The Best Intentions
Gray. Damp. Cold. It’s been a jolt to go from the brilliant warmth of autumn to chill snow-in-the-air November. Still, I was determined to get out and sketch birds today. I filled the bird feeders. Nothing came. I went to the nature center and walked the trails. Few birds appeared. Cold and defeated, I returned home and took consolation in cinnamon buns and coffee. But I couldn’t resist adding this chickadee to the page. I sketched him from an old photo, which made it a bit challenging to get him to sit… Read More
Pulling Light from Dark
I recently went to a demonstration by an artist who specializes in charcoal drawings of figures and drapery. Totally not my interest, truth be told, but the elegance of light on dark paper inspired me to try using toned paper. The results surprised me. I liked the simple, back-to-basic quality of working with just dark (in this case, dark umber) and white to render the Eastern phoebe. Pulling light out of the toned paper felt like such a magical thing. I wanted to see how it would be to bring a mostly… Read More
Coming Full Circle
1969. Forty-five years ago, an enthusiastic young birder named Scott Stoner found and kept watch over a red-winged blackbird nest in a field near his home. When eggs and parent birds disappeared one mid-June day, he took it. Scott mounted the nest to a piece of cardboard, signed his name, dated it, and put it on display in a nature museum in his basement. He was 12 years old. Three weeks ago, I found Scott’s nest. It was still mounted to that piece of now-yellowed cardboard, tucked away in a long-forgotten cabinet… Read More
Nest Demonstration
“What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure…” I love finding bird nests – in spring and summer when birds are actively nesting, in fall and winter when once-hidden nests appear, and in nature centers and museums, where nests are as likely to be on display as they are hidden in cabinets or backroom storage. I recently borrowed several nests from a local nature center to use for a demonstration I was invited to give at the Bethlehem Art Association (Delmar, NY). This is the painting that resulted, but I thought… Read More
Arts and Birding
How do you draw something when it is in constant motion? How do you get the shapes and colors and patterns right when you only get a fleeting look at your subject? That’s the challenge of sketching birds—which requires good field identification skills, some study of bird anatomy, and solid drawing and painting skills. I like to study and sketch specimens and use photographs for reference materials before going into the field. By working out shapes, identifying details, and making notes about a bird’s habits, I’m more prepared to sketch quickly when… Read More
Migration!
Spring songbird migration is in full swing! Over the weekend, a warm front moved in, bringing flocks of warblers to our yard. The birds spent the better part of two days flitting and feasting in our birch tree, and we spent the better part of a morning and evening craning our necks to watch them. We identified six different species—most of which we had never seen in our yard before and may never see here again. (The term “fall out” refers to the phenomenon of a frontal system temporarily stalling bird migration…. Read More
Oology
With so many shapes, sizes, colors, and patterns, bird eggs make for fascinating painting—and study. Here, I experimented with different techniques for eggs, shadows, and patterns, starting at the bottom left and working my way up the page. The hard outer shell of an egg takes almost 20 hours to complete—layers of calcium and color slowly building. Thankfully, it doesn’t take that long to paint an egg, but it is also a slow process of building up layers of watercolor.
Drawn In 