Akela

The Drawing Process

It felt awkward at first, gripping the knurled metal ferules of my Staedtler clutch pencils. They have a front-heavy design and feel very substantial in your hand. The paper was new to me as well, at least for graphite drawings. Stonehenge Aqua hot pressed is a dense, bright white paper similar to my old standby Fabriano Artistico. I chose Stonehenge because you can still buy it, unlike the old version of Fabriano, and I have really come to enjoy it for watercolor.

After a few hours, it all felt very familiar: the scrap of drawing paper Blu-Tacked over the top of my drawing to protect it from the oils in my drawing hand, my clutch pencils in my left hand, and a warm kneaded eraser stuck onto my drawing board. The meditative quality of drawing replenishes me; I have missed it. I feel like 2020 has been a bit of a rebirth and it’s good to be back.

It took about four days to complete the drawing. I then enter the slowest phase where I squint and rub my graying chin and try to determine if anything else needs changing. Artists have a hard time knowing when to quit, but it takes time to truly see the drawing for what it is. Staring at a drawing for too long can leave you desensitized to the details. You need some time away to see it with fresh eyes.

After letting the drawing sit for a couple of days, I decided it needed some softening in the shadows. I used some graphite powder and a filbert brush to gently blend the details back into the shadows in her neck. This was followed by some serious cleanup work with a kneaded eraser. Finally, I applied three coats of workable fixative and it was time to call it finished.

I removed the drawing from my drawing board and scanned it into my computer and created the master file from the 6 different scans of the various parts of the original artwork. I am thankful I still remember most of Photoshop and appreciate the developments made in Stacks and Automatic Scripts in the newest version of the program!

The Subject

I took the reference photograph of this beautiful wolf back in 2013 at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center (GWDC) in West Yellowstone, Montana. We had it a habit of visiting twice a year when we lived in Missoula, Montana. We were there on a beautiful May afternoon and I was shooting from inside the enclosed viewing area through one of the floor-to-ceiling windows.

This wolf was named Akela. She and her brother Kootenai were relocated to the GWDC in the Spring of 2007 from another facility in Montana. They were only 6 weeks old upon arrival. I really enjoyed seeing her on our visits and we would often try to arrange our visits for the times they were out in the enclosure. She had a penetrating gaze that I really felt spoke to the wildness of these beautiful animals.

I was sad to learn that Akela passed away in the Fall of 2020 from pancreatic cancer. Her brother is going to be 14 years old this year, which I thought was amazing for a wolf, although I learned that they have similar life expectancies to dogs when raised in captivity.

So, as with so many other stories in 2020, this one has a somewhat sad ending, but I believe that by continuing our education of young people about the critical roles that wolves play in the wild, we can hope for a brighter future for the wild animals living in the 22 million square acres of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Thank you for the inspiration, Akela!

Red-shouldered Hawk

Background

I have been a fan of John James Audubon since I first saw his paintings in books when I was a teenager. There was something so iconic about his birds, often perched on a branch with a stark white background. The birds became symbols of wilderness and nature for me.

I recently revisited some of his pieces in a wonderful oversize compendium that my wife bought me several years ago for Christmas. Even at 12″ x 15.25″, this baby elephant-scale book is tiny compared to his originals which were completed on double elephant sheets, a whopping 26″ x 38″. Nevertheless, I attempted to create my closest approximation of Audubon’s work as a tribute to his influence on me as an artist.

Here is his Red-shouldered Hawk painting. It was painted some time around 1826. I will focus on the top bird for this tribute. This is my Mt. Everest.

John James Audubon’s Plate 56 – Red-shouldered Hawk

Preparation

Because of the massive reduction in scale, there were certain things I would simply not be able to reproduce, like the pen and ink work detailing every single feather barbule. I could do a rough approximation, but not a line-for-line reproduction.

I was also unable to identify exactly what paints Audubon used for his pieces, so I adopted a Classical Palette as described by the wonderful site, Handprint.com. This palette consists of pigments readily available during the early to mid-19th century, the height of Audubon’s production for the Birds of America.

The palette I used consisted of: yellow ochre (PY43), raw sienna(PY43), gamboge (PY150/PR209), burnt sienna (PR101), light red (PR101), burnt umber (PBr7), raw umber (PBr7), vermilion (substituted with scarlet lake PR188), carmine lake (substituted with Anthraquinoid Red PR177), indigo blue (substituted with indanthrene blue PB60), Prussian blue (PB27), lamp black (PBk6 + 7) and India ink.

Paints that are common today, like Ultramarine Blue, weren’t produced until after Audubon’s time. I have tried to stay true to those paints available to him during that time or at worst, a modern substitute with the same handling characteristics.

I began with graphite pencil to create a detailed sketch of the original in my sketchbook.

Sketch of the layout ready for transfer to watercolor paper

Painting Process

With this roadmap created, it was time to transfer the image to my watercolor paper and get to work. I initially wanted to paint the darker details with watercolor but after studying his original, it was obvious he had created a lot of the textures and details with ink and then washed over this to add color. He might have added ink after some of the washes, but the lines are so crisp, I would argue that this was done before the washes since the paper would produce crisper, more refined lines prior to adding gum arabic in the form of a watercolor wash. I therefore proceeded to reproduce as much as I could in ink and then washed over these areas and added details where necessary.

After the pen and ink work was completed, I began adding color, starting with the head and working my way towards the tail. I worked down to the feet, then completed the branches, before finishing finally with the lichen grown on the branches. These required not only solid color but each was outlined with what appeared in my reproduction as a brighter green but appears more like pencil in another reproduction I have seen. I stuck with pencil as it added a more realistic appearance and was simpler to reproduce at this scale.

It took a few days but here is my final piece.

Completed painting

American Kestrel

Background

I returned to creating artwork during the early stages of the 2020 Corona virus lockdown. I had rediscovered birding and I wanted to create some sketches in color in a decent sketchbook and had a stack of watercolor paper in a flat file from back when I drew full time. After creating the sketchbook, I decided I needed to swatch out some of the colors in order to create my new palette. I had no idea the feelings it would rekindle to work with art supplies again.

After a few weeks of playing around with sketches, I began creating some larger pieces that I wasn’t wholly disappointed in. One thing led to another and I decided I needed to revisit one of my favorite birds, the American Kestrel. These fierce little hunters have long been one of my favorites and I had created a drawing in colored pencil several years ago that I’ve always wanted to improve upon.

Painting Process

I was truly learning on the fly with this piece. I had never created a serious watercolor piece before and I tried to use a delicate hand to avoid overworking the paper as much as possible. Using my favorite watercolor paints by M. Graham, I have used the pigments long enough to know how they handle. They honey they use in the paints make them very easy to rewet and create dense mixes. This helped me avoid the wishy-washy approach I knew would result from tentative noodling on the paper.

Overall, I was very pleased with this piece. There are certainly things I could have done better, but overall, for my skill level, I was able to punch well above my weight class. I truly think my love for the subject kept me locked in to completing it as well as I could. The prints I have been able to produce from this piece have also come out quite well. Overall, a very nice piece to start my serious watercolor portfolio.