Featured Artist - Jennifer Brumfield

Copyright Jennifer Brumfield 2006

I came upon the scientific illustration website of Jennifer Brumfield through a friend and was really impressed by her interesting and unique style.
Her website Meadowhawk Art.com has several examples of her work including some great birds like this Mourning Warbler, as well as some stunning Dragonfly work she has completed for a guide called 'Dragonflies and Damselflies of Cleveland Metroparks'. I contacted Jennifer recently to ask her a bit about her work and drawing techniques. She had the following comments in reference to her Mourning Warbler piece and drawing in general. "This MOWA is based off of a 'snapshot memory' that I experienced on the boardwalk of Crane Creek State Park/Magee Marsh Wildlife Area, in NW Ohio (the 'other Point Pelee') on a mid-May morning, height of spring migration 'round here of course. I remember the lighting being perfect..it was particularly overcast and dull and droll..but the cool blue-gray tones of the bird's head were amplified by its lightning yellow underparts. Adult male Mourning is perhaps one of NA's most splendid birds, in my opinion. Typically playing tough-to-get by clamboring around myriad branches of fallen trees....it always spawns absolute gasps when it's seen by newbies and avids alike."

"The illustration was created in colored pencil. Most, if not all of my illustrations are colored pencil, or 'regular' pencil, or pen and ink. I just can't get interested in paints, right now. There's something about sharpening a pencil and just having at it.....paints need to be mixed, brushes need to be washed....I suppose that's a 'simple' part of me (or perhaps lazy?) coming out through my work. Also, I'm smitten with the thick, paint-like quality that I find in watercolor colored pencils....I needn't add water, at all, and I'm completely happy with them. Buy a huge pack for under a hundred, and you're ready to rock."

Check out her website and keep your eyes out for her work in Birding Magazine and elsewhere in the future.

Copyright Jennifer Brumfield 2006