Drawing and Painting Birds E-Book

Tim Wootton

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Birds are much admired, revered and envied. They have featured in art for many thousands of years and our fascination with them continues. They do though pose a challenge to paint and are not always the most cooperative of models. This practical book explains in detail how to go about drawing and painting birds. By understanding their anatomy and recognising their type, the artist can learn a shorthand way to capture movement and attitude. With technique and colour mastered, style develops and a special scene can be captured uniquely forever. In this book, Tim Wootton explains bird types and how identifying specific similarities can help the artist; advises on painting in the field, using photographs and working in the studio; describes how to paint plumage and birds in flight; demonstrates how to compose a painting with emphasis on the birds' habitat; and gives insights into painting birds from 30 leading artists, as well as illustrations of their work, including John Busby, Robert Bateman and Charles Tuncliffe. Beautifully illustrated with 423 colour illustrations.

Leseprobe

First published in 2010 by

The Crowood Press Ltd

Ramsbury, Marlborough

Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2015

© Tim Wootton 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 053 9

Dedication

For Mum.

Acknowledgements

I would like to extend my unbridled gratitude to all the artists who provided such a sumptuous collection of work – indeed enough to fill at least another three volumes – which provided both regular entertainment and distraction from the task of writing as the visual delights teemed through my letterbox and populated my electronic mailbox. Although I would hope the reader finds some worth in the text, I have no doubt it will be the artwork of these wonderful people which will captivate most of all.

New acquaintances were made with personal heroes and old friendships were cemented during the many supportive emails and telephone calls which were a great help during the writing of the book. Mr John Busby offered quiet but sage advice and a gentle nod of approval when presented with my preliminary scrawling; international assistance flooded in from colleagues in America and Europe, and Nick Derry, John Threlfall, Paschalis Dougalis, Andy Ellis and Ed Keeble always made themselves available for comment and to offer moral support. Katrina van Grouw said all the right things at the important times, especially at the outset. Thanks all.

Thanks also to John Huddlestone of the Estate of C.F. Tunnicliffe and Ken Broughton of the C.F. Tunnicliffe Society, Alex Fischer and Kate Carson at Robert Bateman’s office in Canada, Rhian Rowson (Bristol Museum), Jennifer Downes (University of Aberdeen) and Alison Harding (Natural History Museum at Tring).

My heartfelt appreciation and very special thanks to Sally for continually holding the family-fort during the not inconsiderable stresses of living with this fledgling author – she is definitely first in line if there are any medals to be handed out.

And my sincere apologies to anyone I may have inadvertently missed from this list.

CONTENTS

1

WHY PAINT BIRDS?

2

DRAWING TECHNIQUES

3

ANATOMY

4

DRAWING BIRD TYPES

5

ADDING PAINT

6

WHAT AND WHERE TO PAINT

7

ELEMENTS OF COMPOSITION: PLACING BIRDS IN CONTEXT

8

ADVANCED TECHNIQUES

Contributing artists

Further reading

Index

CHAPTER 1

WHY PAINT BIRDS?

The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life … The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds – how many human aspirations are realized in their free, holiday-lives – and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!

John Burroughs

I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.

Emily Dickinson

Of all our fellow inhabitants of planet Earth, birds are among the most admired, revered and envied. Birds have appeared in art for many thousands of years and our fascination with them continues. But what is it that draws us to paint the bird as a subject?

Tim Wootton: Trouble at t’Mill.

There are probably as many individual reasons for wanting to paint birds as there are individuals wishing to do so. They can be elegant and beautiful; they dazzle us with their aerial dexterity and fascinate us with their complex behaviour; and there is much else that appeals to us. My personal obsession with all things bird-related started when I was a very young lad, stumbling upon a grey, slightly pendulous ball – a moss and lichen construction, bound by gossamer and secreted in the spiny tangle of a bramble bush. Doing what boys did back in the dark ages, I squirmed my way through to see what was inside this tiny pouch. It was a long-tailed tit’s nest and inside there happened to be baby long-tailed tits – seemingly dozens of them. I took one out of the nest and just looked at it, totally amazed at something so absolutely tiny and so perfectly finished, albeit tail-less. It had the cutest belligerence and from that moment I’ve been bird-mad.

If I’m ever asked what I was first, an artist or a birdwatcher, I’m really not sure. It has always seemed to be such a natural and obvious process for me to see something whilst out of doors and then to want to make a representation of that thing.

Tim Wootton: long-tailed tit.

Jonathan Pointer: white dove. Pigeons have been kept since medieval times for their eggs and their meat; much selective breeding has been undertaken to produce the fancy domestic types that are around today.

I appreciate that many others will come to drawing and painting birds from a different perspective. You could already be an experienced artist looking to expand your portfolio; perhaps you’re a birdwatcher wishing to increase your enjoyment of your hobby; or maybe you’ve just had one of those moments of revelation, something akin to my childhood experience with a nestful of baby long-tailed tits.

I remember working as a volunteer warden for the RSPB at Loch Garten in the highlands of Scotland. The job of the volunteers was to mount a twenty-four-hour vigil on the osprey’s nest, in case of attack from egg-thieves. But another aspect of the job was to help visitors to the nature reserve locate the ospreys whenever the birds returned from a fishing trip. We had remote cameras overlooking the nest and images were relayed back to the Visitor Centre, which people would watch. But after a few minutes of looking at a TV screen with an osprey just lying there, gasping in the sun or more often hunkered down against the wind and rain, people would get bored and wander around. But whenever a bird came in carrying a fish – well, that was a different story. Some would rush for binoculars and telescopes; others would crowd around the screen and watch the fish being fed to the chicks and almost immediately afterwards there would be a surge towards the RSPB membership recruitment desk. They had caught the birding bug!

John Busby: studies of collared doves. Drawings made from the living bird as it preens and stretches during its afternoon toilet. A passionate and knowledgeable birder, John views the subject from the artist’s perspective, approaching landscapes and writing with the same verve and enthusiasm he brings to his birds. Everything about his drawings is perfectly balanced and beautifully formed.

Barry Van Dusen: Tree Swallows in a Cherry Tree. Familiar birds in the United States, tree swallows are similar to European house martins. House martins live in very close proximity to man, building nests of mud under house eaves, and tree swallows will regularly use nest boxes; they share the same local environments as us.

Alan Dalton: juvenile redwing. A field drawing made in biro with written notes describing various aspects of plumage detail. An exceptionally gifted artist, Alan is in the ‘birder-artist’ camp and is fascinated by bird study as a science.

So whatever your personal motivation to embark upon this path there is no doubt that it will be a real voyage of discovery, not without its tribulations and frustrations but, as with all things meaningful, the pain will blend with the pleasure and with practice and a decent measure of determination, you will succeed. And I don’t think there could be any more worthwhile way of spending time than with nature, and with art.

It is a curious thing, this ‘bird art’: the more you do it, the more it draws you in. It can reveal intoxicating insights, such as the iridescence of a starling’s plumage, or the unexpected aerial brilliance of a house sparrow in pursuit of a small white butterfly, hovering and somersaulting in such a way as to make it seem completely unrelated to that dumpy, chirrupy finch that bounces about around the bread on your garden lawn. (Even that most basic assumption that it’s a sparrow is now repudiated: apparently it’s actually a member of the weaver finch family and not a true ‘sparrow’ at all.) But one thing about trying to draw birds is it makes you look; and the more you look the more you see.

Once captivated by the birds, whichever way it happens, other strange things may start to occur. You’ll find you want to see a bit more, and in greater detail, because when the collared dove stretches its neck back and lifts its tail, what is it actually doing? And what’s really going on when the ducks at the local park stretch one wing out (they seem to do it on one leg)? In fact, you start to watch birds and, in all probability, just about everything else around you too. Soon you may find yourself borrowing a pair of binoculars, which leads to buying a pair (as they allow you to see so much more of the birds’ private lives), and before long your friends and family start calling you a ‘twitcher’. You may not be a twitcher, but you will have become a birdwatcher.

You may start out as someone wishing to make some pretty pictures with birds on them, but the chances are you’ll soon become so engrossed with the daily comings and goings of the creatures around you that some days you won’t even draw them – but just enjoy them. When you are at that stage, when you simply enjoy birds for all that they are, then you can start to connect with the essence of the creatures.

As you’re watching a blackbird hunting a damp lawn for worms, you’ll soon start to anticipate his next move, a staccato stride-hop with head on one side, quick dart forward, slight shuddering struggle (notice the weight transferred through the body to a pulling position) and out comes the worm – down in one – look up, glance around (maybe a quick side-to-side wipe of his bill) and on to the next one. By watching and observing comes the ability to predict the next piece of action and this will hold you in good stead when it comes to making an image of the scene you are witnessing – because you’ll be ready for it.

Although birds are motifs in many genres of art, there is something quite distinctive about the subject of bird art. It encompasses a huge range of interests: the science of ornithology, the hobby of birdwatching, caged-bird keeping, falconry and hunting, and can be found in the finest galleries and collections as well as on calendars, greetings cards and T-shirts.

John Busby: two starlings bathing. A Conté pencil drawing; a real sense of the artist deriving as much pleasure from the event as are the birds.

Szabolcs Kokay: yellowhammer singing. Watercolour study.

Tim Wootton: waxwing in the garden. An acrylic painting made in the studio one winter evening, immediately after watching this bird settling down to roost; the sun had just disappeared from view and was backlighting the scene with a golden winter light.

Tim Wootton: puffins.

Paschalis Dougalis: Steinkauz (little owl).

In fact it could be said that ‘bird art’ straddles two disciplines, and two that aren’t usually seen as comfortable bedfellows: science and art. There is no doubt that bird art has been disparaged throughout the years by art critics who don’t recognize it as a form of self-expression but can only see the pedantic approach to bird representation; whilst on the other hand the subject suffers from attacks by less forgiving sceptics who will readily identify errors in plumage detail or attitude of any piece of bird-related art that doesn’t conform to their exacting scientific measure. Perhaps it’s exactly this apparent dichotomy that makes birds and bird art so engaging. And why some artists are adamant that they will not be pigeon-holed into either art or illustration – if indeed there is a difference.

Certain birds seem to make a deep connection with us; something about the way they are and the way they behave touches us poignantly and, rightly or wrongly, it is difficult not to think that they are just a little bit like us. There are some real avian characters – true ambassadors of their kind. If a public relations company were to try and design a birdy-figurehead with which humanity would connect, it would find it near impossible to come up with anything quite so engaging as a puffin. Described as sea-parrots or clowns, depending on how generous you’re being, they are delightful to look at and certainly strike a chord with us, albeit anthropomorphically. Other personalities of the bird world must include parrots and budgerigars, peacocks perhaps, penguins certainly, owls and falcons, ostriches and wrens – I imagine there isn’t a bird alive that someone doesn’t adore. Magpies get a bad press but I find them incredibly beautiful and fascinating to watch. Every garden will have its regular flying visitors, and every owner of each garden will view the birds as ‘their’ birds, feed them and watch their seasonal movements; and they would certainly notice if the robin didn’t appear for a day or two!

Mike Woodcock: house sparrow. A characterful acrylic portrait delighting in this familiar species.

Birds become such a part of our everyday lives in a way that wild mammals, for the most part, never could. Mammals, by and large, have decided not to get too close to humans – they’ve learned from past history that it’s generally not good for their health. It’s this regular and solicited contact with birds that sets them apart from the rest of the animal kingdom and it must also be one of the main reasons why we would wish to capture their image in whatever way our artistic endeavours would allow us.

But besides birds being familiar and constant companions, they also symbolize the free and wild. If the robin and sparrow represent all that we cherish in our domestic environment, then birds such as eagles, albatrosses and terns must inhabit the other end of our psyche. These are special creatures indeed and it’s very difficult not to become infatuated with them once we have had even the slightest contact with them. These are far removed from the garden blue tits, whose daily comings and goings we witness as part of our own daily routine, watching them collect nest material to stuff into the nesting box we’ve made or bought and nailed to our shed wall; watching ma and pa blue tit out collecting little green caterpillars for hungry youngsters; and finally to watch them emerge from the hole and disappear into the wilderness of the garden shrubbery.

Nick Derry: long-tailed tits at the garden feeder. Watercolour and white gouache on tinted paper.

Barry Van Dusen: Blackpolls in Red Maple. Blackpoll warblers hunting caterpillars in the canopy.

Andrew Ellis: osprey. Acrylics.

Paschalis Dougalis: portrait of a sparrowhawk. This species became virtually extinct in Britain, suffering DDT poisoning as a result of concentration of the chemical in the food chain.

Robert Bateman: cock pheasant crowing.

Learning just a tiny amount about the arctic tern is surely enough to turn anyone on to this superb little bird, which habitually migrates the furthest – some of them over 22,000 miles every year, following the summer sun. Some breed in the Arctic and migrate during the end of summer to enjoy the fish stocks and the long daylight of the Austral summer while the northern hemisphere endures the cold winter months. About the size of a starling, Arctic terns can live up to thirty years and do a 50,000-mile round trip each year.

Eagles have symbolized power and nobility for thousands of years and they are still held in similar regard today. Unfortunately, like all birds of prey, they find themselves in conflict with mankind and his designs on how the world should operate. Poisoning, trapping and shooting have been the bird of prey’s prospect for too long now, and although we are in an age of so-called enlightenment, this dark outlook continues, even in Britain.

And then there are species about which we know very little, such as albatrosses and their kin; what do they do when not on their breeding sites dotted throughout the Southern Oceans? No doubt research and satellite tracking will reveal more to science, but I suspect it will be quite a while before we ever fully get to know them. Add to these birds some so secretive they are never seen in daylight – those that live in caves in dense forests, those inhabiting frozen wastelands, birds on every continent and in almost every place imaginable (including the Moon, if we believe some nineteenth-century works on natural history!).

Here I’ve mentioned just a few species and what they mean to us, but there are almost 9,000 bird species on Earth. A world of birds truly is a rich and wondrous heritage, and it is little wonder that artists turn to them as a Muse, and that birds themselves can turn otherwise normal folk into artists!

Bruce Pearson: studies of albatrosses.

Tim Wootton: After the Rain. An oil painting of arctic terns on a sea-stack in the Orkney Islands. For almost a decade now arctic terns have been all but failing in their attempts to breed in northern Europe. Where I live in Orkney there had been hardly any arctic tern chicks fledged for several years and in 2008 every colony in the Isles had been deserted by the adult birds long before any chicks were raised. All except one, that is. A relatively tiny colony of birds stayed together and between the eighty adults, they managed to raise seventeen youngsters. I spent many summer evenings sitting on the cliff top adjacent to the colony making drawings and paintings of the birds. There was one particular evening of warm sun interspersed with squally showers blowing across from the north west, and afterwards the low liquid sunlight seemed all the warmer and illuminated the scene perfectly. This is the painting that resulted from that moment, titled After the Rain because of the meteorological reference and the philosophical one; perhaps this tiny bastion of chick-rearing birds would herald an upturn in the fortunes of the arctic tern in the islands?

CHAPTER 2

DRAWING TECHNIQUES

That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do; not that the nature of the thing itself is changed, but that our power to do is increased.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Adam Bowley: red-footed falcon sketches.

Debby Kaspari: purple martins (ink).

Developing drawing skills can be a lifelong process for the would-be artist. The basics, however, may be simplified. There are only two types of line – curved and straight – and if one can draw both of these, then there is no reason why any kind of drawing cannot be attempted. As children, we were encouraged to draw and we did so without inhibition. We were able to make representational images with little or no reference other than our imagination, or mind’s eye. If we could make drawings as children, with no reference, why then does it appear to be so very difficult to draw when reference is introduced? With something to look at and relate our drawings to the process ought to be easier – but it seems not to be. When starting out we can easily be distracted by too much visual information, so much so that the brain becomes overloaded and our attempts to convert what we can see into a linear depiction on paper flounder. Learning to draw isn’t so much learning how to make a line on paper. It is more about learning to ‘see’. What is meant by this is how to distil from all the visual information presented a simplified version, one which can be described in two dimensions onto a surface.

Tim Wootton: whooper swans in strong light and a stiff breeze. Biro drawing; the structure of the birds described in simple terms, outline and cross-hatch.

EXERCISE: LEARNING TO ‘SEE’

Birds move. They move a lot and often they move quickly. If one is to attempt to portray birds doing what they do, then it is important to learn how to ‘see’. What I mean by this is how to learn to capture in your mind’s eye the shapes, forms and action of the living creature. As with all skills, this aspect of drawing can be nurtured and developed. The following exercise helps to develop observation and recollection of images.

Set up a few objects as in a still life. Study the shapes in front of you: not just the objects, but the spaces between them and their interrelationships.

Here is the set-up I put together. You can use any combination of objects you wish.

Concentrate for three minutes on the assemblage. Then, without looking back at the set, immediately draw what you can remember. In your mind’s eye, try to picture the scene as it appeared. Continue to draw for as long as you feel you are still adding valid information to the drawing. When you can remember no more from the set, stop working.

Now compare your impression to the set in front of you. There will probably be some elements drawn fairly accurately and others not so. Spatial proportions are most likely to be awry and even the number of objects may be incorrect.

My first drawing after three minutes’ study.

Now spend thirty seconds looking at the set again. Make a drawing from life, referring constantly to the set. Look at the spaces between the objects (the ‘negative shapes’), look for invisible lines that connect different objects together, such as parallel lines, geometric shapes where objects interconnect or objects sitting along the same plane. Spend five to ten minutes really investigating the set using linear drawing only. When you’re happy with your representation – stop!

Four-minute drawing whilst referring to the set.

Next, follow the first exercise you did. Again, study the set for three minutes. Look at all the shapes presented – positive and negative. Try to make visual patterns in your head.

Turn away from the set and make another drawing. Refer to your immediate memory of the objects and try to recall the shapes you drew whilst you were drawing from life. Continue to draw until you feel you’ve finished and cannot add any further information to the piece.

Now compare all three drawings together. The middle drawing will probably be the most accurate (you were referring directly from the objects so it ought to be, really), but note the difference in the amount of information your last drawing contains in relation to the first.

Three-minute drawing from memory.

The constant study and reappraisal of the objects has improved your ability to ‘see’ the shapes with more clarity and precision at each stage. If you were to repeat the process several times, your understanding of the scene would increase at each and every stage.

This principle can be applied to any form of drawing from life and constant practice is a sure key to successful results when drawing birds. The hardest bit is making a start.

We must all be familiar with the traditional ‘two circle’ approach to drawing birds, depicting head and body. Fundamentally, this can be a useful approach to breaking the tension between your pencil and the foreboding expanse of the unmarked page. Usually the two circles are arranged one atop the other; this is where a touch of subtlety is required. Bird species have various shapes of skulls (and bills), which are connected to their bodies by the neck; they also have specific characteristics due to the number of vertebrae and habit of the bird (more of which in the anatomy section).

Birds’ beaks can cause the draughtsman many problems, so it may be helpful to use a shorthand method of representing these features. Simplistic shapes, lines of different lengths and breadths, cones and ovals may be interpreted as beaks and bills. What is more important is the particular angle of the beak, or its relationship to eye position and overall head shape. Body shape, leg length and a suggestion of how the creature moves are what will ultimately determine the character of the subject; something which is called ‘jizz’ (or ‘giss’ – general impression of size and shape) in birdwatching parlance.

Getting the exact facial pattern can be crucial to capturing the character of the bird. Knowledge of the different features of the head can help to get the precise arrangement of lights, darks and colours. The dark fringe to the white cheeks of the blue tit is a helpful pointer in describing the important line delineating the join of the head and the body. The white wingbar also accentuates the curve of the wings as they fold across the back.

Simple ways to depict bill shapes.

Eye shapes and bill angles of a rock pipit.

SIMPLE GEOMETRIC SHAPES

The ability to draw ovals, cones, cylinders and parallelograms is an essential part of the draughtsman’s toolkit. When drawing birds you will notice, with a bit of practice, that these shapes occur regularly. Recognizing where and when straight lines occur can help in ‘catching’ a pose, helping to create dynamism in the drawing. The fundamental lines and shapes will generally be curves and straight lines – not only describing the outlines of the bird, but also following external surface features such as wing edges and breast markings.

So it makes sense to be able to draw a selection of lines and to know a few techniques that can help when it comes to drawing the birds.

Tim Wootton: construction drawings of a blackbird. The outer shape of the bird is drawn using straight and curved lines, and by using spirals, cones and ellipses the drawing can have a sense of ‘roundness’ (that is, the curves of the bird don’t stop at the outline). Look at how the ellipse connecting the head with the body describes both the angle and the shape; there are also imagined lines suggesting the wing and leg bones.

Simplified versions of two of the drawings on the previous page, showing how the outlines could be derived.

WARM-UP EXERCISE AND CONTROL PRACTICE

Constructive scribbling and doodling can be beneficial to good drawing and, besides being useful for practice, are also handy warming-up exercises prior to starting drawing. These simple activities give your hand–eye coordination a nice little workout and also break down the tricky transition movements we all have when drawing. By this I mean we all find drawing a curve much easier when we are ‘inside’ the curve (see above) but when we get to the point that we have to start pulling the pencil down towards us and then pushing away, the curve tends to lose its smoothness. Practising drawing circles helps to iron out this problem.

Practise sketching the circle – making light approximations where you think the circle ought to be; only when you can see the circle, commit to a darker line. This use of light pencil marks is very useful where you are tentative about where the ‘true’ line ought to be and comes in handy when drawing from life.

Circle exercises.

The next exercise is a step on from circle drawing and requires much greater dexterity and helps to develop the way you plan where your pencil is going to go, not just for the immediate line but also many lines ahead. You have to imagine two concentric circles and then use a radiating scribble to join the two together. You ought to be aiming for smooth outer and inner edges and evenly spaced spokes.

Finally, the loop exercise brings together the previous disciplines, combining them into a practical and useful skill that has many applications in all types of drawing. You will be using a push and pull motion along two opposing diagonals, will have to visualize parallel lines and even curves and need to keep the strength of the lines and the overall shape of the finished loop nicely balanced. Practising this will improve your drawing and the way you see shapes on the canvas.