as art goes...:-O!!

We don't have kids, so it's easier to be in denial about our real age, and that led to a funny situation at college last year. I took credit art classes for three quarters at a local college and while there were a couple of 'non-traditional' students like me, most of my fellow students were late teens or 20-somethings. I had the same classes with a few of them for each of the three quarters and I fit in well, joked with them, etc. - just another student, right? So on the last day of class the last quarter, one of the young gals asked me what courses I was going to be taking in the summer quarter. I replied that because I play in a band and had vacations scheduled, I was not going to be taking classes, and then said that I was sad because I wouldn't get to be in class with them again. To which the young gal said, 'Oh, John, that's so sweet! We'll miss you too. You're kind of like the class grandfather!' :C:eek!:

I broke out into a belly laugh and said, 'Can I at least get a promotion to just being the class FATHER rather than GRANDFATHER?!' They all laughed, and the gal who said it tried her best to backpedal, much to my amusement - after all, chronologically, she was pretty much right on! :-C

I figure since I've made art my 'career' now that I'm retired, I'll hopefully be able to progress at least a bit with continued effort.

Anyway, as further motivation, I ordered and just received Lars Jonsson's two bird art books - which pretty much blew the last two nights as far as anything but flipping through them in total awe. I have an Eric Ennion book that should be here Monday, and will be ordering Tim's of course the minute it's available through Amazon.

I've definitely caught the bug...!

Youv'e nearly caught me up John. Lovely strong work. Keep it coming

Hi John,
What can I say! Lets call you 61 years young then! Honestly, I thought I'd got the 'vibes' you were much younger. It looks like I've mistaken you for someone else! Anyway, this is even more encouraging to me - to see 'seniors' setting out and improving at their chosen pastimes.

Keep at it, sir.

You're bang on about Lars: awesome.

Russ