Purple Martins--Painting the Iridescent Sheen in Black

Purple martins are full of personality.  I can't tell you how many times I found myself giggling as I watched these birds interact.   The more you get to know a bird through observation, the more invested you become in creating a good likeness of all that you've witnessed.

Besides the busy social interaction and high speed flight of these birds presenting challenges to an observing artist, the male purple martin is essentially black, making color another fun challenge.  The translucence of watercolor and the iridescence found in many bird feathers are a perfect compliment.  Purple martins are described in Peterson's field guide as blue-black.  Their feathers often flash iridescent blue in the sun's light.  Even when a bird is black, the reflection of color in light gives the artist many options for capturing the subject.

Glazing and under-painting are one way to do this and the methods I chose for this painting.  The translucence of many watercolor pigments allow a color painted underneath to glow through.  Above you see my experiments using Winsor Newton Permanent Rose, WN Quinacridone Gold, and a combination of the two to see how they appear through blue glazes--WN French Ultramarine, WN Cerulean and Daniel Smith Carbazole Violet.  I selected French ultramarine (at the top of the page) because of its brilliance and clarity.

What I'm going for is not only the blue in the bird but the reflection of early morning color and softness as light reflects off the feathers.  Above and below, you see how the under-painting, appears initially.  Color is then added by glazing, applying a thin later of paint that allows the color underneath to come through.  Each layer of paint is then allowed to dry before applying the next layer.  

Now that I've shown you how I approached the bird's color, in the next post, I'll show you the finished painting and take you back to the beginning:  creating the initial wash and background.  

To see earlier posts on this purple martin painting project, visit: purple martins.  The most recent post will be first.

More Purple Martin Studies

Watching martins fly in and out of their colony, listening to their continuous vocals and becoming familiar with their social interactions were all part of the fun of getting to know this species.  It wasn't that I had never seen a martin before, but that I knew little about them and had never had the opportunity to observe them in detail.

I also had a challenge, a request to paint a martin flying into the colony with a dragonfly in its mouth.  I  immediately wondered--how am I going to do that?  Fast flying birds are not easy to photograph nor capture in a sketch, and capturing one with an insect in its mouth seemed unlikely.

Persistence paid off.  I paid the colony a number of visits, captured more than I ever expected to with both my camera and my mind, and actually did capture a photo of a female martin flying in with a huge dragonfly.  It wasn't that I needed to photograph the image I would create, but that I wanted to study the wing shapes and movements, and get a good feel for the martin's overall personality.  These details and a real sense of the characteristics of the bird give me inspiration and add life to what I'm painting.

The Studies Before the Painting--Purple Martins

Introduce me to a new bird that nests high above my head, whose primary behavior is feeding in flight, and ask me to paint this bird, and I've been handed a challenge. Purple Martins.

Fun birds!  Below you see my initial scribbles as I watched the birds fly and perch during the nesting phase in April with the help of a friend's binoculars.  I took lots of photos on that first visit, but capturing an image with useful information was a real challenge with these birds.  Their nesting gourds are high over your head, anywhere from 10-20 feet and their flight patterns are high speed bursts--all part of getting to know the bird.  

Purple martins are very busy birds, social and highly vocal, with lots of interaction among pairs as they nest in close proximity.  In fact, all the activity looks like chaos initially, like they can't make up their minds where home is or who is their mate.   And that is part of what is going on as they return to their breeding areas, the selection of mates and nesting sites within the colony.  Watching all that confusion (largely mine) just made me want to get a book about purple martins and research them on the web to help me understand everything I was seeing.  This is the real joy of painting nature, getting to know the species, being out with the birds, watching, listening, learning about their habits and behavior.

Purple martins are aerial insectivores, the largest member of the swallow family in North America, and spend their non-breeding season in Brazil.  East of the Rocky Mountains, martins are totally dependent on human-supplied nesting cavities, the familiar multi-compartment houses and rows of gourd-shaped nest boxes positioned high on a pole.  It was my good fortune to meet a purple martin landlord in my area and visit his colony of martins on a number of occasions during the nesting season to photograph, sketch and enjoy them while observing.  I even resorted to climbing onto the roof of my vehicle to get a better look at their activities!

And somehow, all of this will become a painting, several paintings--my opportunity to re-enjoy all that I love about these birds with watercolor and paper.  

Don't Throw Out the Kindergarten Efforts

Kindergarten steps.  That's how it feels when you're trying something new.  But every time we step out of our comfort zone while sketching and painting, we learn. 

I tried sketching this red day lily I found in the yard using watercolor, without drawing it first.  I had in mind creating something loose and impressionistic.  The problem was the breeze.  A light wind is wonderful to keep insects away and for cooling comfort on a hot day.  But, the down side, it dries the palette rapidly.  

Always, always, I forget something when I sketch outside.  And this time it was the spray bottle.  Dropping water from the brush was too slow.  It was drying faster than I could drop it.  Trickling water from the water cup ended in a flood that had to be poured off--a comedy of errors good for exercising the sense of humor.

Add to that, too much water on the page, not enough water in my brush, and on and on it went.  Then the breeze died down.  Helpful?  Not on your life!  Something mean started biting.  I never looked up to see what it was, so intent by that time, to get this day lily on the page!  

  

When I looked at the sketch I completed while out doors (image above), I felt an "ugh" sensation in my stomach.  Primitive, tight.  I'd lost the lily petal shapes.  But then I remembered some helpful guidance I received over years of working with watercolor instructor, Ann Lindsay. Whenever we showed our work in class, she would coach, "show us something you enjoyed, that you particularly like about your work, and if there's something you don't like and want to see happen differently next time, tell us about that, too."

 

So I scanned my sketch again.  My eyes went to the bud, its shape and color, and it's loose leaves.  Not bad, really, for no drawing in advance.  I already knew my chief dislike, the shape of the petals.  So I pulled out my pencil and outlined the petal shapes and edges.  This came easily with a pencil.  Once I had done that, the whole sketch began to feel different to me. 

When I came inside, I lifted off paint, re-shaping the petals.  And drew in the long, droopy day lily leaves on the left page's blob of color, defining them with negative painting.  As I used my pencil to guide these changes and additions, I once again remembered how much I love to draw.  Ah, I thought.  Next time I'll sketch with my pencil first, and enjoy drawing even more!

This is a wise exercise--asking yourself to be specific about what you like and don't like about your painting or sketch.  It helps keep you from throwing out the whole effort and walking away unnecessarily discouraged. New experiences are worth the effort, even when the results feel like kindergarten.  It's not the finished results that matter the most, but what new information you add to your painting library--information about who you are, what you like, and what makes sketching and painting fun for you.

A postscript note to self:  Reorganize outdoor sketch bag with its own spray bottle and insect repellent!

The Richness of Watercolor--It's Interaction

11 x 14 watercolor, Monarch on White Crownbeard.

Watercolor is rich in it's versatility, in the many different ways you can approach a subject while attempting to capture the interplay of color and light. I suppose that is true with any medium, but watercolor moves as you paint and that quality gives it a richness and a freshness that is always full of surprises. I think it is this interaction, between the pigment and water, that always stirs in me the desire to explore it more. Each time I paint and see the results, I want to try again, see what other ways I can find to express what I'm seeing and feeling.

I painted this monarch primarily from a sketch in my sketchbook. While painting, I relied chiefly on the sketch rather than reference photos or having the subject in front of me. It is a different experience, a freeing experience. Sketches always feel lighter to me, free from the tension that painting a "real" painting sometimes causes.  It is wonderful practice and a wonderful way to keep your painting fresh.  There is a looseness in sketching that comes from the fact that you know it's practice, there's no pressure.  You're uptight left brain goes to sleep, after all, you can easily start over again.  And there is a practical limit to the amount of detail you can capture or even want in a sketch.  In fact, the lack of detail is the magic of a sketch.

Having said that, I love detail.  It is part of my fascination with nature and is one of the reasons I enjoy studying my subjects with my camera.  The camera brings the subject closer, allowing me to slow down the activity so I can learn more about what's happening.  And what I discover never fails to delight me.  But a painting is more than just a rendition of the subject in its environment.  A painting is also an interaction.  

This interaction is one of the most intriguing and challenging aspects of watercolor. There are the primary interactions that we are all familiar with, between pigment and water, paint and brush, and of course, between the visual reality and what the artist sees and feels. But there is also the important interaction the viewer has while viewing the art. When the viewer sees the final work, we, as artists, hope they will be inspired.

For me, the delight and inspiration of watercolor is stirred by that mysterious quality in its movement.  Using a photograph for reference, as I often do, can sometimes suck me into detail, which can result in a tight rendition rather than an image that is fluid. This is what I noticed as I worked on this painting.  The sketch freed me to just paint, to focus on what I found to be beautiful about the subject, to stay with the light and airy quality of both the butterfly and the flowers, leaving the details more to the imagination.

It is this stimulation of imagination that is the root of inspiration.  As creative beings, we love feeling this.  And when my painting is finished, it is this inspiration that I want others to feel right along with me.

Clingman's Dome at Sunset

I'm not sure whether I'll remember the beautiful sunset more vividly or the bone-chilling wind.  We reached Clingman's Dome just in time to take in this gorgeous, multi-colored sky as the sun slipped down below the horizon.

Earlier, as we wound our way up the mountain watching for Ruffed Grouse, we also watched the thermostat plummet from 54 degrees F to 34 degrees.  Add to that, the winds at Clingman's Dome overlook parking area were strong enough to lift you off your feet.  That made for a very cold wind chill, somewhere in the 20's.

We were a group of six birders, with the goal of finding Ruffed Grouse and Saw-whet owls in the dusk hours.  The Ruffed Grouse made a wonderful showing.  We encountered four altogether, males with striking rust and white markings.  One flew up to a low branch, showing his flared, rufous tail with solid dark terminal band.

The wind, however, guaranteed we would hear no owls.  Its roar through the trees sounded like crashing waves.  But the effort brought us in view of the night sky--spectacular, crystal clear and jam-packed with brilliant stars.  Every bit of it worth all the shivering.

Creating a quick sketch like the one above just wet my appetite and made me want to practice making sunset skies, mountain ridge shapes, and using my rigger brush to capture the lop-sided fir limbs better. We'll see what time allows.  The sketch is right there in my sketchbook waiting to inspire.  

A Glimpse of a Wintering Visitor--Northern Harrier

Northern Harriers are among my favorite raptors.  They caught my attention many years ago when I lived in a rural area of east Tennessee with plenty of open fields dotting the landscape.  Several Northern Harriers wintered-over in the area and provided me with daily opportunities to observe their behavior.    

In the morning I would often see them as they flew out from their roost at early light.  And in the evening, like clock-work, they would return for one last hunt before dusk.  Harriers roost on the ground in grassy fields, so I suspected that the roost being used was either in our field or one adjacent to the property.

The Northern Harrier pictured above was seen at Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge during a March nature "Walk-about" sponsored by Ijams Nature Center and interpreted by Stephen Lyn Bales on March 19th.  Like a wished-for celebrity, this female Northern Harrier made an appearance and glided gracefully over the grasses in search of prey.

Harriers winter over in Tennessee, arriving in the fall and departing sometime in early April for breeding grounds in the northern states and Canada.  A slim hawk that glides and tilts low over the ground as it hunts, it is one of the few hawks that can hover in place while it hons in on its prey.   Their wings are held in a dihedral position, slightly above horizontal, as they glide.  It is this posture and flight pattern, as well as, its white rump patch,  that make this hawk easy to distinguish from other raptor species.

Below, an earlier encounter with a Northern Harrier at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, WI, in 2009.

Links and References:
my article on Bird Banding at SIWR