This summer, my church is offering a Sunday School class in The Artist's Way- based on the book by Julia Cameron. One of the features of this course of study is that you are encouraged to take at least one Artist's Date a week. At this writing, I am on Week 8 of the course and my first Artist's Date of the week was at my church- Painting with Dale- with Dale Child as our instructor. The subject of our acrylic painting was Bird on a Branch.
The bird in question turned out to be a cardinal. Very pretty bird- also known as redbirds in this neck of the woods. Also a very determined, "don't mess with me" sort of bird as confrontations and heated aerial battles in my backyard have revealed. The wise squirrel will let the cardinals and blue jays have their turn at the seed pile unmolested. Unfortunately, the neighborhood squirrels aren't known for their wisdom, courtesy, or adaptation to avian manners. Tweets, chirps, and chatter have been exchanged and the matter of who is the most entitled to the seed has yet to be settled. (Hint to the squirrels in my 'hood- The label on the bag reads BIRD SEED. BIRD SEED. Get it? No, I really didn't think you would.)
Cardinals aren't easy to draw. It's the crest that gave me the greatest problems. Their slanted high top fade. I wanted mine to look like a cardinal- not a kingfisher or a woodpecker re-imagined in red. I tried the old drawing shapes trick to form the bird, but it didn't seem to work for me. I found a photo of a fluffed-out-against-the-cold cardinal that I liked and tried to draw that. I had a bit more luck than I did with the shapes method. Audubon isn't rolling over in his grave in fits of jealousy, mind you. I sketched it out on my prepared canvas and hoped for the best. Keeping between the lines is not as easy to do with a paintbrush as it is with a marker or a crayon. And the crest of my bird kept getting bigger as I attempted to indicate feathers on his noggin. I decided my bird is a young bird. Perhaps, he will grow into his crest as he gets older. Or he's just stylin' with his high top fade.
The Artist's Way teaches us that In order to do something well, we must first be willing to do something badly. When we accept this, we widen our options. Part of me wanted my bird to look more cardinal-like. But I know myself well. I can rework and tweak a poem, a drawing, a story, or a painting into something uninteresting or pedestrian -- another lesson from The Artist's Way. Art is never finished. It simply stops in interesting places. Letting go is a normal part of creativity.
Or as Rumi observed back in the 13th Century: "Fihi ma fihi". It is what it is.
The bird in question turned out to be a cardinal. Very pretty bird- also known as redbirds in this neck of the woods. Also a very determined, "don't mess with me" sort of bird as confrontations and heated aerial battles in my backyard have revealed. The wise squirrel will let the cardinals and blue jays have their turn at the seed pile unmolested. Unfortunately, the neighborhood squirrels aren't known for their wisdom, courtesy, or adaptation to avian manners. Tweets, chirps, and chatter have been exchanged and the matter of who is the most entitled to the seed has yet to be settled. (Hint to the squirrels in my 'hood- The label on the bag reads BIRD SEED. BIRD SEED. Get it? No, I really didn't think you would.)
Cardinals aren't easy to draw. It's the crest that gave me the greatest problems. Their slanted high top fade. I wanted mine to look like a cardinal- not a kingfisher or a woodpecker re-imagined in red. I tried the old drawing shapes trick to form the bird, but it didn't seem to work for me. I found a photo of a fluffed-out-against-the-cold cardinal that I liked and tried to draw that. I had a bit more luck than I did with the shapes method. Audubon isn't rolling over in his grave in fits of jealousy, mind you. I sketched it out on my prepared canvas and hoped for the best. Keeping between the lines is not as easy to do with a paintbrush as it is with a marker or a crayon. And the crest of my bird kept getting bigger as I attempted to indicate feathers on his noggin. I decided my bird is a young bird. Perhaps, he will grow into his crest as he gets older. Or he's just stylin' with his high top fade.
The Artist's Way teaches us that In order to do something well, we must first be willing to do something badly. When we accept this, we widen our options. Part of me wanted my bird to look more cardinal-like. But I know myself well. I can rework and tweak a poem, a drawing, a story, or a painting into something uninteresting or pedestrian -- another lesson from The Artist's Way. Art is never finished. It simply stops in interesting places. Letting go is a normal part of creativity.
Or as Rumi observed back in the 13th Century: "Fihi ma fihi". It is what it is.
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