A Great New Publication about Hummingbird Gardening

Just in time for the return of our Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, a new publication is available free as a pdf download!   I am excited to have my hummingbird image of a juvenile Ruby-throat nectaring a Cardinal Flower featured on the cover and three more images on the inside pages!

Hummingbird Gardening in Tennessee is published by the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture.  The book is co-authored by Marcia Davis, Master Gardener, member of the Knoxville bird club (Knoxville Chapter of the Tennessee Ornithological Society) and the Bird Life columnist for the Knoxville News Sentinel, and Emily Gonzalez of the UT Extension.

The fifteen page booklet is full of useful information about creating hummingbird habitat in your garden and lists the kinds of flowers and native plants that are particularly attractive to hummingbirds.

The free pdf can be downloaded from this link:  Hummingbird Gardening in Tennessee.

Links and resources:
Hummingbird art
Hummingbird Notes
More about Ruby-throated Hummingbirds
Tennessee's wintering hummingbirds

The Whooping Crane Story in Art and Video

The images from each of the four paintings were transferred to individual banners and together they tell the story of the eastern Whooping Crane re-introduction.  

The banners celebrate the National Zoo's Whooping Crane Exhibit and are featured along the walkway at the entrance and exit of the exhibit.  Above, the images are in story order representing:  1) Hatched with care, 2) Flying South, 3) Returning North, and 4) A New Spring.

"Returning North", watercolor by Vickie Henderson

To see all my posts on the Smithsonian National Zoo project visit:  Whooping Crane art
More about my involvement with the Whooping Crane reintroduction at:  Whooping Crane Migration from my companion blog, Vickie Henderson Art
Whooping Crane art:  Whooping Crane Watercolor Gallery

A New Spring--Hope for the Future of Whooping Cranes

Here is the finished painting, "A New Spring", representing the hope that the eastern reintroduced whooping cranes will pair and reproduce their own young.  (See previous post for progression of painting.)  Once this population is self-sustaining, that is, increasing its numbers by raising chicks in the wild, we will have more assurance that wild Whooping Cranes will be safe from extinction.

The painting has become one of the four images representing the Whooping Crane reintroduction story on the banners decorating the entrance and exit to the Whooping Crane exhibit at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park.

Photo credit:  Courtesy of the Smithsonian National Zoological Park

In my last post I mentioned that the image in this painting was inspired by my observations of Whooping Crane parents caring for their chick during its first six days at the International Crane Foundation in 2005. That was the first time a pair of Whooping Cranes had raised a chick in public view. While I was there, I called my videographer friend, Jeff Huxman, and asked if he knew this was happening!  He came right away and took some video images of the chick.  I thought you would enjoy seeing a little bit of what it was like to enjoy these intimate moments with the Whooping Crane Family.



Next:  The four finished images

To see all my posts on the Smithsonian National Zoo project visit:  Whooping Crane art
More about my involvement with the Whooping Crane reintroduction at:  Whooping Crane Migration from my companion blog, Vickie Henderson Art
More of my Whooping Crane art:  Whooping Crane Watercolor Gallery
Organizations that help Whooping Cranes:
Operation Migration
International Crane Foundation
Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership

Whooping Crane Art Tells the Migration Story

"A New Spring", below, depicts a Whooping Crane parent taking care of its chick. The world's Whooping Crane population reached a low of only 15 birds in 1941 and it took many years to discover the nesting grounds of the original wild population of Whooping Cranes.  The eastern reintroduction of Whooping Cranes is helping to insure the survival of this magnificent species.    

The Eastern Whooping Crane Partnership, made up of Federal, state and private organizations in the United States and Canada, began the project in 2001.  The goal of the reintroduction is to establish a self-sustaining wild migrating population in the eastern United States.

The images above show the progression of this painting, with the first image, showing the masking fluid applied to preserve the white paper, and washes of color that were poured and allowed to dry between pourings to achieve the background colors.

After applying the washes, I drew in more grass.

I always add some detail to my main subjects early in the painting to give my eyes a sense of how the finished colors will look and how the observer's eye will be drawn to the main subject.  In particular, I watch for the contrast in values, patterns of darks and lights.  Do they make the subject stand out?  Do they help the eye move through the painting?

The image above was sketched from a photo I took of a Whooping Crane parent caring for its chick at the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, WI, in 2005.  I was fortunate enough to receive a call on the evening before this Whooping Crane chick hatched.  I drove to Wisconsin and spent the next six days observing the Whooping Crane parents taking care of their first chick.  You can see the images and read this story by clicking this link:  Whooping Crane Family.

Next:  The finished painting

To see all my posts on this Smithsonian National Zoo project visit:  Whooping Crane art
More about my involvement with the Whooping Crane reintroduction at:  Whooping Crane Migration from my companion blog, Vickie Henderson Art
More of my Whooping Crane art:  Whooping Crane Watercolor Gallery
Organizations that help Whooping Cranes:
Operation Migration
International Crane Foundation
Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership

Whooping Crane Art for the Smithsonian National Zoo

Big projects demand a lot of time and everything else is abandoned, I'm afraid.  This is why it has taken me so long to post another blog post!  I am currently working on a book project that is consuming most of my time. I will tell you more about that soon.  In the meantime, I want to show you a project I completed for the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in 2013.  It was such an honor to be invited to create art for this project and work with their team of experts!

The park has a new Whooping Crane exhibit.  The exhibit enables visitors to see one of the most endangered crane species in the world and one that only lives in North America.  The watercolor above is one of four images that depict the story of the Whooping Crane's return to the eastern United States.

Photo:  Courtesy of the Smithsonian National Zoological Park

Costume-reared juvenile Whooping Cranes, imprinted on ultralight aircraft and costumed pilots, learn their migration route by flying behind ultralight aircraft during their first fall migration.  In the spring, they return on their own without human assistance.  In this way, a separate migrating population of Whooping Cranes has been established in the east to help insure that no natural or human-made disaster can cause the loss of this species to the world.  The hope is that the re-introduced Whooping Cranes will raise young and increase the eastern population.

I have not seen the exhibit in person, but, look forward to making that happen sometime this year. In the meantime, I'll show you how I approached the paintings for this project.  

Above you see the layout of the painting in my sketchbook.  White pages are hard to photograph, so I apologize for the poor quality of some of these images.  The dimensions of the final banners called for a full sheet of watercolor paper with its width reduced to correspond with the banner's proportions.  This made for a tall slender painting 30" x 15" which I taped to a backboard.

I decided to pour the backgrounds for these paintings to take advantange of the translucence and uniformity that can be achieved with this method, as well as, the special qualities of layered colors. Pouring required that I cover any areas I wanted to remain white with a masking fluid or resist, a rubbery solution that resists the water and pigment.  Above and below, I have painted mask on the cranes and the ultralight air craft.

Once the resist dried, I prepared three pigment solutions in laundry detergent cups that I had saved for this purpose.  I placed a small amount of pigment in each cup, added the amount of water desired, and mixed with a brush until the pigment was disolved.

When I pour the paint onto wet paper, I am creating a thin layer of color without the aid of a brush.  The tilt of the board and the water move the pigment.  Mostly, the movement happens without touching the paper, though sometimes the aid of a brush is needed to move pigment that has collected around the edge of the masking fluid. Pigment can also be moved by spraying water in the area desired.  Additional water will dilute the pigment and make the value of the color lighter.  

I first wet the paper and wait until the paper surface looses its shine.  Pigment is then poured on the paper and the flow of pigment controlled with the board's tilt.  Both the amount of water added to the pigment and length of time the pigment remains on the paper influence the color's value or how dark or light it becomes. Excess paint is poured off the paper when the desired value is reached, remembering that the paint will dry lighter than it appears when wet.

The pouring above included yellow and rose on wet paper.  The paper is still wet in the image. You can see that the colors flowed vertically in the direction of the board's tilt. When more than one color is applied in the same pouring, the colors blend when they meet to create a third color in some areas. More of the rose hue is visible in the image below.  

In the image above, I used burnt sienna to define the tree tops.  These billowy shapes are sometimes interpreted as clouds.  The ultralights can not navigate above clouds, but the entire migration and recovery effort is a magical story, so if the viewer sees clouds, that's okay too!

In the next pouring I used blue to create an atmospheric haze over the tree tops. Water is sprayed over the paper first and lightly spread with a brush.  The thin blue mixture is then poured over the paper and encouraged to move with the angle of the board to avoid puddling.  I accomplished this while holding the board over the sink to insure that the pigment continues to move.  Excess pigment was caught in a paper towel in the sink.  And yes, with this size painting, this was a bit awkward.  I did wish for a large utility sink!

A closer look at the colors.  You can see some of the variation of greens, blues and purple that have been created by the layered colors.  I let the paper dry completely and removed the mask with an eraser.  

The easiest part for me is adding the detail to the juvenile cranes.  The contrast of the white and black on their wings never fails to pop and brighten all the colors around them.

Links and resources:
More about layering
The Smithsonian National Zoo
To see more of my Whooping Crane art visit these links:  Whooping Cranes in Watercolor, Whooping Crane Activity Book, and Whooping Cranes on gourd art.

Carolina Chickadee in Snowy Holly

I have several nature-related traditions during the winter months that keep color and inspiration in my life. One of these is making home-made bird suet as a treat for my feathered winter friends. 

The second is painting birds in watercolor!  As I was going through my reference photo files recently, I ran across this chickadee that I painted in January of 2009, along with photos of the progression of the painting. It contains some of my favorite elements of a sketch--looseness and and a splash of color among neutrals.

I start my paintings with a sketch, a map of sorts.  The sketch above is loose in some places and more detailed in others.  I like some suggestion and mystery, but I also enjoy the details that define the bird species.  Both of these elements bring the artist's emotion into the work.  Not only does the viewer see a rendition of the subject, they also enjoy a wholistic expression of the artist's experience--the magic of art. Invariably, as the artist focuses deeply on the subject being painted, that emotion comes to life.

Have you ever watched the behavior of Carolina Chickadees near the feeder?  They are tiny, fairly-like creatures, voicing their opinion about everything with "chick-a-dee-dee-dee" calls.  In the winter they travel in mixed flocks with Tufted Titmice and Downy Woodpeckers visiting feeders in a rotating fashion.  All that company encourages lots of vocalizations.

Painting snow presents a fun challenge in watercolor.  The snow is created with the white of the paper giving you plenty of opportunity to paint negative space or the space around the snow as you create the flow of color and light that leads the eye through the painting.

This sketch is primarily made up of neutrals with a splash of color, an arrangement I find particularly appealing for its subtlety.  I used ultramarine blue, vandyke brown and sepia to make variations of gray and brown for my neutrals, and added quinacridone gold to the blue to create the greens and Winsor Deep Red for the berries.  Use of the same base colors, the blue and brown, throughout, unifies the colors in the painting.

Bringing the subject's colors into the sketch early allows you to shape the background colors and areas of dark and light to highlight the main subject effectively.   The branches are shaped by wetting the paper and adding color in the direction of the shape of the limb.  As the paint is drying, more color is added to the shaded areas, giving it its rounded appearance.

While painting, stepping back or away from the painting from time to time helps to bring fresh eyes.  I want the colors and the lights and darks to lead my eyes to the subject and through the painting so the viewer can take in the whole affect.  In this sketch, the darks, primarily the branches, lead the eyes to the chickadee in a v-shaped fashion and beyond to the edge of the paper.  The contrasting berries point to the bird like an arrow, faintly reappearing on the opposite side of the bird (below) to lead the eye off the page.

Carolina Chickadees use an intricate network of tiny muscles to fluff out the more than 2000 feathers on their body in the winter months, creating a warm insulation of air between feathers.  They visit suet and sunflower feeders, giving our yards the lively gift of activity during winter months.

Carolina Chickadee in Snowy Holly was created in watercolor on Canson, Montval Field, All-Media Book, 90 lb Cold Press Watercolor Paper.

Links and resources:

For more on negative painting, you may enjoy:  Creating Fall Leaves and Don't throw out the kindergarden efforts.
Montval Field All Media Book at Dick Blick art supplies.
Carolina Chickadee at Cornell All About Birds.

Fun with Fall Leaves--Creating Layers

True to the nature of autumn, rain and winds have blown many leaves off our trees creating a bed of colorful leaves on the ground.  Painting layers of leaves is a fun way to practice negative painting, glazing with thin layers of color, and softening edges--three skills you will use over and over again while painting. 

Visually, lighter objects in a painting move forward.  Darker objects move backward. This is one of the ways we create depth in a painting. In negative painting we are painting the negative space around the subject. In this case, when we paint the areas around the leaves, we are also creating a darker layer. When we add a leaf to this darker area, the leaf appears to move farther away visually.  

   

To create a painting with layers of leaves, select three primary colors to use in your painting--a red, blue and yellow. You can mix additional colors from these three, such as mixing blue and red, to make purple. I selected Phthalo blue, Aureolin for my yellow, and Permanent Alizarin Crimson for my red. I also used New Gamboge, a rich shade of yellow, and Burnt Sienna to begin the first layer.     

Begin by taping your paper to a backboard on all sides. A one-fourth sheet of watercolor paper (11 x 15") will give you plenty of room to build your leaf layers. The demonstration is on a 9 x 12 inch sheet. I'm using Arches 140# cold press paper. 

Wet your paper with a spray bottle or by brushing clear water across the paper. Pour off excess water by holding your paper vertically and wiping away the drips that collect at the edge of the tape.  When the paper has had time to absorb the water, create a juicy multi-colored wash on the paper with the lightest shades of the colors you've selected.  I chose to use shades of yellow and burnt sienna. Let this first layer dry completely.

Draw or trace a leaf on the dry wash, as above. Create a background for that leaf by painting a thin layer of color around its edges and brushing that color out until the edge disappears (known as soft edges or losing edges).  

To soften the edges, rinse your brush with clear water and brush the damp brush across the edges of the glaze. When this glaze is completely dry, draw another leaf and create a glaze around that leaf, letting it dry completely before adding the next. As you add leaves, draw the leaves so they are partially hidden under the leaf before it. As you work, notice how the water and pigment interact and make adjustments to how much water you use if needed.    

Above, you see a bloom (upper right) created by too much water in relation to pigment. The water moved the pigment beyond the softened edge.  You may find that you get the mix of water and pigment just right sometimes and other times, not. Sometimes you may forget to let the glaze dry. Notice what happens.  Explore and play.

The smoothness of my layers improved with practice.  Below, you can see the progression of the layers and how the painting begins to change with each additional glaze.  

As I worked, I noticed that I liked the way the greens began to cool down the yellows. I also liked seeing the pigment under the glaze shining through.   

Could you see the leaves moving backward as you glazed?  What did you notice about color? I enjoyed watching the greens on the right side of my painting (below) turn to that beautiful shade of blue. Purple mixed from the same blue created a lovely accent.

Below is another one of my explorations on an 11 x 15 inch quarter sheet of Arches 140# cold press paper. 

And here's another one below, created some time ago, with iris blossoms and leaves. 

Links and resources:

Fun with Fall Leaves series

My galleries at Vickie Henderson Art

Why leaves change colors

Winsor Newton watercolors

Winsor Newton watercolor color chart

Arches watercolor paper