John Tubbs - Starting Art Late in Life

Cooper's Hawk Head and Talon Studies

This adult Cooper's Hawk landed in our yard two days ago, looking to grab one of the small birds that frequent our birdfeeders.  It was unsuccessful in this particular hunting venture, but did sit still long enough for me to get some very good reference photos before it flew off.  I used those photos as references for these headshot and talon sketches.  The sketches in total (for the whole page, in an A4 Moleskine sketchbook, about 8.5 x 11 inches) took about an hour and were done with permanent ink using Pigman Micron pens.

Sage Thrasher and Sage Sparrow

These two quick drawings are in graphite from photo references.  Both these species are sage-steppe habitat birds, and except for breeding season when the males are singing on territories they are skulky and are tough to find and see.  In breeding season, they are quite the opposite - visible and singing their heads off.  These sketches are 10 x 8 inch in a Robert Bateman sketchbook.

 

 

Short-eared Owl - Graphite

This is a quick drawing done this evening from a reference photo.  It is 9 x 12 in graphite on Mi Tientes pastel paper.  This is a fun species of owl to observe, in that it often hunts in daytime.  It is a winter visitor to our area. 

 

American Crow and Deschutes Cliffs

Here is an updated WIP onthe Deschutes Cliffs 18 x 24 inch oil piece.  This version is close to being done (it might actually be, I need to let it rest a few days and look at it again).  The other piece is a 9 x 12 graphite on Mi Tientes paper of an American Crow from reference photo I took in our back yard a year or so ago. 

 

 
 

White-breasted Nuthatch

This is a quick watercolor study, about 9 x 7 inches, that I did last night based on a Birds and Blooms magazine photo.  We have Red-breasted Nuthatches in our immediate area - to get White-breasted we would need to visit different areas of our state, although a couple years ago a White-breasted Nuthatch showed up in our town for a few days and drew quite the crowd of admirers.

 

Steller's Jay Watercolor Sketch

This bird is our west coast version of the official east coast Blue Jay.  This is in watercolor in a 7 x 9" ringbound watercolor notebook.  The reference used is a photo I took in SW Washington state a couple years ago. 

 

Great Egrets, White-faced Ibis and Black-crowned Night Herons

I've continued to do a lot of sketching and quick study pieces so haven't added much here for some time.  Here are three watercolor pieces done recently as quick studies for larger pieces in several media.  The first one is of three White-faced Ibis, birds that are very unusual to rare in my home state, so it was great to see these on a trip to Yosemite a few years ago.  The reference photo I used was taken in the Klamath Lake area in great early morning light, which infused the whole scene with wonderful warm colors.  I will definitely be doing this piece in a larger size, and probably in oil as well.  The photo here has a pinkish cast that is not in the actual painting.  This one is 10 x 14 inches.

 

The next one here is of Great Egrets at the mouth of the Salmon River on the Oregon Coast north of Lincoln City.  This was again in early morning with very calm conditions.  A flock of about a dozen Great Egrets flew in and fed very close to where I was photographing, so I grabbed a number of shots and used one for this reference.  Again, I'll be re-doing this one, as there are some issues with it.  This is a 9 x 12 inch painting.

 

This is another species rarely seen in my neck of the woods, and was also painted from a photograph taken at Klamath Lake, as for the earlier image.

 

 

Hairy Woodpecker in Nest Hole

I've been doing so much sketching lately that I haven't made time to do any finished pieces, so I decided to do one.  This is done from a photo reference I took a couple years ago when I found this nest hole on a trail near my house.  Fortunately I found it when I did because I only shot pictures for two days before the two young in the nest fledged and the nest was then abandoned.  This piece is watercolor and gouache, 14 x 20 inches. 

 

More Recent Bird Sketches

 
In the Art Journal sub-forum on WetCanvas.com, there is an 'October Sketchbook Challenge' that involves choosing a sketchbook and committing to fill it during the month of October - a very good way of adding motivation to get more sketching done.  So I decided to do a 50-page (100 sides using front and back of the page) Pentalic Nature Sketchbook with the theme Backyard Birds and Nature, though I qualified 'backyard' to include interesting areas near our house as well as physically in the yard.  Here are some of the sketches included in that book.

The first three images here are graphite sketches of American Goldfinches in various poses, feeding in our yard.  They were drawn from a videotape I shot of them, which I stepped through and stopped when I found an interesting pose.  I gave myself 5 minutes or less to do each sketch. 

 

 

 

The previous page is the good old American Crow, which has a unique bill/beak structure which I was having trouble with.  So I shot a crow video and sketched three pages of just the bird's head and bill - this is one of the pages.   

The following page is a Wilson's Snipe (yes, a few species of snipe do really exist).  They are not waterbirds per se in that they can't float on the water - in this image from a reference photo it looks like the bird is floating, but it is actually wading in the water up to its belly.  So, it's more of a shorebird than a waterbird.

 

The next two pages are of the Bushtit, which has to be in the running for the cutest little bird out there (in North American at least).  They are quite small and look like little gray cotton puffs with beady eyes and a long tail.  They feed in chittering/chattering flocks. 

 

 

The next bird is a Brown Creeper, whose name comes from its feeding habit of creeping nervously up a tree trunk or branch eating small bugs.  They are very well camouflaged.

 

The next page is an Acorn Woodpecker.  This species is very rare in our part of the world, but one showed up in a city park a couple weeks ago and stayed for a few days.  They are unique in that they collectively gather food (acorns primarily, of course) and then store it in a granary tree which is shown here.  They drill appropriately-sized holds for the acorns and then wedge them in so tightly that even squirrels can't extract them.  The stored acorns then provide food for the birds, who live communally in an extended family group.  And yes, they do look rather clown-like in real life...!

 

The following duck in flight is a Northern Pintail, a very elegantly handsome species so named because of its longish, sharp tail.  This is a drake (male). 

 

The next bird is a Purple Finch female.  The male is colorful with wine-colored head and upper breast whereas the female is a drab light brown.  There are structural differences you get to know between this bird and the House Finch female, which is very similar.  The most obvious difference is that the female Purple Finch shown here has a light-colored 'supercilium' (eyebrow) which the female House Finch lacks.

 

And finally for this group, a Pied-billed Grebe, an interesting waterbird species that is commonly found on freshwater ponds and sloughs.  This species has the unique ability to partially submerge if needed to make itself less conspicuous and of course it is an accomplished underwater diver and swimmer since it obtains its food under the surface of the water.

 

Recent Bird and Wildlife Sketches

Here are a few recent sketches.  I have been doing mostly quick pieces in a nature journal over the last month, working on material to be used for finished pieces down the road. 

The first page is a number of quick sketches of Golden-crowned Sparrows, using video I shot in our yard as a reference.

 

The next group of sketches is Band-tailed Pigeons from another yard video.

 

This sketch is from a friend's photo, of a coyote 'mousing' in a park.  The coyotes jump into the air and down onto an area where they believe there is a mouse.  This scares the mouse, which moves, and the coyote gets a tasty meal.

 

The next sketch is also from a yard video, and shows a couple views of a Red-breasted Nuthatch, and one of a Chestnut-backed Chickadee.

 

The next bird is a winter resident in our area - a Fox Sparrow.  This was done from a photo that I took a couple years ago.

 

 

The next sketch is of an orb weaver spider that was right outside our back door.  I took a closeup picture of it and drew this with Pitt artist brush pens. 

 

This is a Merlin ('Pacific' or 'Black' subspecies, much darker than other subspecies).  It visited a raptor snag near our house and I sketched it, then refined it using a photo reference.

 

This fawn was from a photo I took from our back yard. 

 

This is a ground squirrel that decided to (I think) warm up in the morning sun after a cold night.  He did this by hanging from a barbed wire and standing on another strand - rather comical. 

 

This California Quail was drawn from a photo I took at work a couple years ago.

 

This cougar has lived for 17 years at a nearby zoo - he was born in captivity.  I took a video of him at the zoo and sketched him in several poses from the video. 

 

Ruby-crowned Kinglet - graphite sketches

This species is a very small and very active species - Ruby-crowned Kinglet.  I had two photos of these birds and decided to do some quick graphite (woodless graphite - 2B,4B and 6B) sketches of them.

Golden-crowned Kinglet

This little guy is a Golden-crowned Kinglet, one of two kinglets (the other being Ruby-crowned) that are winter residents in our area.  They are smaller than chickadees and at least as active.  This is done in colored pencil from a photo I took at work. 

Golden-crowned Sparrow and Yellow-rumped Warbler

These are both done in Polychromos colored pencils in an A5 size Moleskine sketchbook.  Both used photos I took of the species over the past few years. 

Anna's Hummingbird

This is a male Anna's Hummingbird guarding its territory at the very top of a conspicuous perch.  Hummers are very feisty and aggressive, belying their 'oh, isn't he cute' appearance.  This is done in Polychromos colored pencils from a photo I took a couple years ago.  It took about an hour while watching TV in the background...

Bonaparte's Gull - watercolor

This is a quick sketch in a Moleskine notebook, about 5.5 x 8.5 inches, done in watercolor with an initial light pencil sketch.  The species is a Bonaparte's Gull, a small and delicate (by gull standards) species.  There is about half an hour in the sketch in total.  These birds are common in certain parts of Puget Sound, but not in the areas where I typically bird.  The reference was a photo I took several years ago.

Bird Sketches - Redhead, Ruddy Duck, California Gull, Cooper's Hawk, Green Heron

I've been doing a lot of bird sketching (both in the field and from photos) lately, and so am posting a few of the most recent ones here.  These are all in a small Moleskine sketchbook (5 x 8.5") and done in colored pencils from photographs.

This one is of a Redhead, a type of duck found mostly in the eastern half of my home state, although a very few stray west of the Cascades during migration or in winter.

This fellow, a male (drake) Ruddy Duck is shown in breeding plumage, which in this species has the male sporting an almost ridiculously bright blue bill.  This species has declined in my area over the last couple of decades, so takes some searching to locate.

Next up is a California Gull, which is a summer resident in my home area, but which migrates south in the winter.  Unfortunately I hurried this drawing and missed a major field mark (which is already on the original) - that being a bright red spot on the lower mandible just a bit back from the tip of the bill. 

The next is a juvenile Cooper's Hawk, a relatively small hawk that preys on smaller birds.  This bird stayed around feeders I had put up at work all winter in his first year, and it was comical watching him try to become a proficient hunter.  I actually thought he wouldn't make it through the winter because he was so inept at catching other birds initially, but he made it through.

And finally, one of my favorite wading bird species - a Green Heron.  In this case, the bird in the image (from a photo I took) is a juvenile bird - you can tell due to the coloration and the markings on the breast and belly. 

 
 
 

Common Merganser

This bird was the most frequently seen waterfowl on my recent float trip in central Oregon.  It is a (female) Common Merganser, which is a diving duck that feeds on fish.  The long, serrated bill is adapted for grabbing and holding slippery fish.  These birds often perch on rocks and logs in the water in groups of a couple to as many as 15 or even more.  This one is painted in watercolor, using a reference photo from a field guide book.  The image here has a pink cast that isn't there in reality - I should have taken the photo in natural light during the day.  Photoshop color-balancing didn't completely fix the problem. 

Chestnut-backed Chickadee - Colored Pencil

Everybody loves chickadees, but many people don't realize that there are multiple species in North America.  One of the four species we have in my home state is the Chestnut-backed Chickadee, due to the chestnut color on their back and flanks.  These birds tend to hang around coniferous forest in preference to deciduous trees.

Belted Kingfisher - Gouache Sketch

This is another gouache quickie done in the Moleskine watercolor sketchbook, about 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches.  Done from a photo I took on Puget Sound a couple years ago.  This interesting species is smaller than a crow but larger than a robin (closer to the crow in size) and as the name implies, preys on fish.  One could probably guess that by looking at the bill as well.  They hunt fish by sight and are able to go into the water a short distance after an aerial dive to grab the prey.  They then typically take it to a tree branch, perch and whack the fish against the trunk or something hard to make sure it isn't going to wiggle around on the way down on in the stomach...!  They have a characteristic raspy rattling call that they make while working over their hunting territory.  This bird is a female, discernable because of the rust-color markings on the breast and belly.  Males are all white on the underparts, lacking the rusty red color.

Bird Sketches - Gouache

Here are some recent bird sketches done with gouache, in a Moleskine watercolor sketchbook, about 5.5 x 8.5 inches. 

This first one is a SPOTTED TOWHEE, a western species that is actually in the sparrow family that is a woods-dweller that is fairly shy.  Its contact note sounds like a cat's meow.

The next painting is a STELLER'S JAY - the western USA's 'blue jay' (the official Blue Jay is an eastern bird, and both are in the Corvid family).  These are aggressive, vocal and active birds, and also very handsome especially in direct sunlight illuminating their metallic blue top feathers.

The next bird is a goofy-looking shorebird called a BLACK OYSTERCATCHER.  They are almost all black in the body, with a seemingly ridiculous long and strong chisel-shaped red-orange bill.  This bill is used for prying open their prey - bivalves such as limpits, mussells, clams and oysters.  They live entirely on rocky areas on the ocean shores where there are tidal swings.  They do not dive underwater for food, so feed at low tide by scrabbling around on the rocks and finding bivalves to pry off and open.

The next image is an EASTERN KINGBIRD,  a type of flycatcher bigger than the Willow Flycatcher and similar species. 

And the final bird for this post - a TREE SWALLOW.  The swallow species are all friendly and beneficial birds that consume a lot of bugs.  I really like the metallic, almost irridescent blue on the upperparts of the Tree Swallow.

  
 
 

Bird Sketches - Colored Pencil

I've started keeping two bird sketch journals.  This one is a Moleskine 'large' (about 5.5 x 8.5 inches) sketchbook designed more for dry media than wet media.  The pieces I've been doing in there are usually 15 minute types of sketches, although in a few cases I'm spending more time.  Most (as with the ones that follow) are done in colored pencil, and specifically Faber Castell Polychromos pencils.  I like them better than the more common Prismacolors because the Polychromos are oil-based rather than wax-based and therefore do not have the wax 'blooming' issue that Prismas can have.  Also, if the 'lead' inside the Prismas breaks, you try to sharpen it and it continues to break off until you come to the internal break - which can mean you waste most of a pencil.

In any event, here are a few of the more recent bird sketches in the dry media bird sketchbook.

This is an AMERICAN COOT, a goofy species which has some unique and comical behaviors.  They have an ivory white bill and weird orangeish-green legs.  And, they 'moon' each other when defending their territories - rather comical.  Interestingly, though, they are one of a relatively few number of bird species that can tell if an egg in its nest has been laid by another bird (called 'brood parasitizing') and can also tell if a hatchling is not one of theirs.  Eggs and hatchlings that are not from the nesting pair are destroyed by the bird, something that usually does not happen in other species with brood parasitizing.  Coots lay so many eggs that it is rare for all of even the 'real' ones to survive and so that is the theory for why they are so oriented on destroying a competitive pair's eggs.

This cute little bird is a NORTHERN SAW-WHET OWL - a bird that is smaller than a robin, but still a fearsome predator for the correct size prey, as are all owls. 

The next one is a headshot drawing of a HOUSE FINCH male, a fairly common bird in many areas.

And the last one for this post is a WILLOW FLYCATCHER - which, as you would guess from its name, subsists solely on insects.  This bird belongs to the Empidonax genus, which is a notoriously difficult group to visually ID - birders rely on vocalizations in many cases for a positive ID.  This bird gives a wheezy/raspy 'sneeze' that sounds like FITZ-beewwww.

 

Female Red-winged Blackbird - Colored Pencil

This image was done in about 2 1/2 hours while watching TV in the background.  The reference was a photo I took near our house a couple years ago.  This bird is the female Red-winged Blackbird, which obviously looks very different from the male, which gives the species its name.  The females confuse people often since they look so different than the males.  I used Polychromos colored pencils for this and it was done in a Moleskine sketchbook, utilizing both pages - so it is about 8 1/2 x 11" total.  I was pleased with how this one came out.

Bird Sketches - Black-throated Blue Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, Ovenbird, Northern Waterthrush, Carolina Chickadee, Merlin

These are more bird sketches done on a quick east coast trip.  All were done in colored pencil in a Moleskine sketchbook - 5 1/2 x 8 1/2", taking between 20 and 40 minutes per sketch.  Several are east-coast species that we don't get to see out in the Pacific Northwest that I was able to see at Heinz National Wildlife Refuge (Tinicum Marsh) very close to the Philadelphia International Airport. 

These are done either using photos that I took as a reference, or referencing a field guide or magazine photo.

BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLER

MAGNOLIA WARBLER

OVENBIRD

NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH

CAROLINA CHICKADEE

MERLIN

 
 
 

Bird Sketches - Lincoln's Sparrow, Varied Thrush, Band-tailed Pigeon, American Goldfinch, Song Sparrow

These were all done as quick sketches, using colored pencil, during a quick five-day trip to the east coast and back.  These are all done in a Moleskine sketchbook, about 5 1/2 x 8 1/2" and each one was between 20 and 40 minutes.  Several were done in the airport or on the plane.  All used photo references, either photos I took of the birds or a field guide. 

LINCOLN'S SPARROW

VARIED THRUSH

BAND-TAILED PIGEON

AMERICAN GOLDFINCH

SONG SPARROW

 
 
 

Western Wood-Pewee

This is a 12 x 9" transparent watercolor done from a photo I took a couple years ago.  This species is a type of flycatcher, aptly named because its food source is insects which are caught in midair as the bird flies out from a perch to grab the bug.  It is common in WA state in the summer and its descending call of PEEEerr can be easily and frequently heard. 

Black-headed Grosbeak - Perched

This painting is a 14x10" watercolor done from a photo I took a few years ago.  This is a male bird - immature males and the females are the same basic pattern but less intense/bright colors. 

American Kestrel - watercolor

This painting is about 9x12" in watercolor with touches of gouache.  The American Kestrel is the smallest member of the falcon family in the US, and is one of my favorite species of raptors.  The painting was done from a photo that I took several years ago.  This bird is a female based on the coloration of its plumage. 

Red-tailed Hawk

This image is 10x8" in oil on canvasboard and was done in one sitting - about two hours.  I'm trying to get looser and more painterly with oils and so this was not done to try to be highly realistic.  The reference photo it was painted from was one I took several years ago of a captive bird at an avian rehabilitation center near Bend, Oregon.  This particular bird has a much more reddish-orange breast than most Red-tailed's coloration. 

Whimbrel Sketch - Watercolor

This is a quick watercolor sketch of a Whimbrel, a shorebird that I photographed several years ago at Tokeland, WA. 

Marbled Godwit

The Marbled Godwit is a shorebird species that winters on the Washington coast - specifically, they are traditionally found at the Tokeland, WA marina.  When weather and tides are right, several hundred of these birds can be seen within feet of the boardwalk at the marina.  This is a small watercolor study, about 5x7" on Arches watercolor journal paper.  It was painted direct, with no preliminary drawing, although I did do a pen sketch in a sketchbook several nights before this was painted. 

Red-breasted Sapsucker - Oil

This is a Red-breasted Sapsucker, a fairly common woodpecker in western Washington state.  The name comes from its feeding habits - this species drills 'wells' in a regular circular pattern around trees to cause the tree to secrete sap.  The birds feed on the sap, and also on small insects which become trapped in the sap.  Additionally, hummingbirds are known to visit and feed on sapsucker wells also.  This image is in oil paints, 9x12" on canvas board, painted from a photo I took a couple of years ago.  This is more of a 'study' than a finished painting - it was done quickly (1 1/2 hours) in one session - and has some areas I may clean up at a later date.  Or alternatively, I may paint this over again, taking additional time. 

Northern Pygmy-Owl

This is a 9x12" watercolor of a Northern Pygmy-Owl, a quite small but highly aggressive species that is a diurnal hunter. 

Skeena River Steelhead

This is a 9x12" watercolor (with a small amount of gouache) painted on Arches 140# watercolor journal paper.  It was caught (and released) by my doctor who provided a reference photo. 

Savannah Sparrow Feeding

This is watercolor, approximately 9x12 on Arches 140# watercolor journal paper.  It was painted from a photo I took at Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge in a spot of early-morning sun.  Sparrows are one of my favorite families of birds, despite the difficulty of identifying them (they're mostly all 'little brown birds'...!).  The Savannah Sparrow is an open-meadow habitat species, and one of the key field ID marks is the yellowish wash over the eye, although the degree of prominence of this field mark can vary greatly from individual to individual and within subspecies. 

Blacktail Buck in Lupine

This is another watercolor journal image, done on 10x13" Arches paper.  It was painted from a reference photo I took several years ago.  I was hiking on a suburban 'trail' when not just this one, but two bucks appeared.  The lupine was near its peak bloom and the bucks were both in velvet, so I shot away with the camera for a couple of minutes.  This was the best image compositionally, with the deer moving downslope and in mid-step, giving a lot of movement to the image.  I'm going to try painting this image more carefully in the studio as well. 

Western Scrub-Jay - Watercolor

My band played at a bluegrass festival held in Tygh Valley, Oregon in September of 2009.  The area has a lot of birds, and while walking around, I found this Western Scrub-Jay, conveniently atop a fence post not too far away.  I snapped a could of quick pictures and decided it would be a good subject to paint.  Overall, I'm pleased with how it came out. 

White-crowned Sparrow - Watercolor

This is painted from a photograph I took of this nice adult White-crowned Sparrow right outside our window.  The image is about 9x12" and was done in a morning.  It's one I may do more carefully and at a larger size down the road.  The legs are painted a bit too yellow/orange - this species has some pinkish tinge to its legs.  My reference photo was taken on a very bright day and so the sunlight showed the legs more yellow than they really are.

Red-tailed Hawks - Courtship Flight

This is a watercolor sketch, approximately 9x12", done for a friend at his request.  Red-tailed Hawks in courtship flight circle slowly and occasionally drop their legs from their normal tucked-in position.  The large bird here is a dark-morph Red-tailed Hawk, which are relatively common out here in the Pacific Northwest.

Bear Skull and Bear Headshot - Watercolor Sketches

These images were done in a watercolor class.  We first picked an animal skull from a museum selection and painted it to get an idea of the animal's anatomy.  Then we painted the animal's head itself - here the image used as a reference was obtained from a web reference source.  These were quick works and were a good exercise - I may do another series taking more time later. 

 

Cow Skull - Monochrome

This is a project done in an oil painting class, with a cow skull as the subject and the requirement to use only one color (Raw Umber) and Titanium White - a good exercise in utilizing only values (dark and light) to depict a subject.  It is 18x24" on canvas and was completed in about seven hours.  The fantasy background was done on a whim without a lot of thought - it seemed appropriate given the subject...

Bekka

This is a watercolor portrait of my yellow Lab Bekka, done from a photo.  She is 13 years old as I write this, but the picture used was taken four or five years ago - she's got more white and a narrower face now.  This is really the first portrait of any kind I've attempted, and I'm pleased with how it came out.