Our First Project: Painting Birds

I’m warm because I’m sitting in the sunlight, but it’s coooold out here: 20 F this morning (there’s no wind). The Red-Bellied Woodpecker that is supposed to be in Florida is still here. Can it really be our bird feeder that keeps him here? The day before yesterday I believe I saw a new bird: a Slate-Gray Junco, but I’m not sure. In any case I get pretty excited about it, and Amie caught on.

We spent most of that day and yesterday watching the birds at the feeder (through the living room window), talking about them, listening to their songs “in” this book, and looking them up in the bird guides, mostly Sibley’s Field Guide and also a big book with Audubon’s original watercolors.

Then I said: I’m going to draw that Junco in my art journal. All the while as I drew it, I talked about how the bill is yellow, and the legs grayish and look at those claws and what a small eye that is, and is this the right shade of gray? Amie was hooked.

First she wanted to copy the (made-up) owl I had drawn in my journal earlier (to the right in the picture above). She’s very into water colors now. One of the attractions is that I let her use them all on her own. The acrylic paints are in big bottles and when mixing them even I spill them all over, and they’re of course not so easy to clean up. But the watercolors and water bottle are all hers. I will look out for a nicer set of paints for her. Right now we use a $2 set from CVS.

She drew the big owl in felt pen and spelled the word O W L for me to write. I encouraged her to make it big, to add some legs (how many? two legs and two wings?), and helped by water coloring  in the left wing. The rest is all hers. It is such a powerful image! And then she spontaneously drew that little bird next to it. Can you see it? I was so surprised! She must have been paying very close attention to my more realistic drawings.

Then she wanted to draw the Robin and the Cardinal. We selected a new art journal for her from my stash. The earlier one didn’t work out because the paper is colored and lined. This one is a real sketchbook, “Like yours, Mama!”. This one too is a collaborative effort, though: just like she often draws in my art journal, I (when asked) will draw in hers.

We looked really closely at the birds in Sibley’s guide, which  features not pictures but paintings (which might be easier to copy?). Amie then requested that I draw the bird and she color it in (bird on the right below). While we worked we talked about the look of the birds’ shapes and colors, even what it would feel like to hold one in our hand, how small and soft and scared it must be, and maybe we could feel its heartbeat… We used a lot of words, tried to make our descriptions more accurate, and blended a lot of senses and experiences.

Then she drew and colored in the Robin on the left.

We talked about how it looks very much like a baby bird, with little wings, and a big eye. Notice the claws: she was surprised and impressed that birds have claws. We discussed how they need them to climb and live in trees. We took care to name the bird: Robin is its last name, Tom its first. We also practiced some reading and spelling while we were at it.

We came back full circle when she noticed her “owly-bank owl” observing our doings on the window sill. She wanted to paint that as well.

The painting you see in the picture isn’t finished. She was tired after an hour of painting birds. But she was by now paying such attention to the shape of the object that she was almost drawing blindly: that’s why the lines don’t hook up. It was amazing to see!

In the evening Amie returned to the birds and draw a Cardinal:

For all of this I am of course getting lots of information and inspiration from the Camp Creek Blog. And DH managed to download Comstock’s Handbook of Nature Study, and it arrived at the library for me, so we’ll be following the Handbook of Nature Study blog challenges as well.

I hope Amie gets a lot out of this: fun (first of all!), relaxation, skills to express herself in drawing and painting, language and observation skills, and an understanding and love of nature.