Celebrating(?) One Million Views

Sumi brushpen sketch of Least Flycatcher. Based on recent photo by myself. Copyright 2024 by Ken Januski/

Sumi brushpen sketch of Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. Based on a recent photo by myself. Copyright 2024 by Ken Januski.

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. 

Drawn to Drawing

Watercolor studies of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers based on recent photos. Copyright 2024 by Ken Januski

Numerous watercolor studies of Solitary Sandpipers based on my photos. Done over 3 days. Copyright 2024 by Ken Januski

Sumi brushpen field sketch of Solitary Sandpiper. Copyright 2024 by Ken Januski

Sumi brushpen field sketch of Spotted Sandpiper. Copyright 2024 by Ken Januski

Sumi brushpen field sketch of Spotted Sandpiper. Copyright 2024 by Ken Januski

Watercolor sketches of Least Sandpipers from my photos. Copyright 2024 by Ken Januski.

Watercolor sketches of Least Sandpipers from my photos. Copyright 2024 by Ken Januski.

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

Watercolor sketches of Common Yellowthroat. 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.