Speaking of Art Blog

That second line, “And sorry I could not travel both…” is really the theme of this post. As of late I’ve been rendering a lot of feathers in the form of pastel bird portraits. It’s been fun. But as I completed my latest pastel, Shy Little Saw-whet, of a Saw-whet Owl that I witnessed getting banded last fall at the IN Dunes State Park, I was made keenly aware of the basic difference between rendering feathers and fur. My contemplation of the basic differences actually helped me as I worked on this piece. This blog post is about what I noticed.

First, it occurred to me that fur is referred to as a coat, while feathers are not. In fact, in the birding world according to my bird watching husband, feathers are referred to by each particular group of feathers, like the tail feathers or the secondary wing feathers. Each kind of feather serves a different purpose for a bird in flight.   With fur, even if it is all different colors on one animal, there is still one basic underlying color that brings about a unity in the coat as a whole. In contrast, feather groups not only have different colors in many instances, but they also have distinctive patterning, with each kind of feather exhibiting a different pattern. It’s almost as if we can faintly see the bone structure underneath the feathers as we view the various patterns. With fur, we’re not seeing that structure, only the outer coat.

So when an artist goes about beginning an animal or bird painting, they might start by blocking in basic shapes and colors, but after that point the two roads diverge. Then the artist must choose – will it be about an animal or about a bird? Really can’t be both after that point. With fur, the feeling of one coat must come through, while with a bird, the suggestion of various separate feather groupings must be emphasized. Yes, both can appear soft, but that’s where the similarity ends.

Here are some different bird and animal artworks I’ve done, that illustrate my points.

  Red-bellied Woodpecker                                

  Golden Eyes

  Hawkeye                                                         

  Oreo

It’s a furry-feathered jungle out there. But at some point the artist has to choose one road or the other, pattern or coat, in order to see their way to the completion of a believable piece of artwork.