[mark richards]

I love it!!! like the tones on the front of these ..mark

[Jackie Garner]

Thanks everyone. BirdForum members say such nice things.

[RussB]

I'll add something to that. Those swallows are masterful. So looking forward to checking your stand out at the Birdfair.

Russ

ps - if i'm not behind the Wildwings stand I'll be in the art marquee.

[Woody]

Super smooth swallows, great job on capturing that beautiful sheen they have.

Mike

[Jackie Garner]

Since we've been mentioning books on some of these threads recently, I hope you'll permit me to give a plug to another upcoming one. It's Katrina Van Grouw (better known by her maiden name of Katrina Cook) and is called The Unfeathered Bird. Katrina is a graduate of the Royal College of Art, where her thesis was about bird anatomy for artists. Her new book continues that theme and is devoted to masterful drawings of bird skeletons. In many cases the birds are placed in natural poses - feeding, diving, in flight - so they retain a liveliness that makes you feel as if you're looking beneath the feathers at a live bird. It's unlike any other book I'm aware of, and I'm sure it will be of great use to bird artists everywhere.
I've asked Katrina to send an image or two that I can post here to give BF viewers a sneak preview. The book is part of the Langford Press series, and publication date is planned for 2011.

[timwootton]

Good shout Jackie - Katrina's new publication is eagerly awaited. Any images she can spare would be greatly received here.

[colleenc]

fantastic....keep us all posted on both sides of the pond

[timwootton]

Colleen - Katrina's work continues to develop, but here are a few images from her recent history;
http://www.thelandgallery.com/artist...ts/cook_k.html
http://www.surfbirds.com/Sketchbook/cook-1108.html
. . . quality!

[Keith Glasgow]

Beautiful work on these pages - especially the Blackcaps - wonderful!

thanks,
Keith.

[Jackie Garner]

Originally Posted by Keith Glasgow

Beautiful work on these pages - especially the Blackcaps - wonderful!

Thank you, Keith. You're very kind.

[Jackie Garner]

Here's more about Katrina's book - in her own words...

After hours: Katrina and Hein and ‘The Unfeathered Bird’.

Six o’ clock on a Tuesday evening; and newly-married Katrina van Grouw is returning from work. Husband Hein is in the kitchen, bent over the sink, while a pan bubbles away on the stove behind him. Domestic bliss! “Mmm. Oystercatcher.” Katrina smiles as she peers into the pan. Hein puts down the partially cooked magpie he’s picking at, and kisses his wife. Katrina takes a skull from the dining room cupboard and retires upstairs to draw it.

“What an interesting job you two have” said a dinner guest in well-disguised alarm. We diligently explained that although our job also happens to be with dead birds, as bird curators at the Natural History Museum’s collections at Tring, this is in fact an entirely unconnected venture for a completely different purpose. “Katrina’s an artist”, pointed out Hein, as though that rationalised any strange behaviour. “And I’m just helping her.”

Being an artist is actually my profession. It’s the museum that’s the ‘day job’, and I’ve been self-employed, as an artist, since graduating in Natural History Illustration from The Royal College of Art nearly 20 years ago. College years were spent on endless bird dissection: skinning, mounting specimens, cleaning and articulating skeletons. And drawing; always drawing. There were several pet projects: For example, there was a certain Mallard that I found dead on the beach, and I spent several months lovingly stripping her down layer by layer, drawing every step of the way in just the same way as Stubbs did his horses, then cleaning and re-assembling the bones. If you’re going to spend several months with a dead duck, it’s got to have a name, so I christened her Amy. Amy is now quite famous, by duck standards. After Amy came a pelican that I prepared during an expedition to Senegal then imported back to the UK.

It was about that time that I decided that I wanted to produce a book of anatomical drawings for bird artists. That ambition has stayed with me ever since then, through countless letters of rejection: from art publishers who said that my proposal was too birdy, and bird publishers who said my proposal was too arty. Only recently, 20 years on, a free-thinking bird-art publisher, Ian Langford of Langford Press, saw my drawings and said “I want you to do a book about that”!

I didn’t marry taxidermist and ornithologist Hein van Grouw so that he’d prepare skeletons for my book. Or use his extensive contacts in the European avicultural world to obtain specimens for me. But it certainly helped. As soon as we were back from our honeymoon the boiling began. Pans of stuff you wouldn’t want to look at too closely began to appear on the stove and boxes and more boxes of bones appeared in various stages of cleaning, bleaching and articulation. Gradually the bones began to turn into birds: strutting rooks, displaying lapwings and a fantastic array of pigeon varieties of seemingly impossible proportions.

The book now has a title, ‘The Unfeathered Bird’, and the drawings are piling up nicely. It’s expected to be on the shelves by August next year. It won’t make me rich, and it’s mostly a labour of love. But it’ll be worth every moment to see my dream finally come true. No two days are the same in the life of a natural history curator, but after the day’s work is finished at the museum is where the fun really begins.

[timwootton]

Splendid!

[nickderry]

[quote=Jackie Garner;1880972]


I didn’t marry taxidermist and ornithologist Hein van Grouw so that he’d prepare skeletons for my book. QUOTE]

and they say romance is dead!

[ed keeble]

what fun- always striking to see how front-heavy birds look when they lose the tail and undertail feather masses which to the human eye give them their balance

[colleenc]

Oh what a book it will be! will save my pennies starting now, hope it's not too expensive

Thanks Jackie for sharing it, tell her she has support

[Jackie Garner]

Only a week to go until BirdFair. Last time I posted about it some of you said you wouldn't be able to go.... but you can still see it courtesy of BirdFair TV (see link below). BirdFair have teamed up with Digital Spring to broadcast all the action, including interviews, exhibits and events. My stand and my Spotlight session will both be filmed, so if you've ever wanted to see me create a penguin painting now's your chance! Looking forward to it.

http://www.birdfair.tv/about/

Still working on a golden plover painting. Hope to post it on here soon.

[Woody]

Thanks for the link there, it's probably the only way I'll be able to get to the birdfair!

Good luck with the show.

Mike

[solitaryVSong]

Just noticed this post on you on 10000birds this morning and thought everyone might be interested.

[colleenc]

thanks Ken! doesn't she have the art studio to die for!

[phil baber]

How did it go Jackie?

[solitaryVSong]

Originally Posted by colleenc

thanks Ken! doesn't she have the art studio to die for!

That indeed!

[Matteo Grilli]

Hi Jakie, since I am fond of feathers I love yours!
I like collecting and painting feathers too...
great works all around as well

[Jackie Garner]

Originally Posted by Matteo Grilli

Hi Jakie, since I am fond of feathers I love yours!
I like collecting and painting feathers too...
great works all around as well

Thanks for your kind words. I'm glad you like my work.

[Jackie Garner]

Originally Posted by solitaryVSong

Just noticed this post on you on 10000birds this morning and thought everyone might be interested.

Thanks for posting. Really great feature from Charlie Moores. Wish everyone would write about me like that!

[Jackie Garner]

Originally Posted by phil baber

How did it go Jackie?

Phew! I'm still so tired after a hectic, but really good, BirdFair. Had a fantastic time meeting friends from BF, Twitter and Facebook. Great to put names and faces together. Filming for BirdFair TV went well and I can say I enjoyed the Spotlight demonstration now that it's over! Had a double rather than single stand this year and was really pleased with the way it looked. Sales: ok - better than last year, and better than I feared but not as good as I'd like. Everyone was in the same situation; people are buying fewer luxury items in the present economic climate. Much better awareness of my work, and quite a few opportunities to follow up. Loved painting the mural as usual. Lots more details on my blog posts yesterday and today. My exhibitor video is now on BirdFair TV and I'm on the Day 3 Round up video too. The Spotlight video will go live later in the week.