Daily – well, almost daily – sketches and paintings
“Birds of Praise,” gleanings from Teresa’s year of birds, is on exhibit at Phillips Gallery, 444 E 200 S, Salt Lake City, UT 84102 through May 12, 2022. Please join us for the opening, 6 to 9 pm, Friday, April 15. And if you can’t come in person, you can see many of the works here.
For background on the project, enjoy this short video. For best viewing experience, click full-screen icon, the little box in the lower right hand corner of the screen.
Click to View “Birds of Praise” Video
Starting a few months into the pandemic, I set myself a practice: to draw or paint a bird every day for a year. During that time, I also started training to be a hospital or hospice chaplain. Deep down, I knew that the attention that attended each drawing and painting related to my desire to enter into contemplative care. The connections have become clearer to me over time and will always, I hope, be in process.
“Birds of Praise” documents something of that journey. The title comes from the term the Irish poet, peace activist and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama coined for the “Amen” at the end of a prayer.
I started drawing or painting a bird a day on November 13, 2020 … and so today marks the 365th bird. I didn’t start out to do this for a year, but around the 60th or 70th bird, it seemed like a good idea. I’ve turned to peacocks to mark landmarks in this journey before, so it seemed appropriate to choose a white peacock for this final day. The white peacock is rare but not an albino. Unlike in albinos, its eyes, beak and feet are pigmented. A genetic mutation called leucism causes the feathers, yellowish at birth, to turn pure white with age. In parts of India, they symbolize unconditional love, which seemed a good note on which to end this year of birds, which is perhaps more accurately deemed a year of falling in love with birds…
Spirit bird, trickster, jokester, and, for us with our small orchard of pioneer pecan trees, a willing harvester…I love these birds!
Almost exactly a year ago I started drawing the ravens in our big pecan trees. As the trees turn, the pecans are getting good, and the ravens are happy …
We almost lost the California condor, the largest bird in North America. By 1982, there were only 22 left in the entire world. A captive breeding program and then careful reintroduction to the wild have restored their population to over 400, a portion of which live in northern Arizona and southern Utah, and are often seen a few miles from my home near Lava Point and Angels Landing in Zion Naitonal Park. They are stunning in flight but a bit spooky when perched. Like their cousins, the turkey vulture,they feed on carrion, a great service in cleaning up road kill and other carnage. Both are in the family Cathartidae, which comes from the Greek word for “purifier.”
After yesterday’s lazuli bunting, which could fit in the palm of your hand, the American white pelican is one of the largest flying birds in the world–second in North America only to the California Condor. An adult female can weigh up to 30 pounds, as compared to a bald eagle, which seldom tops 12 pounds (really, they are that lightweight.) Pelicans look so awkward, especially when they are walking, but they can soar!
I’ve never seen a lazuli bunting in the wild, even though they breed in southern Utah, where I live. They are such little jewels of birds — their scientific name, Passerina amoena, means beautiful sparrow. This drawing is based on a photograph by the Oregon wildlife photographer Terry Steele.
Another peregrine. Historically, falcons were given to visiting dignitaries or from one royal to another, perhaps because the are so royal themselves.
Every time I focus on a bird I thought was familiar, I learn the most amazing new things — like the fact that the peregrine falcon is the fastest creature on earth, reaching speeds of over 200 mph in its dives.
Southwest willow flycatcher. If you are fly fishing and it occurs to you that the mosquitoes are not as bad as you feared, these little guys may well be the cause.
Zion National Park was designated as critical habitat for the endangered Mexican Spotted Owl in 2004. Although they are usually found in forest habitat, they do well in the shadowed canyons where they blend into the rocks and have plenty of ledges and outcroppings to perch on as they watch for deer mice and voles and other rodents. This drawing was based on video taken by Zion Ranger Mark Ratchford in 2020.
As I look at endangered and threatened birds in Utah, I realize I need to start with a bird that is now extinct, but once flew over Utah skies in unbelievable numbers, as it did across much of the States and around the world: the passenger pigeon. Estimates of their population in the early 19th century are as high as five billion, and dense flocks a mile wide and two miles long took hours to pass; in 1914, the last passenger pigeon in the world, Martha, died in the Cincinnati Zoo. Their sudden decline and ultimate extinction, witnessed in real time, was the start of a widespread concern with bird populations. This piece is based on a photograph of preserved specimens at the Field Museum of Natural HIstory in Chicago, photograph by Marc Schlossman. And the colors are inspired by Audobon’s portrait of the tragic birds.
As I enter my last couple weeks of “My Year of Birds,” I want to focus on endangered, threatened, and sensitive birds seen in Utah…. Tonight, a Bendire’s Thrasher, a secretive little desert bird who often hangs out on the ground, and whose survival is threatened by a changing climate and loss of habitat. This wee portrait inspired by a photograph by Amy Hunt, posted on Flickr.
Chickens are both so quotidian and so mysterious…
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Yesterday’s bird was just a bit too garish, so here is a second stab at it… and this one is settling a bit better for me.
I kept trying to get a version of this quirky fellow, but couldn’t get my inks right, or perhaps I just hadn’t seasoned the paper enough. None of them turned out well. But I am having fun modifying those not-very-satisfying prints. I got a little carried away with color here, but if you can’t be gaudy on occasion — well, who’s writing the rules, anyway?
I did several versions of this “Tango Flamingo.” This was at the end of the day, on a scrap of paper that was too small for the plate, and with the last of the day’s inks. And I think it is my favorite…
Our grandkids are with us—Juni, 3 and PJ, 8. PJ and I like to collaborate on birds. I will draw a simple outline and he will paint, and tonight we did a blue-footed booby and a cardinal. I love the looseness of his paint strokes and the vitality they bring to form. I asked him about his signature chop and he told me it means “bird artist.”
This didn’t start out as a ghost print, but rather as one where the paper didn’t take the ink well. I liked the image and decided to try to save it by painting over it. It came out with a sort of medieval tapestry feel, or perhaps a tweaked flare of the early renaissance… The original print is below.
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I’m just beginning to play with the ghost prints… Not sure why I thought the combination and pastel and ballpoint pen sounded like a good idea, but it was fun to play with. And I learn as much from my disappointments as my delights. To be honest, I’m not yet sure which this is …
This is a ghost print from yesterday’s “dark night,” worked over with a bit of sumi ink on paper never meant for sumi…which brings an interesting texture to things. And in the end created a certain underwater look…
I think flamingos are more into tango than flamenco…
Monotype …
More monotype … working on Magna Pescia buff paper, which gives such a warmth to the tone…
I love the marks that you can get with monotype…
I haven’t worked on the etching press in a very long time. It’s great to be experimenting with monotypes again!
Found some hand-made paper at the studio today… what fun!
