16 October 07
Western Bluebirds
When I spoke with Keith Hansen back in August about tools for sketching birds, he raved about the digital video camera. His point was that you could take footage of the bird and then stop it at the point the bird was doing exactly what you wanted. Keith does a lot of multi-species compositions and getting the right angle on each bird is very important for this kind of work.
I’ve been pondering his approach. I don’t want to draw from photographs, which is essentially what this would be, but it’s fascinating to see exactly what happens when a bird raises its wings then pushes down with them, or when it flies “backwards” as it’s landing, as these bluebirds were doing yesterday.
I’m still thinking about whether such a tool would be helpful for me, or more helpful than other tools, but I did get some footage yesterday just on the digital camera. The resolution was terrible but that was almost a plus, in that I wasn’t focusing on detail but rather on the complex structure of the bird in flight and the sequence… there were about five bluebirds, joined by about 20 yellowrumps, a mockingbird, two or three scrub-jays, and a couple of flickers…
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oh. oh, what a fantastically beautiful sketch.