This week, New York Times Summer Birdwatching ProjectWe invite birdwatchers of all experience levels to try drawing birds. This can be done from life or photos. Try to make at least one sketch in the next week using your preferred medium. Please share with us by emailing Birds@nytimes.com.
You don’t have to spend hours polishing your illustrations (unless you want to). Widely Popular Sibley His Fields David, master illustrator of his guides David Sibley As his Sibley explains in the interview below, perhaps the most important aspect of drawing a bird is how it changes the way you see it. I can’t.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Do you have formal training in illustration?
No, I’m self-taught.
Let me tell you, I don’t consider myself an artist as much as a scientific illustrator. All I’m trying to convey is the details of the bird’s shape, posture, color and pattern. The outline is the most important part. If you get it right, everything else will fall into place, just like a coloring book.
How often and where do you go birding?
I am lucky to live in a place where I can now go out and walk in the woods and around fields and go bird watching. But I always think about birds. I listen and observe through the window or along the road. No matter where I am, I always observe birds.
Do you think technology will ever replace illustration in the world of birdwatching?
I wondered about that. i don’t think so. Illustrations offer more than photographs. Illustrations can be a typical bird, some kind of average bird in the pose you want, or an image of a similar species in the exact same pose so that all the differences are apparent. can. and control lighting and color. You can’t understand it in the pictures. A photograph is always a record of a bird at a certain moment.
One of my concerns is that the art of illustration will disappear. I’m afraid that there will be no incentive for someone to take the time to learn a subject like this and be able to produce illustrations. I doubt there is a similar motive. . There is a truly deep and personal satisfaction and reward in taking the time to observe, study, and understand how to draw birds.
How did spending so much time drawing birds and ruminating about them shape your understanding of the natural world and birds?
It really shaped my way of thinking about everything. Drawing is a way to slow down and look at something, and drawing also allows us to record what we think we see. It’s nothing like the pictures. It’s your interpretation of what you see.
To be good at drawing, you need to improve your technical skills, but even more important is understanding your subject matter. Your drawing will record your understanding of the bird at that moment. Drawing this way can help you become a more thoughtful observer.
