Small Bird Paintings By Ken Januski

Ken has used watercolor as his main medium since 2006, when he took it up after many years absence. He began using birds as his primary subject matter at the same time. He prefers not to work from photos since there's an incredible loss of connection with the subject matter. He was reminded of this recently while reading the wonderful book "Drawing Birds" by John Busby. Examples there frequently show the added vitality that is evident in work done from life. Nonetheless Ken has done little art work from life recently. All of the works here are based on photos that he took. These are just his smaller watercolor sketches. The newest one, Greater Blackbacked Gulls, is intermediate in size. His larger and more developed watercolors are also online. Over the last couple months of 2008 he has begun sketching birds from life. Many of them can be seen at his blog. This new work from life should eventually lead to some paintings from life.

The Greater Blackbacked Gulls were seen from 'The Osprey', a pontoon boat that traverses the waterways of Cape May, in September, 2008. The Wild Turkey and Warbling Vireo were seen at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge(Tiniucm) on Memorial Day weekend, 2008. The Veery with white spot was seen at Shenandoah National Park in May, 2008. The Palm Warbler was seen at Oakdale Nature Preserve in Freeport, IL in late April, 2008. The Cooper's Hawk was seen in his Philadelphia backyard in 2008. The Blue-Headed Vireo, Blackburnian Warbler and Veery were seen in Shenandoah National Park in May, 2007. The Pine Warbler was seen, amidst a flock of 10-20, at Wissahickon Creek in Philadelphia, on Easter, 2007. The shorebirds were seen at Nummy Island near Cape May, NJ, in the fall of 2005. This was Ken's first watercolor in about 20 years.

'Greater Blackbacked Gulls', 11x15, watercolor.