John James Audubon inspired birds

In the "Studying Under the Masters" art camp, the kids spent one morning working on acrylic paintings inspired by John James Audubon.

He is remembered for his studies of birds and the illustrations he created of them in their natural habitat. His color plated book, The Birds of America, is considered one of the finest on birds ever completed. During his lifetime, he discovered 25 new species of birds in North America.

The kids are always fascinated when I tell them the extent of his studies when illustrating a bird and always enjoy thumbing through the collection of his illustration plates.

I told each child to choose a bird reference of their choice which resulted in the most interesting variety of finished paintings.

kingfisher, 11 year old

Using only the primary colors, along with black, white and raw umber, the kids created their own color palettes and spent a lot of time exploring how to mix color. I gave them time to work on sketching paper to create a composition they were happy with and then gave them some carbon paper to transfer that image onto the acrylic paper.

falcon, 9 year old

They went over that transfer with some charcoal and then began to paint.

songbird, 8 year old

I kept reminding them to pay attention to their brush strokes and pay mind to the many different directions they saw the feathers take on the birds. I also took the time to work with them to discover the shadow and highlights in order to give their paintings dimension.

imaginary bird, 8 year old

I sometimes think kids like to test me to see if I will stand behind what I say, as in the case above. When I presented the project, I told the kids they could paint any bird they wanted. True to form this young boy asked, "anything?" I knew he was up to something by the wry grin he had on his face and when I said, "anything", he said, "even an imaginary bird?" 

Why not. 

Even an imaginary bird.

He was so excited and was eager to get going on his imaginary bird. As far as I'm concerned, a project is only successful if each child had fun and so if creating an imaginary bird made the project engaging and fun, then imaginary bird it should be!

swans, 7 year old

starling, 7 year old

I strongly encouraged the kids to mix their colors on the paper, such as the greens in the grass and the grey background above. For me, this helps add more interest since they get a variance of color and helps the painting from looking flat. Can you believe 7 year olds created the two above works?! 

robin, 10 year old

I'm always harping the motto, "your artwork needs to please only you". I say this almost as much as I say, "there are no mistakes in art, only opportunity". I tell the kids to always please themselves because art is so subjective that it is impossible to please everyone else. If you are happy, then you don't need to worry about the others opinions.

Well the Robin above really made me "walk the talk" on that motto. When the artist finished his bird, it was lovely. To be truthful, I thought it was perfect. But it was obvious the artist did not. It was written all over his face every time he looked at it. He grimaced anytime I held it up and no convincing on my part would change that reaction. And so I asked him, what was it that bothered him so much? He showed me this small place on the blue in the birds neck that he had not matched the color exactly, this is what kept the painting from being great to him. As we were at the very end of the week and out of time to go back and work on it, I asked him if it would be OK if I matched the blue and covered this tiny spot for him. He agreed and when this spot, and it was a spot, matched the rest of the neck, he was happy. Who cares if everyone else had been happy, what was most important was that he was happy. 

I was pretty certain the bird, along with his little brothers' swan, would be probably hanging up in their home. (I know I would be hanging them up in my home) And the thought that he would grimace every time he walked by that painting just would not do, so I'm glad together we were able to change that reaction.

night loon, 10 year old

Pretty amazing stuff, yes? As I walked around the room observing the kids while they painted, I was so impressed with them. I mean how great did the above artist capture night? I love the variety of birds created, the way the artists implemented them into an environment, and their general interpretations of creating their subjects. 

I think Audubon would be proud.

Audubon inspired birds

We are finished with all things pumpkin and skeletons in the studio. (except for the 10 year old birthday party this coming weekend on Sugar Skulls!)

But for the rest of the students we are moving on from Halloween inspired artwork.

That does not mean I am still not secretly focusing on the wonders of line.

Most of the classes are working on bird pieces of one kind or another since feathers are a great opportunity to explore different line qualities and interpretations. I started by showing the kids a small book I have of John James Audubon's entire collection of works. I shared with them how he went about recording the birds and the importance of his work then, as it gave people a chance to see birds they otherwise would of never seen, and historically, as we now have visual recordings of birds that are now extinct. (Dodo bird, I talking about you)

What I didn't expect was for the conversation to take a sharp left turn when I mentioned the after studying the birds in the wild, Audubon would then kill one, stuff it and take it back to the studio to put into different positions to do more detail artwork.....which led to a lot of questions as to why they would have to shoot the birds, which lead to a discussion on photography in this time period, which somehow led to the dead bird I have in the studio freezer to use for reference. 

And no, I would not be bringing it out since I did not have each child's parent consent to do so and some, like myself when young, might find it upsetting to see a dead bird even if it does look to just be sleeping.

Lord have mercy, one day I will learn to expect the unexpected with kids.

So after a somewhat lengthy discussion, we began to work.  Using a 12X15 piece of watercolor paper taped to the back of an even larger pad of paper, I had each child choose a bird reference and handed them a pencil stuck through a paper plate.

I then introduced blind contour drawing and asked them to not lift their pencil up from the paper. I also asked them to draw their bird very large.  I assured them that by the time we were done, this drawing would not be very visible and the pencil lines would just become interesting marks.

I did this step because it is impossible for the kids to get to caught up in doing finicky sketches and each and every one of them had a shape on the paper that allowed them to create their bird very easy.

I then gave each child a water-soluble graphite. The graphite was much softer than the pencil and so it created a much darker line.  I asked them to start putting in some of the dark areas they saw on their reference.  Then using water and a paintbrush, they got to work softening those lines.  At this point, they also put their work on a small easel so that the paint could drip and do interesting, uncontrollable things.

7 year old, in process

As you can see, if we had stopped right there they would have had a very lovely take home piece of work. However I really wanted the kids to explore lots of different materials for line making.

8 year old, in process

So I handed them some vine charcoal and told them to add more details to their birds.  And when they finished that I brought out some india ink, a paintbrush, and their all time favorite tool, old fashion fountain pens.  

Finally for those that wanted it, I brought out white chalk and black and white oil pastels.

They explored the different values they could attain with the india ink using the paintbrush and then got to work using the fountain pen to add small detail feather work.  Each time I gave them a new material, I asked them to focus a little more on adding in all the details of the birds.

8 year old, grey African parrot

Because they had to figure out a new detail to add with each material, the end results are quite amazing for their ages.  

I have made some tonal viewfinders out of cardboard and duct tape that I brought out to help them see the different values to add into their works.  This helped them immensely while working only in black and white.

7 year old, flying Macaw

The ever changing materials kept the project very interesting.  

"What was next?!"  

And then it was quite exciting to figure out how to use the new material into the artwork. I truly did not hear an "I'm done" until they were really quite done. They were totally into this project and the exploration of materials.  I left everything out so they could go back at anytime and add more of something they felt their work needed.

I loved how the artist below surprised himself with this work. He was so proud of his bird and I don't blame him. 

8 year old, African parakeet

The two oldest students in the class chose to create their birds using scratch art.  I asked them to start at the eye and work out from there, paying attention to how the feather lines changed as they moved further away from the eye. 

After working on the skeleton etchings, http://doodlebugdabblings.blogspot.ca/2015/11/spooky-etchings-without-press.html, they had a great understanding on how to create value using this medium and got some great pieces.

10 year old

The below student was so pleased with the head of her bird, she did not want to continue any further out of fear she might ruin it. I think it is a lovely piece where she chose to finish it and think the entire bird might of lost something in the composition.  

10 year old

As much as the girls enjoyed creating their work in scratch art, watching the other kids do an exploration of materials for their birds looked like lots of fun and so now they are also working on the above project.  They will finish it next week and it is interesting to see how different their works are even though they are both doing Toucans.  

I can't wait to share it with you then.

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"