In Praise of Cranes
Thinking about Sandhill, but remembering a Sarus crane. Returning to oil paints, and a new animal compassion award from SCBWI
I live in Edmonds, a little city by Puget Sound. Every fall, they host a Puget Sound Bird Fest with birding activities the whole weekend. There are natural wetlands down by the water and many native and migrating species.
The theme for this year’s festival is “Bold, Brash, and Loud Birds”, so I thought of a crane I met in Issaquah: a Sarus crane, a native of India. I then thought of painting its cousin, a sandhill crane that’s a regular visitor to Washington. An interesting fact about cranes is that their voice boxes are much longer than those of humans, so by being so long and coiling, they act like musical instruments to help their voices travel for miles.
Cranes are noisy, and they are always calling each other. In fact, it’s common to hear cranes first, then hunt around in the sky until you spot a tiny speck flying in the distance.
It felt good to get out my oil paints again after years without them. Here, I’m painting the details using a bridge that lets me rest my hand while painting details in the middle of a canvas. It may take days to dryl using this simple rest helps steady my hand for details in the middle of the canvas.
Here’s my finished painting, “Sandhill Bugler”. What a wonderful bird!
I’m hoping to get a table at the fair - if so, I have some ideas for a “Test Your Bird IQ” game that includes identifying birds on the basis of sounds, like the laughing call of the barred owl.
I didn’t do a monochromatic underpainting for this painting, but I think I might like to do that for the next one. Having a contrasting color on the opposite side of the color wheel can increase the vibrancy and depths of colors.
Here’s an example of mine of an underpainting with burnt umber from some years ago.
Doing an underpainting adds steps, but it can simplify the process as well, because you can just focus on value in the beginning, then glaze the different colors in the second step.
Here’s what a field of sandhill cranes sounds like.
If you’re a children’s book author or illustrator who loves animals as I do, there’s a new award called the Charlotte and Wilbur Compassion for Animals Award for creators of traditionally published or self-published children’s books. The founder, Karen Winnick says, “My hope with this award is that young readers learn about animals, so they develop compassion and respect. They will be the generation that saves them.” How cool is that?