Join Me! Bird Attitudes: Inspiring Art and Conservation

Join me,  Wednesday, March 7th, at the Knoxville Tennesseee Ornithological Society meeting (KTOS) for an evening of photos, art and stories as I show you how birds inspire my art and my passion for conservation.

Birds are funny, fun and fascinating.  From the top of their heads to the pads on their feet, a birds size, color and shape offer many clues into its life style and habits.   Add to that, the personality revealed through behavior and you have the inspiration for all kinds of bird-related pursuits, including advocacy and conservation.

Join me as I share my photography, art and stories, and show you just what inspires me to pick up my brushes and paint.

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and Sea Turtles

It has been such a joy to watch the hummingbirds that have come to my feeders this summer.  Those that live in northern breeding territories in Canada and the northern USA began their migration journey's in July, progressing southward approximately 18 miles per day.  In the southeastern USA where I live, in Tennessee, our birds have begun migration as well, the males departing earliest, leaving females with late fledglings and vigilant juveniles guarding nectar sources.  

All this activity has been an incredible thing to watch.  The more time I spend sitting near the feeders, the more I understand the necessity of all that chirping and diving and chasing that takes place.  In a few hours of observation, I may see a male define his territory with an incredible high-speed dive, a tentative fledgling at the feeder with his 'baby' gape still apparent, and two juveniles sparing in spiraling flight so ferociously that they both land on the ground.  The juxtaposition of so many aspects of their lives unfolding in front of me gives me deep pause.

And while I sketch these juveniles, internalizing every feather, the shape of their beaks, the position of their wings, their expression, I feel more and more connected to them, more and more hopeful that they will each survive their migration journey.  My art inspires my love for what I'm painting, just as surely as the nature I encounter inspires my art.

I experimented with salt in this painting, sprinkling a little too much, in my opinion, in a couple of places to suggest the sparkling of light in the trees.  While I waited for the paint to dry, I sketched a loggerhead sea turtle.  This was my first sketch of a turtle of any kind.  And as my pencil gave it shape, I fell in love with it all over again, bringing it even deeper into my heart, if that's possible.

Standing on a dark beach in the light of a full moon with the sound of the surf breaking while watching a sea turtle lay her eggs was quite enough to fortify my love for these giant marvels forever.  And while I'm sketching, I internalize what I know about them even more, see more deeply, and feel more deeply.  Painting is a meditation of sorts, and during that meditation I am one with this turtle, enjoying her beauty, the shape of her head, the sheer size of her body, those deep ancient eyes.  Every aspect of what I see and feel about her moves through me and forms the image I create on paper.

And when I paint hummingbirds, I'm one with their high-speed world, filled with a fledgling's uncertainty and mindful of the power and speed of that mature male.  I marvel at what they show me and how nature has put it all together.  Art and nature, nature and art.  They make my world a richer place.

Sketching a Limpkin in Water

More time please!  A thousand images to paint and so little time.  I could go out in nature every day for the rest of my life and never get enough of it.  And then there's the time needed for painting.  I have enough inspiration right now to keep me busy for months.  

I began this sketch by applying liquid resist to save the reeds and edges of the bird while I added a wash of blue.      

The wash ended up lighter than I wanted, reminding me to make a bigger, juicier puddle of paint next time.  On the other hand, smooth water reflects light and light areas are part of what we see when we look out on water.  When the paint dried, I removed the resist.

Below, I added color to the face and bill. 

When I stepped back from the sketch, I didn't like the brown I had mixed, too dark.  So I dried the paint thoroughly and using a scrub brush, lightened the brown areas.  I then changed the paint mix to a lighter shade of brown, a slightly different mixture of Cobalt blue and Burnt Sienna, with a touch of Van Dyke Brown.

At this point, I shifted focus and spent sometime creating the shading around the larger body feathers.  I applied paint first, then softening the edges.  It's one of those details I enjoy.  It was while working on this less stressful area (meaning I've practiced it more), that I noticed the shadow.  I had completely lost the slender shadow of the head and neck.  Checking to be sure the paint was completely dry before starting, I scrubbed out the right side of the shadow (above).  

Above you see my two most used scrubbers.  The one on the left is about 3/8 in wide and soft, for light scrubbing in larger areas.  The one on the right is made of stiff bristles and works well for tight areas.  The word scrub is a misnomer, really, because the idea is not to scrub the paper, but to lift off the paint.  You want to preserve the paper's surface as much as possible while removing pigment.  The operative word is "lift".  Apply clean water with the scrubber, brush a few strokes with a lifting motion, then blot with tissue or paper towel.  The brush stroke loosens the paint; the blotting lifts it off the paper.    

I added detail to the reeds, corrected the body shadow shape (see top image), and added detail to the rest of the feathers.  To finish, I brightened white areas on the plumage by adding some white gouache.

9 x 12 watercolor on Arches 140# paper.

A Florida Scrub Jay and the Illusive Nature of Confidence

Sometimes I wonder where my confidence goes.  It's as though it has a mind of its own.  One minute its around to help me move forward, in the next it has vanished and can't be found. Instead I hear a doubting voice.

Natalie Goldberg, author and writing teacher, calls this thinking "monkey mind", a mindless chatter with endless ways of thwarting our efforts.  For me, it is likely to show up when I'm trying something new, when I'm tired, feeling pressured, or when I set out to do something that I haven't practiced for a while.

Fear is the culprit, of course.  And the dialog goes something like, "whatever possessed you to think you could do this?"   It's a critical voice, a fearful voice, and it ultimately warns, don't take this risk, stay in safe territory.  It's also the anxiety that builds while you're still in the void, while you're facing the blank paper.   The inspiration to create requires that you step outside your comfort zone, that you put yourself out there and move forward despite uncertainty.

Confidence requires action.  When I begin a painting, I have some idea of what I want to see happen, but it is not until I start the journey that I can see the path more clearly.  Each decision forms the basis for the next, until the painting begins to reveal itself.  Sometime during the process, anxiety fades, time disappears and I notice that I'm smiling.  

It's one of the delights of watercolor, a medium that is fresh, alive, full of movement and surprises.  I have some control, some idea of what to do, but I won't know the whole of it until the painting is finished.  A bit like life, isn't it?  And despite the anxiety generated, mystery is key to the dance.  When the music starts, when the watercolor moves, you soon forget those nagging doubts and just dance.

As I worked on this painting, I had some concern that my values were going to be too similar throughout and that I might not be able to remedy this.  So I turned my focus to my subject, painting in the detail so I could see the relative lights and darks more clearly.  Two things happened.  Foremost, I fell in love with the bird again and that gave my confidence a boost.  Secondly, once the color values in the bird were established, the foliage values began to fall into place.      

9 x 12" Watercolor on 140# Arches cold press paper