John Muir Laws' Blog

Falling in love with Nature

Posted on May 19, 2013 by John Muir Laws

Love of nature is the spring from which stewardship flows. In contrast, disconnection from nature leads to apathy in the face of all environmental problems. A useful way to define love is sustained, compassionate attention. Paying sincere attention to, and developing a rich curiosity about others helps us to be kind. This attention takes work and improves with practice. Whether with a child, partner, student, or stranger this practice changes who you are and your understanding of your relationship.

I feel this same change when I turn deep attention to nature. When I was working on my guide to the Sierra Nevada, I painted nearly 3000 watercolors of the plants and animals I encountered. I found that it felt wrong to pick a plant, draw it, and leave it wilting by the side of the trail. By the time I was done drawing, a relationship had been forged between me and the the plant. Instead of picking a plant, I would sit beside it, draw it to scale, add my watercolor, then stand up, and fluff up the grasses where I had been siting. Toward the end of the six years of this work I found myself talking to the plants as I painted them and thanking them and the place I found them before moving on. I was, falling in love again and again with each species I encountered. This love now motivates me to be a better steward of nature and to connect with conservation and restoration groups to protect and preserve wildness and biodiversity. This work is not a burden because it is watered by love.

The practice of journaling draws us into a deeper relationship with nature. The observation and gentle, directed attention of keeping a nature journal is love. As you develop your own practice, I encourage you to be open to this aspect of the process. Let yourself fall in love and be aware of how it changes and moves you. Use it to empower you to stewardship, education, or a richer and more passionate relationship with the world.

Speed Drawing Birds II

Posted on March 31, 2013 by John Muir Laws

Have you ever felt frustrated and overwhelmed drawing birds that keep moving and hopping around? Me too. Here is a great approach to break it down and get that flighty fellow on the paper. The trick is to try to grab little bits and pieces of what you see, discrete observations, and record them on your paper, not as a head to toe drawing but as field notes. Focus on one aspect of the bird and zero in on it from different angles. For example you could focus on the shape of the Junco’s hood, sketching 10 or more little heads with the shape of the hood from different angles and positions. A sense of what the hood does will seep into your brain. Once you have got it, you can jump to another detail such as the angle made by the junction of the Junco’s head and its back. Look up, notice one angle and jot it down on your paper. Do this again and again. Now try the angles made by the legs and the body, angle of the tail, shape of the body when seen from the front (how much white, how much black) shape of the mass of the wings, or whatever catches your eye. Fill up a page with these little notes and doodles.

You can get confused if you watch the bird too long, the angles and shapes with constantly change. To manage this, open and shut your eyes like the lens of a camera. You will have one pose momentarily burned into your vision. Jot it down before the vision fades. On the opposite side of the spectrum, you will run into trouble if you look at your drawing too long. The answers to your puzzles are out there on the bird. If you spend most of your time looking down at your paper, you will get sucked into the world of your lines and follow them instead of the lines of the real bird. Do not feel bad if you can not keep a detailed picture in your brain long enough to draw the whole bird. My memory will hold on to a detail for about five seconds. That is not long, but long enough for me to get it on paper. Then I look at the bird again.

I also find it really helps me to stay focused to talk out loud to the birds, verbalizing my observations. When I hear myself say my observation, it locks it into my memory. As I draw, I often am found mumbling observations to myself (see blog post on deep observation). Try incorporating both sketches and writing in your field notes. Some things are easier to show with a drawing, some with written notes.

When you get a bunch of notes together, you may, if you wish, compile them to draw a complete bird. You will have plenty of great raw observations to help with this. But do not feel compelled to do so. The most important part of what you are doing is actually in those notes, not is a portrait of the bird which often becomes more about the drawing than the observations and the bird itself.

Now give these ideas a try with a flock of Juncos! I suggest opening the video to full screen view (click the zoom box in the lower right side of the video screen).

Video by Funkenbeachin.

Landscape With Markers

Posted on February 26, 2013 by John Muir Laws

You can make fast landscape studies with markers. Instead of dealing with all the colors, try a small set of gray markers (here I use Copic toner gray markers). Be careful, these markers will bleed through thin paper to leave marks on the next pages in a sketchbook. Try heavy paper or placing a blotter sheet below the one you are working on.

Click on one of the steps below to see the full size sketch and step-by-step instructions.

Lay in the light values with a pale gray marker. Leave a rim of light along the hilltops. Carve the shapes of the clouds with the same value.

With a marker of a slightly darker value, fill in the shapes of the distant woodlands, foreground shadows, and the tops of the ridges in the middle ground. Note that there is no edge on the background hills.

Block in the shapes of the foreground trees and woodland. Keep the outline of the clumps of vegetation irregular.

With a final, darkest marker, fill in the core shadows of the foreground trees. Leave a rim of the lighter value at the top of the trees to suggest backlighting.

Fast Sketching with Markers

Posted on February 23, 2013 by John Muir Laws

Markers are great tools for field sketching. They lay down an even area of tone. With a small set of shades of gray, you can produce fast value studies. The markers will quickly bleed through thin paper so either put a blotter sheet behind the page you are working on or sketch on heavyweight paper.

There are different types of grays such as cool, warm, French, or toner. Choose one type and use them consistently throughout the drawing. I like the warm and French grays. You do not need every value that they sell in the store but get yourself a selection of values.

marker value scale Fast Sketching with Markers

I like to start with lightest values and build up to darker values. Remember that you can never go backward, once the ink is down it is down. If you do not like it just laugh and go on to another sketch. You also can add whites back in with a jell pen or a sharpie paint marker.

Click on an image below to read the details for each step and see the full size drawing.

Start with the light values… With the sun on the left side of the bird, I sketched the shapes of the highlights and filled the shadow areas with a light gray “0″toner gray Copic Marker. Leave the highlights and sunlit areas white.

Add the water… Using the chisel tip of the “3″ Copic Marker, add the water with overlaping horizantal strokes. The solvent in the ink will stay wet for a moment and blend the strokes together, reduceing streaking.

Distant vegetation… Using vertical strokes, add the background vegetation with a “5″ Copic marker. Be careful around the edge of the egrets neck. Add a few horizantal strkes in the water to represent the reflection of the vegetation and the foreground wave shapes. These waves were created by using the brush tip to create a stroke that starts lighty, increases in pressure, then becomes light again. Try it on a seperate piece of paper before adding it to your drawing.

Foreground vegetation… Using the brush tip of a “7″ Copic marker suggest the shape of the foreground vegetation. Vary the lenth, angle, and spacing of the strkes so it does not look mechanical. Add a few dark shapes at the base of the grass where you might look deep into the spaces between clumps of grasses.

And a little highlight… Using a white jell pen, add light edges to spme of the grasses. Do not overdo it.

Rock Painting

Posted on February 3, 2013 by John Muir Laws

Here is a great idea that comes to us from the docents who lead nature education programs at the Bouverie Preserve in Sonoma County. They use nature journals with some of the students who come through their program. They grind their own pigments by finding soft colored rocks in a stream, rub the rocks on a hard rock with a little bit of water and then add color to their journals. You could do this anywhere you go, adding a splash of real color from the landscape. If you have a paintbrush or waterbrush you can control the painted shapes easily. Even if you are not using the color to paint a part of a drawing, you could make a sidebar of color found in the landscape around you.

Pages of a student journal colored with paint make in the field by grinding rocks in a little bit of water.

This is your brain on nature journals

Posted on February 1, 2013 by John Muir Laws

I was listening to an episode of Dr. Ginger Campbell’s Brain Science Podcast today about research on the aging brain (see BSP #87 ) and was fascinated at the link between this work and the benefits of keeping a nature sketchbook. Here are a few of the things that really got me thinking. Cognitive decline with age is not inevitable. Nature journaling is a great way to keep your brain fit, building new connections between neurons and strengthening those that already exist.

Neural plasticity: Your brain constantly lays down new neurons, yes even in adulthood. What we have to do us to use them so that they become incorporated into networks. If we do not use them, the atrophy. Nature journaling is active and dynamic and thereby great brain food. The more we practice it, the more we build up the neurons that support it. You literally rewire your brain by using it.
How we use our journal makes a difference. Use your journal as a platform to help you discover something new, even in a familiar object. Push yourself outside of your comfort zone by being intentional about recording your questions and delving into what you do not know instead of just reaffirming what you do. Seek out connections. Intentionally relate experiences and ideas. How is this related to that? For more on this see my blog post on the three prompts for deeper nature observation: I notice, I wonder, it reminds me of.
Cognitive training exercises may not transfer to meaningful experiences your everyday life. If you sit around training yourself to so some mind game, you will get good at it but there is not necessarily a cross over to helping you in other ways. If you are going to do something to strengthen your brain, why not pick something that also builds useful skills like… I don’t know… perhaps… drawing, writing, observing, or learning about biodiversity in your neighborhood?
Healthy heart and healthy brain: Your brain needs oxygen. Research shows that walking is a great way to exercise your heart. Incorporating walking in nature as a part of your journaling practice waters your brain.
Social stimulation is probably better than doing it on your own. What would happen if you went sketching with friends or family on a regular basis? Why not start or join a local nature sketching group? What would happen if you combine that with travel?

It’s a good podcast and will definitely get you thinking. If that reinforces your commitment and passion for nature journaling you may end up doing that thinking with an even stronger network of neurons!

Addendum: you may also be interested in reading The Dana Consortium Report on Arts and Cognition: Learning, Arts, and the Brain.

Remembering Rich Stallcup

Posted on December 18, 2012 by John Muir Laws

Conservation hero Rich Stallcup was a rare bird magnet and helped many of us realize what you can discover if you pay attention. While I was working on my Sierra field guide. I visited Rich with a pile of illustrations. He patiently went through them with me pointing out the subtlest corrections and suggested changes. As he did his stories began to flow as drawings triggered memories and anecdotes. He shared his knowledge, encouragement, and joy. In the field he was a wonder. It was as if rare birds were attracted to his pishing. He also got himself out into the field all the time. From all those hours with birds, he knew their ways and whiles better than anyone.

Rich was deeply committed to the preservation of nature. I think that came from a love that was regularly refreshed with time in the field. He fostered that love and stewardship in many of his students and his legacy is carried by the Point Reyes Bird Observatory which he helped to found. We will miss you dear friend.

Drawing Better Bird Shadows

Posted on November 11, 2012 by John Muir Laws

Albino birds- that’s the secret. When we look at pigmented birds, the patterns and values that we see are the made by both pigment patterns and shadow. If you take away part of that equation you will learn a lot about how shadows fall on the bodies of birds. Try a Google image search such as albino bird or albino sparrow and you will come up with thousands of results. Look carefully at the ways that shadows fall across the bodies of the birds in these photographs. The shadows do not just fade from dark to light but have shapes and clear boundaries. Sudden changes in light or shade often indicate a change in the angle of the planes that cover the body of the bird.

Many bird photographers prefer to shoot on cloudy days. Overcast skies provide lighting that deemphasizes the shadows and the filtered light gives more of a general illumination. Many of the photographs you will find show this kind of lighting. What shadow patterns do you see on photographs taken under these conditions? I was surprised to see a shadow along the side of the head above the auriculars (ear patch) on many birds. I had never noticed this before studying albino birds. I also noticed a heavy shadow on the lower belly and flanks where the body curves away from the wing. This shadow helps describe the curvature of the body. In many photos there is also a shadow between the primary and secondary feathers where the edges of the secondaries pile up.

You will find a smaller number of photographs taken on bright sunny days. These photos will show crisp shadows that are deeper in value than you see on overcast days. By analyzing photos from sunny days you will get an idea of how to depict birds under these lighting conditions. Once again, look for that shadow above the auriculars, on the flanks and undertail coverts, and edge of the secondaries. You may see shadows at the edge of the scapular feathers above the wing. Also look for crisp cast shadows on the bird’s perch, below the wing, or below the bill.

Copy a few of these photographs to train yourself to understand how shadows wrap around the body of a bird. Now look back at pigmented birds. What have you learned? How will this change the way you draw shadows?

Pied-billed Grebe: step-by-step

Posted on October 31, 2012 by John Muir Laws

Copying is a great way to quickly improve your drawing skills. It helps to be able to see the process that another artist uses. As you imitate the approach or even individual drawings of artists that you like helps you understand how someone else draws. You can then adapt those ideas for your own drawings. This will not make you a clone of another artist or stifle your creativity. Absorb what is useful and discard what does not resonate with you.There is a long tradition in the arts of copying drawings by other artists to learn their secrets.

Here is a step-by-step series of drawings in my process of painting a Pied-billed Grebe. I hope some of these ideas are useful in your own work. If so, leave a comment with your thoughts. You can click on the images at each step to see it in more detail. You may also drag the enlarged image of step one to your desktop, print it out, and use the printed version to experiment with painting techniques.

Step 1, Shape

A good line drawing is essential for a good painting. If your initial drawing does not have the right posture, proportions, and angles, no amount of painted detail will save it. Make sure your initial drawing is solid before you continue. The bird artist Matthew Dodder suggests making sure you have the expression (relationship between eye and bill, eye shape, forehead angle etc.) before moving on. Once the bird “looks back” at him, he knows he is ready to move on. I think this is good advice.

Step 2, Shadow

I like to lay in my shadow first. If I wait till the end, it will feel like an afterthought and I often loose the contours of the birds. In addition, painting the shadow on top of existing details may blur and distort them. Here I lay in my shadows with a mixture of Daniel Smith Shadow Violet and Black Tourmaline Genuine.

Step 3, Local Color

Once the shadow is dry I can paint over it without causing it to lift and blur. I add the body color quickly so as not to leave behind too many brush strokes. When using watercolor, it is easy to make things darker but hard to lighten paint that you have already applied. For this reason, many artists start with the lightest values and work their way toward darker colors. Bird artist Keith Hansen recently pointed out to me that the “corners” of the bird eye often show and that they typically are at a diagonal (here at 10 and 4 o’clock).

Step 4, Develop the Darks

Using Daniel Smith Bloodstone Genuine (my all around favorite dark brown), I build up the dark areas on the back with broad strokes. I also lay in details and line lines with a sharp brush. This part of the painting process feels more like drawing with a brush than painting. I hold the brush lightly and work the tip to draw the fine lines. On the flanks, my brush strokes are made from back to front, with a little flick at the end to make the brush mark taper towards the front. You can build up layers of darks, adding more paint on top of dry paint.

Step 5, Punch in the Black

I want a full range of value in this painting to show off the contrast between bill, and eye ring with the eye and the feathers on the chin. I push the dark values with Winsor and Newton Neutral Tint, my go to black. Make sure the layers below have dried completely to get crisp edges. When I work in my studio, I use a hair dryer to speed this process.

Step 6, Texture and Detail

I use a dark brown Verithin pencil to add feather texture with sets of parallel lines made in the direction that the feathers lay. I also use the brown pencil to crisp up the edges by strengthening the line around the edge. On top of this I add highlights and pale areas with a white Prismacolor pencil. Many of these lines transition from thick at the edge that will catch the most sunlight to thin. I make these marks by starting where the line will be thickest, wiggling the pencil back and forth above this starting point to make a wide mark, then flicking it toward the small end. These white pencil lines also follow the direction of the feathers and contours of the body.

What to do when the bird you are drawing moves

Posted on September 25, 2012 by John Muir Laws

What do you do when the bird you are drawing moves? Here is a video clip from a presentation at the Richardson Bay Audubon Center and Sanctuary at the opening event for my new book, The Laws Guide to Drawing Birds.