When art and science collide

Sunday morning a sweet little bird flew into one of our windows.

Unfortunately I was not able to revive it but it was such a lovely little bird my first thought was, "Oh, I should use it for drawing in the art classes!"

Isn't that everyone's first thought?

And my husband is obviously very use to my unusual ideas because he didn't even blink an eye when I told him not to bury the bird and put it into a ziplock bag and placed in the the freezer.

The studio freezer, not our freezer. I think my husband might of protested, along with my children, had I placed it in with our food.

I could hardly wait for next week classes to start.

And then I started having this nagging feeling that maybe all the parents would not be as excited as I was about sharing a dead bird for drawing class.

So I sent out an email and was pleasantly surprised that all of them were indeed quite supportive of the idea that their child would have the opportunity to really study a real bird for drawing.

Just like the greats before them!

So when the kids arrived for class, I introduced them to the work of John James Audobon. I told them how he use to sketch the birds in their environment and then shoot them as carefully as he could to bring back to his studio to really study and paint.

This made them sad but after I explain the importance of his work as far as documentation of the avian landscape when the United States was still in it's infancy, they were a little more understanding.

At that point, I told them about the bird I had in the freezer. I figured I would let them lead the way with whether or not I brought the bird out and that no one needed to be embarrassed if it was something that would make them too sad.

EVERYONE wanted to see the bird. My group of 9 and 10 year olds were quite excited, which to tell the truth was the one group I was certain would have the most difficulty and probably decide to do the other project I had on hand.

Not the case.

They did however decide not to pursue drawing the bird after they studied it. And so we worked on a mixed media textile project instead. (wait until you see it!  they are fantastic!)

The teen class however were quite open to studying and drawing the bird.

They had their choice of whatever drawing materials they wanted.

One chose charcoal and the other a mechanical pen.

It wasn't until the end of class that I realized both of them had added a bit of dark humor to their work. Theres a bit of red in both drawings to represent the death of the bird.  And then there are the titles.

I wasn't privy of those until the parents arrived for pick up.

I think they both learned a lot by being able to really look closely at a real bird. And they both took some liberties with their drawings, just like Audobon. 

I'm truly glad we could honor this sweet birds life by immortalizing it's time on earth in art.

It did not die in vain.

our specimen

14 year old, charcoal. "Dead bird on branch"

13 year old, pen with watercolor. "Dead bird on barbed wire"