Cape May Field Sketches - Part Five

American Coot at 'The Meadows.' Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Unusual circumstances found us back in Cape May, NJ for the second time this fall, not a bad place to be of course. Though it's always tempting to reach for the camera first, especially for rarities, I tried to force myself to first reach for the sketchbook.

With the exception of the one more developed pencil sketch of a Cattle Egret and Ring-billed Gull all of the sketches are done with various brush pens. After a week of such drawings I was more firmly convinced of how much I like them and how I ought to stick with them.

They of course don't offer the detail of pencil or ballpoint pen but they do offer the sense of fluidity and spontaneity. This is more important to me and is much more likely, at least for me, to lead to a more developed print or painting.

The one more developed sketch by the way was more developed only because the Cattle Egret was so cooperative alternately strutting and meandering around the lawn adjacent to the Cape May Point State Park parking lot. I was able to sit on a bench set up my scope and sketch him. Of course he didn't sit still but I was eventually able to see him enough times in one more or less similar position to do the pencil sketch. When he disappeared I turned to the far more stationary gull.

Cattle Egret at Cape May Point State Park. Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Cattle Egret at Cape May Point State Park. Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Cattle Egret and Ring-billed Gull at Cape May Point State Park. Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Eastern Phoebe and Yellow-rumped Warbler in Cape May. Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Immature Hermit Thrush at Rea Farm. Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Long-billed Dowitchers and Killdeer at 'The Meadows.' Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Long-billed Dowitchers. Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Long-billed Dowitcher and Yellow-rumped Warbler. Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Long-billed Dowitcher at 'The Meadows.' Field Sketch by Ken Januski.