art, birds, nature

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

Me and Hemingway

Cedar Waxwings in Juniper Mokuhanga. Edition in progress with 2.5 blocks printed. Copyright 2025 by Ken Januski

When I was in high school, at least my recollection is that it was high school, I used to read The Paris Reviews hardbound collected interviews with authors. I must have gotten them from the local library. Anyway part of the interview with Ernest Hemingway struck me: he said he only stopped writing when he knew what he would write at the start of the next writing day. Who knows why this struck me other than that it was a specific method.

Today I am using that method but expanding it from a day to a year. I’m ending 2025 with 2.5 blocks printed for this edition of my new moku hanga ‘Cedar Waxwings in Juniper.’ I will print the other color on this block, thus finishing off block number 3 as well as blocks 4 and 5 in 2026. I will post something on the finished print then.

Monday, October 13, 2025

Wobbling Along

Yellow-rumped Warbler Sumi Brushpen Field Sketch. Copyright 2025 by Ken Januski

I hope it will be somewhat obvious that the theme of this post is warblers, affectionately know at least occasionally as wobblers. Like many birders it was the wood warblers of North American that got me truly hooked on birding. Of course most should really be called the wood warblers of the Americas, not just North America. As an artist, especially one whose history was that of large, bold abstract paintings that is how I approached warblers: bold and colorful!

There were a few minor problems with this, ones I've noted previously. The first was that I didn't know enough about the structure of birds to portray them accurately, especially if I limited myself as I did to my own poor photos and my visual memory. As a consequence many of my first attempts were colorful and bold but also skirted around bird structure as much as I could. The Canada Warbler above from 2009 is an example of this. A better example would be the watercolor I did of a Blackburnian Warbler seen and photographed at Shenandoah National Park that I used as the main image for my blog in its earlier years. I looked forever today and could not find it. And then the thought entered my head that I might actually have sold it. I think that is possibly true though it is a bit hard to believe just because it lacked so much accuracy thought not boldness!

Another problem I discovered early on was that I really didn't like the idea of a flattened space, almost design-like portrait of warblers, or really any bird. It sacrificed the bird for what by then to me had become an artistic cliche -- flattened space. That created another problem, what in the world was I supposed to put around the bird to fill up the space? Surely not all the details of surrounding vegetation!!

To make a long story short the recent opportunity via an on-spec commission of two Black-throated Blue Warblers for a wedding present allowed me to see attempt warblers once again but in a more finished work. That work is also above and was finished about a month ago. Also above a brand new field sketch from yesterday of one of a number of Yellow-rumped Warblers that were skittering all around and through some junipers yesterday, trying to escape the wind and also me. Finally a mokuhanga from about 3 years ago which is actually a new version of my very first mokuhanga which in turn was based on a watercolor I made of a briefly overwintering Nashville Warbler in our yard about 10 years ago. It is just one more example of the various ways in which I've tried to portray warblers over the years.

One of the reasons I accepted the commission was that I felt I'd learned a lot about the structure of both birds and warblers over the years and so wanted to see if that knowledge would appear in practice. Yes, to a certain extent. But the watercolor seems a bit overworked in ways, and has lost the sense of freshness that I most value in watercolors. But I also think it is the best finished watercolor I've ever done of warblers and is somewhat true to them. And I have to say the warbler that first set me off on warblers was a male Black-throated Blue warbler that appeared outside our cabin window around Montfair, VA about 20 years ago. So they are always special to me.

Over many years of both looking at warblers and portraying them I've also become much more interested in showing their movement than in showing the color and pattern of their plumage. That is something that I used in the Black-throated Blue Warbler watercolor but it is greatly subdued. All in all I think it will be much less subdued in most of my future work with warblers. Part of the reason is that they are living creatures, not fashion plates.

The images above are all from 2025 and are representative of my desire to capture a sense of movement in warblers and also to have a sense of liveliness. Overtime that sense of liveliness has come to dominate all other artistic desires, though with prints there is always the desire for an equally lively composition. Comparing these to the more finished Black-throated Blues at the top these come out on top. They are far more interesting to me, and far truer I think to the experience of seeing warblers. I do hope to return to warblers in mokuhanga hopefully combining something of these with the sense of a finished composition. They may be incompatible but we will just have to see what happens.

In any case I feel more and more confident about using warblers as subjects and will be making the most of the few that I can still see and perhaps sketch from life in the last weeks of possible warblers, at least where I live!

Monday, August 4, 2025

Is Visual Art Music or Literature?

I have finished the mokuhanga of the peregrine falcons of Manayunk and St. John's Church and wrote about much of their story in my last post.

But you might wonder how I ended up with this picture. I talked very briefly about it last time when I showed the pencil sketch that served as its basis.

After doing quite a few field sketches through my scope on two or three visits to St. John's Church I also made some watercolor sketches from photos I'd taken. After deciding to try to come up with an idea for a print I just got out a large sketchbook and came up with the drawing above.

What in the world is it? Well that's where the title of this post comes in. Many people prefer their visual art to be pretty literary, clearly illustrating an object or idea. The purpose of the art is very literal and any deviation from the literal is bad, at least in their minds. Others, especially in western European/American art from the 20th century on thinks of visual art as closer to music. It is abstract but wide-ranging it its emotional impact, like music. It is not limited by facts, visual or otherwise.

Of course visual art shouldn't be literature or music. It should be visual art, whatever that is. In any case as I sat down to make this sketch I just let a summary of my experiences viewing and sketching the peregrines over a week flow onto the paper. I hadn't really thought about this until recently. But I think this is a good explanation. It is just a visual recording of my experiences.

That means showing all the peregrines(actually 6 in all, 2 adults and 4 fledglings) but also their environment, the church and its steeples and roofs, the surrounding utility structures on which they often perched, and all my sketches of them perched in various locations. Even the food handoff from parent to child of a recently caught European starling.

Having spent most of my life as an abstract artist I feel perfectly free to make real objects abstract or to add the abstract and the more realistic. There is over 100 years of history now of this type of art. Still it probably bothers some. But I can't worry about them. As many people know art is first of all for the artist who makes it, perhaps not in terms of making a living from it, but certainly in terms of artistic satisfaction. So I'm quite satisfied with this. It mixes realistic and abstract as well as flatter more abstract space and deeper more atmospheric traditional space. I like that.

In the long run though it is also quite realistic in the sense that it recreates my experience over the week of watching the peregrines.

This is probably the most complex mokuhanga I've ever done. I'm sure many would say: 'Please, please, please start simple and then get complex. First learn the rudiments of mokuhanga and then get fancy.' It makes perfect sense to me but I just can't do it that way. I need to be motivated to make an image and then hope that I can master the technical aspects as I go.

But I would reiterate what I've said before: mokuhanga is a wonderful medium for making art. It has left me frustrated at some point in almost every print that I have ever made. But the rewards have far outweighed the problems. It is very hard to explain how much freedom you have with mokuhanga. A printing press with a million options right on the small table in front of the you. The main ingredient of the press being a handheld baren that can vary in price from around $50 to over $1000. But it weighs only a few ounces and can be repaired by you yourself. The chisels can last a lifetime. The paints are watered based and non-toxic. And you work on beautiful, often hand-made paper. Did I mention a rich history? I don't want to go on. I'm sure I break as many rules of mokuhanga and that tradition as I do of European/American art especially pre-20th century. But I find it an incredibly rich and enjoyable medium.

I have printed 12 of these so far, all on Nishinouchi paper. I plan to print at least 24 more and then will have to cull out the ones with minor blemishes. When that is all finished I will put them up for sale on Etsy.

Sunday, July 13, 2025

Preliminary Peregrines - A Six Week Story

It was about ten years ago or so that I learned that peregrine falcons were nesting quite near to our house, just down the hill towards Manayunk and the Schuylkill River. Oddly we found this out after nearly running over some birders who were taking up the road for themselves, quite oblivious to cars, at Heislerville WMA near Cape May in New Jersey. We ran into them, figuratively, later and mentioned that we lived in Manayunk. They told us about the nesting peregrines.

The first time we actually saw them was a year or two later when I was about to walk back up hill to our house, carrying my art work with me, after having exhibited for the first and only time in the Manayunk Arts Festival on Main Street. I'd only gotten a block away when I heard this shrill screeching. Peregrines! Later I learned that they were fledglings awaiting food from their parents.

They nested at St. John's Church for 10 or more years, with occasional replacement of one of the parents. Unfortunately I didn't visit them during breeding season any where near as much as I should have. At one point the male I believe was found dead possibly the result of a drone strike. I think that there may not have been a nest for a year or two. And then this year a new one with new parents was discovered by the person who has most closely monitored them over the years, Judy S.!

So I went down the hill a couple of times and tried to find them and sketch them through my scope. I also took numerous photos and videos but they were always a bit too distant. Below are many if not all of the field sketches I made during those visits, starting with the first. As I've said many times there is a thrill to field sketches and the actual process of sketching in the field that is absent from photography, at least for me.

After I'd done these and after a small celebration of local birders for another successful nesting season, with four juveniles(!), I decided to do some sketches for a possible new mokuhanga. Photos of the first compositional sketch as well as one of two preliminary digital sketches are also below.

At the top are the three newest proofs of all eight blocks. There are a few minor changes to make but very soon I will print a new edition. I should add that I haven't suddenly turned 'religious.' The crosses are part of the church. The other structures or fragments of structures are also from the surrounding area, and frequent perches for the six swiftly flying peregrines. I tried to capture all of that!

Thursday, March 13, 2025

Running To and From Line

I sometimes mention that I've been an abstract painter most of my life, though as I'm now in year 19 of naturalistic art and year 10 or more of printmaking that is starting to change. In any case in my artistic memory I remember when the only thing in my mind was pushing paint around and not paying as much attention to line. However drawing, which is primarily line, has also always been important to me.

It has seemed particularly important to me as a naturalistic artist, perhaps because there's more of a desire to capture the contour of things. In any case some types of printmaking lend themselves to line, like etching, engraving and perhaps lithography. And some do not. Carving into sometimes recalcitrant wood to produce a line is not the same as whipping a sumi brush pen across a piece of paper. One flows and the other doesn't.

Mokuhanga lends itself to shapes and color, but not really to painterly color. And though the expert professional carvers of the ukiyo-e period were incredibly accomplished in the sensitivity of the lines they could carve I certainly am not. And I think much contemporary mokuhanga, at least that I've seen in US, seems to favor shape and color over line. This is not at all surprising. Carving wood and getting sensitive, sinuous lines is quite difficult!!

My first notice of mokuhanga was contemporary work and that work focused on color and shape. I switched from linoleum block printing to mokuhanga partially due to my desire to abandon the oil-based solvents of so much of the ink I was using in linoleum block printing but also because I thought the colors of linoleum block couldn't begin to compare with the richness of the water-based color of mokuhanga prints.

Though I struggled mightily trying to learn mokuhanga on my own I immediately saw the rich color possibilities. But I also felt I wanted line in my work. I not only wanted it; I needed it. There had to be a counterpoint to the rich color areas! Just one problem: I didn't have sufficient carving skills to do that to my satisfaction. Much of my earlier moku hanga tried to find a way.

Often at the beginning of the year, probably because of often uninviting outdoor weather, I end up looking at the photographs I've taken over the year, taken for documentary reasons not artistic. I hate working from photos and rarely do. But this year I decided to work in sumi brush pen, wash from a waterbrush, and possibly watercolor as I looked through my thousands of photos. I really only wanted to notate ideas that the photos prompted in me. The fluidity of the brushpen, the ease with drawing washes out of their ink and the impossibility of erasure all gave me what I wanted: a quick sketch! The more I've done these, either in the field, or in my studio working from photos, the more I like them. They don't really remind me of photos but they're close enough to the subject portrayed to give me ideas about how to develop them in mokuhanga, or more rarely watercolor.

Again though there is that problem of line!!!! How could I get the same, often thin, sinous line from carved wood? Finally I decided to use the White-eyed Vireo sketch as the source of a mokuhanga. I sharpened all my chisels, cut more deeply and cleared out more deeply than ever before, and hoped for the best.

I am happy with my newest mokuhanga, at top, of the White-eyed Vireo. It has given me the bold line that to me just seems necessary to balance the rich color of mokuhanga. This print has also given me the confidence to consider some mokuhanga using warblers as subject, something I don't recall that I've done in print in many, many years.

Thursday, December 19, 2024

Running To and From Craft

Earlier this month I watched a nearly 5 hour long video on Youtube of David Bull with Taran Casey showing the live process from start to finish of a producing a mokuhanga. The focus, or multi-focus since there was a camera on each of them, was on carving. Though I think some people may be able to make mokuhanga prints without much carving for many people, including myself, it is perhaps the most important part.

And yet, for the mokuhanga prints from the Edo period, i.e. the ukiyo-e prints that are so famous, the artist was not the carver. The artist made the original sketch but there was also a carver, a printer and a publisher. I should add that I'm not at all an expert in any of this. But I don't think anything I'm saying is incorrect. But the carver was a professional carver just as the printer was a professional printer. Today with rare exceptions an artist making mokuhanga assumes all four roles. And he almost never is a professional carver!

If you look at prints from that time, especially original prints, you have to throw up your hands in surrender. You can never be as good as those carvers! Especially if you're also the artist, the printer and the publisher. But you can't help but admire them and learn from them.

In watching this video I did realize how incredibly much I have to learn about carving. The problem for me is that I'm not willing to devote the amount of time necessary to carve that well! There are too many other parts of art that are important to me. And yet I place great value on line in my prints and I hate to see the sinuous line of the drawing/painting that formed the basis of my idea for the print replaced by the choppy line of my poor, but greatly improved, carving!! There are parts of the drawing below, mainly the thin quick lines, that I cannot currently carve successfully. That makes it impossible for me to take up certain of my drawn and painted work as a subject for my mokuhanga, at least at the moment.

Thinking about craft reminded me of the similarity with my other artistic interest: birds. Though my artistic training is all in the fine arts, not in illustration, and in abstract art not representational art or wildlife art I now find myself making art that includes wildlife, especially birds, as its subject. As such I've looked at a lot of wildlife art, much of which leaves me quite cold, but much of which I also have to admire for its understanding of its subject. In other words I think there is also a craft to wildlife art, in the sense that it seems somewhat necessary to have some idea how birds in general and individual birds specifically are constructed. There is a certain knowledge and expertise involved in portraying birds or animals in a recognizable if not wholly realistic way. I admire artists who can do so, especially if their subjects retain a sense of life! I don't want to work that way or emulate them, but I do admire them.

So all in all I find myself both feeling a need to learn a craft, to run towards it, but also a need to avoid it at all costs, so that I don't get lost in knowledge and technique at the expense of art.

Or, as Delacroix says in his journal which I'm currently rereading: "But when something bores you leave it alone. Never seek after an empty perfection. Some faults, some things which the vulgar call faults, often give vitality to a work.”

It is so easy to go for an 'empty perfection.' To me that is about the worst artistic sin. On the other hand, as the recent video reminded me, it is also important to pay attention to craft. I wasn't trained to pay any attention to craft and I probably would have rebelled against it if I had been. But as I've made art over the years I've come to realize that 'craft' really is just the wisdom of earlier practitioners of the art I make, even if it differs stylistically. I hope to be able to use it more and more, but I also think that my 'vulgar faults' will probably always be with me and not be something I'm embarrassed by. I don't aspire to 'vulgar and vital' but it is always preferable to anything that also lacks vitality!

Tuesday, September 10, 2024

More Moku Hanga and 'The Natural Eye'

It's been so long since I finished my last moku hanga that I've already started a new one. That is only because, as I said in the last post, I didn't want to post anything more about moku hanga until I'd also posted about how important drawing from life and portraying birds especially, but really all of nature is to me. It is the other pole of my artistic interests.

At the top is my newest completed moku hanga, Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers at Houston Meadow. I am still trying to find my way in moku hanga but I think this is the most successful yet because I'm able to both be true to the birds but also be true to art. And it doesn't look like a photo. For whatever reason that has always been very important to me. Given the rich history of art why limit yourself to imitating photos. And of course why limit nature to looking like a photo as well. Nature is far richer than that.

For somewhere near 15 years I have applied to 'The Natural Eye,' the annual exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists held at the Mall Galleries in London. My very first attempt was about 15 years ago and was done because many of my favorite bird artists showed in it. I had no hope of getting in, not the slightest. I really only applied because I admired the work of members of the SWLA so much. So imagine my surprise when I found out that I had gotten in. There was then a mad scramble to figure out how to package and ship it there. And then the deadline for delivery to Mall Galleries had come and gone and it was still in Customs, something I was absolutely unfamiliar with. Soon my elation changed to despair as I realized it would probably not make it out of Customs in time for the show. And then I was informed that it had and was even emailed photos by Mall Galleries on my work on the wall, to counter I guess my disbelief!!!

In any case I've applied almost every year since except when a VAT number was first required. That's why I can't remember exactly how long I've been applying. If I'm correct the two works in second photo will be entrants for the 11th time in the exhibition. It is a cliche because I say it each year, but I am thrilled once again to be in!

Why is that? It is the quality of the work of course but what is it that I see in it? I see artistic adventurousness and a love of nature as well as a familiarity with nature. On top of that I see artists that don't settle for cliched views of wildlife subjects, or cliched methods of representation. So much of the work seems to exhibit a real attempt to portray wildlife freshly, to get some sense of the life, beauty, vitality of the wildlife and its environment. This is not easy. It is hard enough to even attempt it, but even moreso to become successful at it. Most wildlife exhibitions I see don't really even attempt it, in my humble opinion. It is so refreshing to see an exhibition of many, many artists trying and succeeding. I say most of this based on viewing the exhibitions each year online but also on having attended the 2018 show on almost every day of the 5-6 days that we were there. It was thrilling.

Above the two entries that were accepted into the show is my newest moku hanga. It shows the very first proof of the very first block. So there is much that will change. But I am trying to keep this one a bit simpler and a bit more quickly done. We shall see if that happens.

Monday, August 26, 2024

Celebrating(?) One Million Views

Well who knows? Over one million views of this 16 year old blog if I calculate correctly and if I can trust the statistics. When I started it I was much more conscious of things like page counts, etc., though because I worked in IT I was also skeptical of them.

Eventually I just ignored them. They're really not germane to much when you are a visual artist. Why put much stock in numbers unless they reflect actual sales? And even though sales are important they aren't my main motivation. But a million is a million so it seemed worth mentioning here.

As an unplanned celebration of that here are two quick sumi brushpen sketches from today. They are based on my own photos. I was looking through some recent ones and something struck me about each of them. And I wanted to get that down on paper, not left in my memory, to most likely be forgotten. So here they are. They may or may not lead to an another artwork.

Tuesday, August 13, 2024

Drawn to Drawing

Sumi brushpen field sketch of Downy Woodpecker on feeder.
Copyright 2024 by Ken Januski

Two pencil drawings of Willow Flycatchers and based on my recent photos. My intent was to just draw what I saw and then see if I could identify it as a Willow by just looking at the drawing. Copyright 2024 by Ken Januski

I have recently finished a new mokuhanga. But the last time I did so I posted about it but said that I felt bad about not writing a post about drawing and drawing from life and posting it first.

So to remedy that situation I'm posting all these drawings and sketches before posting about the new moku hanga prints. In my moku hanga I often talk about the composition, the orchestration of formal elements, the technique, etc., etc I do so because they are all important to me. But in doing so I don't mention how important drawing, especially from life, and capturing some part of life through drawing are to me. It is sort of the primitive counterpart to the more 'sophisticated' act of artistic composing. For many people I think they choose one or the other. I firmly believe in, and love, both. So without many words other than these here are some of my drawings of the last 3-4 months. Only one of them includes many details, that of the Willow Flycatcher. I did that because I wanted to see if I could identify the resulting drawing as a Willow if I faithfully copied my photo. I rarely do that. But I find that in carefully drawing what I see I often see what I had previously missed! It is more about observation than art. Most of the others focus on capturing a sense of the bird, especially of its shape and movement.

Thursday, May 2, 2024

New Page, New Editions

I eventually printed two more editions of the White-throated Sparrow moku hanga. Above are the photos. Each print on one paper is slightly different from the ones on the two other papers. This is not some clever, or not so clever, marketing ploy on my part. I just wanted to experiment. When I have culled out the rejects from the newest two editions I will put them up for sale.

I have now been using moku hanga for seven years and it has been my primary medium for five or so I'd guess. And yet I don't have a page for it on this site, just some examples on the woodblock page. So finally today I've made one! About time. It is listed on the Gallery section on right side of this page as Moku Hanga.

Recent Exhibitions

Sumi-Fusion Exhibition at The 4th International Moku Hanga Conference, Nara, Japan - December 2021
The Natural Eye - 58th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists, London, UK, October-November 2021
The Natural Eye - The 57th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists, London, UK - October-November 2020
The Natural Eye - The 56th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists, London, UK, October/November 2019
The Natural Eye - The 55th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists, London, UK, October/November 2018
The Natural Eye - The 53rd Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists, London, UK - October-November 2016
The Natural Eye - The 52nd Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wildife Artists, London, UK - October-November, 2015
The Natural Eye - The 49th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists, London, UK - November 2012
The Natural Eye - The 48th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists, London, UK - October-November 2011
Wild at Art - Three Person show with Melanie Fisher, Ken Januski and Lynnette Shelley, Manayunk Roxborough Art Center, Philadelphia, PA - November, 2012