Painting and Birding 'round the Long Island Sound

The painting of Ruby Beach is finally completed.  Once I had removed the log I was sure I had done the right thing, but the heavy paint application had gotten a bit muddy and in the end I wiped the whole lower right portion down and started again.  Because the sand ripples were now carrying the whole foreground, establishing the perspective of the ground plane and serving to draw the eye up and into the scene, I wanted to be sure they had satisfying and sensible shapes.  The shift in value between water and sand had to be subtle,  but definitive enough to feel like you could walk on it.  It was trickier than I had anticipated and the photographs I had were of little help.  I had to feel my way, often closing my eyes and trying to imagine myself at the place, feeling the wet sand between my toes.  Not easy to do in my studio at night with an October cold-front shaking the leaves outside the window!  It is always a bit of a challenge, when struggling with a painting, not to overwork it, or to  get too "tight".  Many people see "loose" painting as somewhat dashed-off and easy, but nothing could be farther from the truth!  In fact, getting "tight" is for me the easy thing, often disquising unsettled areas with frivolous detail.  The hardest thing to do is to distill a visual experience into it's most basic essentials, and to make it look easy.

All that being said, this painting did get a little tighter than I had planned.  Not too much, though.  Part of that has to do with putting the Pelicans in, which are small figures in the painting.  My preference is to paint the bird with the same degree of looseness as the overall painting, so that it works as part of the whole and not as a "pasted on" detail.  So when the bird element is small, it calibrates the "detail level" for the whole painting.  The tighter the bird, the tighter the painting.  Knowing this, I wanted to keep the Pelicans as loose as possible, and doing that meant getting to know the birds well enough that I could get the essentials without falling into the "detail trap".  My solution to that problem is to paint studies of the subject as a warm up.

Here is a watercolor sketch of some flying Pelicans.  I did a number of these but most are not presentable.  This one went well enough that I took it further and included a bit of the landscape in the distance.

The source for most of my poses was a series of sketches I did last summer in San Diego.  Here is one of several pages from last summer's sketchbook.  I spent a good part of the day on the beach, watching flocks of Brown Pelicans feeding and flying offshore, often plunge diving only yard from human bathers.  It was quite a sight!  I found Pelicans to be a terrific study- so exaggerated in form that they were almost a caricature of themselves.  Their immense bills and long necks  made their minds easy to read as they sighted fish below them, even without seeing their eyes.

Other birds competed for my attention as well- a brief passage of an Elegant Tern, as seen on this page, as well as Black Turnstones, Surfbirds, and Heerman's gulls.  All were "life" birds for me.  Dolphins and Sea Lions added to the richness!

"Brown Pelican" watercolor, 9"x6", 2011 Sean Murtha

This was one of the common poses the Pelicans took after a successful plunge-dive.  I imagine they are resting for a moment as they digest.  I was most intrigued by the interlocking forms of bill and neck, and that lovely "peak" of feathers behind the head.  This watercolor, based straight off one of my field sketches, was the most successful and I took it to a finish. 

But I digress.  Pelicans can do that to you!  My primary focus was on flying poses, of course.  In the final oil, the birds near the center of the picture are practically sillouettes, the long wings and bill being the only clue to their identity.  The two birds on the left, which are a bit closer and seen a bit more from the side, have more definition- but only a little.  Pelicans are so unique that a little goes a long way!

"Pelicans at Ruby Beach" oil, 24"x30", 2011 Sean Murtha

This may seem to be a far-flung location compared to my usual work, which concentrates on the landscapes and birds of southern New England, where I live.  It is, but interestingly enough, Brown Pelicans have been seen fairly regularly at this time of year on the Long Island Sound.  Thus far they have eluded me, however.  I hope to change that soon, as there have been intriguing sightings of a Pelican in the Greenwich area, around the mouth of the Mianus River and at Greenwich Point.  I'm about to go out searching again today; wish me luck!