Ornithological art - A mystery

I am the very happy owner of a new mystery piece of Avian art. I found this piece on eBay and snatched it up as soon as I randomly happened upon it and confirmed that it was indeed an original painting. A definite mystery, but many great elements appealed to me immediately, so I decided, despite knowing nothing about the piece, its history or the artist that it was worth submitting an offer. The field notes in the left corner are very hard to make out, especially being that the quality of the scan provided by the seller is very poor. I will post that scan here, but I will try and replace it with a better one once I have the painting in hand. It is a Guianan Cock-of-the-Rock, a fabulous lekking species from nothern South America, for those of you that don't recognize it. The painting appears to me...and I hope that I am right, to be a sketch prepared in the field. The main portrait in color is beautiful, but I think the parts that appealed to me the most are the sketches along the sides of the piece. The two studies of the birds unique feet are great. The view of the bird in display posture, fluffing up its fabulous nuptial feathers is great, but I think the part that grabbed me the most is the superb head on view sketch on the right side. I am always so attracted to artwork which depicts a bird from a more interesting angle, really capturing what it was like to see that Cock-of-the-Rock face on, right there inside the lek, where the artist must have been to capture such a view.
Ok, herein lies a mystery that I'd like to solve. Does anyone recognize anything about this painting which may lead you to conclude who the mystery artist is? Please comment if you have any thoughts at all. I am in the process of trying to obtain ANY background about the piece from the seller, but so far I have heard nothing, and I fear that there may unfortunately be nothing to tell. I have no idea about its age even, although I will be able to draw some inferences when I see the paper. For now, please share any thoughts or impressions. An update, with any new info, a better scan and a detailed look at the notations will be posted later.

*UPDATE*
Disappointingly I must report that my great find is less great than I had hoped. I received the Cock-of-the-Rock piece today and it is nothing more than a print. I asked the seller explicitly if the piece was an original painting, and the answer was yes. There was a brief glimmer of excitement as I took it out of the package, until I looked closer and saw the poor resolution to the edges of the piece...plus it just didn't pop like a real painting would, even one that was older and possibly a bit faded.
I have communicated with the seller and he is willing to refund me, but I would lose the shipping...both ways. I am trying to decide what to do. It is a nice image, just not at all the same as if it were a painting.

Favorite Bird Artist Series - David Sibley

A new installment in this series. Here is one of David Sibley's bird illustrations. A giant in the world of birding now, David Sibley has really mastered his own style of illustration. In some ways his painting is very simple, effectively capturing the essence of a bird with few brush strokes. The real success of Sibley's illustration comes from a very sound and practiced painting technique coupled with a great ability to capture diagnostic postures, expressions and specific physical details.

Fuertes-Canvasbacks Oil Painting up for auction

I spotted a new Fuertes original painting on eBay recently. All of the Fuertes originals I have spotted lately are posted to eBay through an auction house that is now able to take live bidding through eBay Live Auctions. Usually it is as simple as registering for the auction via the eBay link and then watching the auction progress live on the web. The auctions I have seen so far in this fashion have been very exciting to witness. Lots stream by and bidding is relayed to the viewers in real time (although I know from my telephone bidding experience last year that there is a short lag from the auction block-to the web-to the viewer). Bids can be entered in advance of course, or on the fly as you watch the auction. Here is the Fuertes oil painting up for aucion, although this low resolution photo is unfortunately the only one provided.
Take a look at The Auction on eBay.
The opening bid of $2500 and projected sale price of $5-7K is way out of my realm, especially when you consider that most Fuertes auctions in the recent past have sold for 30-50% higher than the projections, plus the buyers premium. This painting could very well cost the lucky winner $15,000 in the end, (and it looks like it could use a professional cleaning as well). Good luck to all who may be lucky enough to contemplate investing in this beautiful mantlepiece. The Auction is on 7 June 2006 at 1pm.
Update: I just spotted the final auction price for this piece. More than I had estimated even! Final sale price at auction $20,000, plus buyer's premium, (usu 25%).

Montezuma

After a long stint on the road in southeast Arizona and Mexico, I am back at home in Ithaca. The filming and recording trip was very successful with many great new additions to the archive. Here is an image to celebrate my return. The Montezuma Quail...continuing a string of Fuertes images on the blog. A fitting bird to celebrate my return as this species eluded me on the three week journey. Another wonderful reason to return to southeast Arizona again in the near future.

Something entirely different...

...or at least that was the thought I had when I decided to begin this post. I know that there are lots of others out there with an interest in bird art...and nature art in general. Whether or not this blog has any widespread appeal to an audience of more than a handful though is up for debate in my mind right now. For now, I will keep plugging away with new posts from the giant artists of the past and present. My current painting projects have been railroaded by work, travel and preparations for recording and shooting in Arizona for three weeks...starting next wednesday. Here are some works from the master, another in what I'm sure will be a long series of posts dedicated to the works of Louis Agassiz Fuertes.
The Leafhopper is a painting that I loved from the first moment that I saw it in the Cornell digital Fuertes collection. It is a Scarlet and green leafhopper, although it always looks blue to me. In my past insect collecting days in central NY, I have found these beautiful hoppers commonly on sweeps through aster and goldenrod fields. Clearly the beautiful bug once caught Fuertes' eye as well.
The Kangaroo Rat is one of my favorites from his mammal work. After a completing a series of bird paintings for the National Geographic Society in 1913, Gilbert Grosvenor came back for more of Fuertes work. From 1915-1918 Fuertes toiled over a large and industrious commission of large mammals, small mammals and finally portraits of the breeds of Canus familiaris. Reportedly, Fuertes was skeptical about the quality of the final works. Unjustly so, I believe. Most of the mammals I have seen represent that same mastery of capturing a moment in the life of an animal that is so excellently represented in his bird work.

An Ivory-billed Woodpecker

Ivory-bills are on my mind this morning. Here is a beautiful painting by Michael DiGiorgio. I presume that this piece was done recently...in response to the renewed attention this species has had of late. I found a picture of Michael DiGiorgio walking through the Arkansas bayou on his Wildlife Nature Artists Group page. He spent some time looking for the bird and sketching bottomland habitat last year.
The search, the rediscovery, the secrets and the skepticism is very close to home for me here in my perch and continues to be a source of unrelenting attention. I am not a fan of all of the negativity being broadcast out there. My opinion about the evidence aside, I really wonder why some people have chosen to represent such a negative attitude about the way in which the detections, the search and the analysis have been handled. Again, I am purposely not sharing an opinion about the birds existence, I am just very uncomfortable with so many accusatory, adversarial and malicious people out there representing to have such a better way of doing things and yet they do nothing but talk.

Painting of the Day - Louis Agassiz Fuertes

A quick posting for today with a selection from my digital bird art archives. I have a growing collection of pieces collected from all over. Most are pulled from the web, some I scan from books and others I have received from museum collection digital archives. This one seems apropriate as it was just about a year ago that I bid at auction for this original painting. Originally completed as a plate for Frank M. Chapmans 'Warblers of North America' published in 1907, and printed again as a plate in Birdlore, Fuertes completed this and several other fabulous Warbler plates in the early, yet already highly successful and prolific days of his relationship and collaboration with Chapman of the American Museum of Natural History. Check out the really excellent integration of the Acacia thorn into his signature below the Virginia's Warblers belly. I hope that this painting found a great home.

Favorite Bird Artist Series - Julie Zickefoose

The aspect of Julie's work I enjoy the most is its imaginative qualities. Painting a bird in action, in its environs, or on the wing, and telling a story about its life is a very interesting way to work. The stories she weaves with her paintings add another dimension, an interesting subtext in watercolor. Here is a beautiful piece published on the cover of Birding a while back. You see what I mean about the story of migrating Black-billed Cuckoo...one of the coolest species to hear vocalize as it flies over you on a spring night flight.
Take a look at Julies new website.
And check out a new painting of Long-tailed Manakins featured on her blog. You can track the evolution of this painting and a bit of its back story in one of Julies "making of" posts. In these great blog postings, progress of a painting is traced from inspiration to planning and sketching, all the way through to the final work. Check out the first Manakin post at Julies blog.

An update, I succeeded in my quest to see a Rhinoceros Auklet on my Seattle trip last weekend. I spotted a total of about 45 individuals on the Anacortes to Orcas Island ferry, as well as a very good number of Red-necked Grebe and my best looks ever of Harlequin Duck, a far view from the shore of Orcas, and an amazing, intimate view from kayak. Sketches to come later.

Favorite Bird artist series - Ian Lewington

Just before a jaunt to the Pacific northwest for a few days, Auks, Auklets and Murrelets on the mind, I am throwing up a quick addition to the series. Ian Lewington is a fine painter from England. His great work can be seen in the Handbook of the Birds of the World Series and is perhaps best represented in his plates for the Oxford monograph, 'The Auks' by Gaston and Jones. These plates will most certainly be one of my guides if I am ever lucky enough to have the opportunity to illustrate a bird guide. Ian has a graphic, yet extremely realistic style, quite popular amongst a prolific cadre of impressive european artists active today. His field guide work is great, but take a look at some of the paintings from his website. Ian seems to enjoy depicting birds in curious perspectives, postures and angles and absolutely excels at conveying the fast action of birds in flight. Here is one of Ian's fine plates from 'The Auks'. I hope to return home from Seattle with sketches of Rhinoceros Auklet of my own.
Here is Ian's website.

Golden-cheeked Warbler

This fine painting of a Texas specialty will surely brighten your day. To my disappointment, It has turned cold again in the northeast. Phoebe's are here and I hope Warbler's are around the corner. At lunch today, I watched a Golden-crowned Kinglet forage in the shrubbery with coronal stripe ablaze...just as vibrant as this Golden-cheeked Warbler on a small scale. More springtime arrivals soon to come I hope. This Golden-cheeked was painted by my favorite artist working today...Larry McQueen.

A Celebration of Birds-The Life and Art of Louis Agassiz Fuertes

I am really enjoying reading this book on Fuertes. Years ago I passed over this volume, thinking it was largely an image dominated picture book, not realizing that this is really a fantastic and relatively complete biography. Right now I am at the point where Fuertes is coming into adulthood and really coming in to his own as a successful and highly sought after illustrator. So far it has been very interesting. Robert McCracken Peck from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia skillfully prepared this book as a companion volume to a traveling Fuertes exhibit that toured the US in the mid 1980's. A great exhibition I am sure.

Favorite Bird artist series - Don Eckelberry

This painting is a plate from Brown & Amadon's Eagles, Hawks and Falcons of the World. Eckelberry painted a series of beautiful portraits for this two volume series, along with several other artists including Albert Earl Gilbert, Guy Coheleach and a few others whose plates are not as notable. Eckelberry's style is quite a bit different than the work I normally gravitate towards, being that most of his work is opaque. I have very strong connection to translucent media like watercolor. By no means would I ever downplay Eckelberry's incredible talent as a painter, however, I think his true strengths were in his abilities to so skillfully render his birds in acurate anatomical detail, always in realistic, often diagnostic and usually intensely interesting poses and postures. Eckelberry drew what he saw in nature, he developed a composition from field sketches and tranferred those to canvas. Some of the most impressive renderings of his I have seen are those directly from his field sketches. A bird portrait by Eckelberry always conveyed the uniqueness of the species but more importantly, the nuances of an individual at a moment in time, just as it had perched before him in life.

Favorite Bird artist series - Barry Van Dusen

I am beginning a new set of posts where I'll talk about bird artists from my long list of favorites. I'll write these up a bit whimsically, not in any hierarchical order. Barry Van Dusen is an artist from Massachusetts working mostly on birds of North America, but also on various projects all over the world, including a series of plates for the forthcoming Birds of Peru project. His website has several examples of his work and is kept up to date with information on current and upcoming shows in the northeast. Here is Barry's website.
Barry has a very loose painting style. His works strike a wonderful balance between underpainting and overpainting. A key element in the success of his paintings I think is his excellent economy of brush stroke. He conveys such exquisite detail with so few strokes. I strive for this kind of economy of brush stroke in my own work but at the same time go for a bit more detail and less of a sketch-like quality. Barry's field guide plates show much more refined detail. There are a few examples of his Peru guide plates on his website. Overall Barry's work is very fresh, vibrant and alive, capturing bird subjects and their environment beautifully.

Eckelberry field sketches

One of the consumate field artists of the 20th century, Don Eckelberry was a big proponent of natural history artists spending time in the field actually seeing their subjects behaving. More comments later on this front, but for now, here is a great scan of some of Eckelberry's beautiful work.
This is an image from the book 'Masterpieces of Bird Art' by Pasquier and Farrand

Pursuit of the Screaming Piha

On a good day, with about three good hours per night to work with after getting home from work, cooking and eating I feel reasonably motivated to do some artwork. There haven't been too many of those this week so far. More often, I get home later, frayed and frazzled from work and don't even feel like cooking. This weekend I hope to get back into the Screaming Piha piece. I did visit the Cornell Museum of vertebrates where I sketched the beak from equivalent angles, although it was a challenge to approximate the upper and lower mandible positions from the closed-beaked round skin. I also photographed wing and tail details that will help immensely with the painting. Here's a view of the specimen, Lipaugis vociferans, collected in Guiana in 1884. Still in very good shape and proving useful 122 years later.

Screaming Piha

Spurned on by a desire to create content for this new blog, I worked on the first sketches for my new painting, a Screaming Piha in full 'scream'. Here is the initial sketch of my bird. I still need to work out some details on the rectrices and try to find a resource for looking at the tongue morphology in cotingids. I will have to try and find a fluid preserved specimen and rope someone into photographing it for me. Next step though will be to work out the overall composition.

Fuertes at Johnson Museum

Recently I visited the Johnson Art Museum on the Cornell University campus. I had arranged to view the Fuertes collection housed there. Louis Agassiz Fuertes, an Ithaca native was the best bird artist who ever attempted the craft. Many share this opinion and his name is very commonly listed as a major influence on the work of most contemporary bird artists. Here is one of the Johnson Museum pieces I enjoyed the most.

Here is my most recent painting of Carola's Parotia (Parotia carolae) a Bird of Paradise from Papua New Guinea. In this painting, the male bird (below) is displaying on a lek to the visiting female (above). The male is performing the "Ballerina Dance", with elaborate modified contour feathers shaped like a skirt, waggling head wires and irridescent head and throat ornaments. This painting is a frontispiece for a manuscript by Ed Scholes on the display behavior of the species.

New Natural History art blog

In this blog I plan to share general thoughts about the subject of natural history painting, especially bird painting. I will post works in progress, sketches, technique tips and thoughts on my own work as well as work from my favorite artists.
Benjamin M. Clock
Ithaca, NY