Why birds?

I have got the question "why do you paint birds?" quite a few times over the past few years, and my usual answer is; because I like birds and I have so many ideas I still want to try out. This is of course a short answer and not very informative. For those of you who have followed my blog know that I tell my stories more through a lot of pictures than with a lot of words.

Now however I thought it was time for me to elaborate a little bit more on the topic, and I am writing this post as much for my self as for you!

I have never been able to speak insightful or 'intelligently' about my work, the reasons for why, or my passions behind it all. Maybe because I have always been afraid that my reasons would be found lame, that I would sound naive and not be met as an serious artist. Well, I guess I don't care any more. I have to believe in myself as an artist if I want others to see me as an artist. And then it should not matter   how naive or corny I sound, because there will always be people who like my work, and people who won't. Art is and always will be a matter of taste anyway!

So, why do I paint birds?

My fascination for birds started early in my life at my grandmothers kitchen table. We would sit looking out the window watching the birds at the bird feeder while drinking tea, discussing the different birds and I would get a full rapport on who had visited the feeder that morning. It was such a simple and pure joy.

There were not that many different species that came to my grandmothers feeder, but we got to know those who came quite well. If the food was gone some birds even came to the window looking in and picking on it like they were saying 'hey there, where's the food?'
It was fascinating how they all had their different personalities and behavior. The Great tit and the Blue tit who just took one seed at a time, flying higher up in the tree eating it, and then returning for another. Up and down, up and down. Fast and a little 'nervous'. Then you had the Green and Yellow finch who chased everyone else away when they came, sat at the bird feeder like in a big comfy chair and ate until they were finished without any hurry at all. The woodpecker and even occasionally the Eurasian jay who came only when there were no car traffic at all on the road before the house. The graceful Common Pheasant who came and ate what the smaller birds dropped on the ground, and the squirrel who treated the bird feeder as his own personal buffet.
I started painting birds and wildlife since that time.

I did have a period when I only painted forest scenes and landscapes, but for 6 years now I have almost exclusively been painting birds.
Below are two examples of landscapes: the first is one of my own favorites: 'Silence', 2006 Oil on canvas, 60x100cm if I remember it correctly. The second is the Finnish archipelago, oil on canvas and only 20x20cm.

That was pretty much the reason behind 'why', then we have the 'how' left…

When I first started painting birds I painted them with a 'normal' background, the animal in its real surrounding. I was never happy with the result, and I never liked how my backgrounds turned out. For some reason the background distracted from the bird, and I wanted the focus to be on the beauty and personality of the bird only. It was in 2008 during my masters studies that I found a solution to this. I started experimenting with different backgrounds, and ended up turning to mixed media and painting totally abstract paintings as background for my birds. I even painted birds straight on fabric with a nice pattern, leaving the fabric as the background.

'Raven' 2008 Book pages, acrylic and oil on canvas, 150x150cm. My first ever painting where I covered the canvas in book pages before starting painting. I loved it, and have never looked back.

'Flight of the hawk' 2008 Oil on fabric, 88x120cm. Here I stretched my old bed sheet over a canvas and had an instant background that I loved, and then proceeded with just painting the buzzard in oil on top of it. And yes, I named it wrong, but I was unsure at the time what kind of bird of pray it was.

As time has gone by I have continued to experiment with my backgrounds. For the moment I use a lot of collage with music, poems and my own writing, as you know. I only use material that is relevant to me in some way or another, so I fill the backgrounds with my favorite poems, swedish songs, pages from the books I have read, old family letters, and so on. Living in China has given me the opportunity to buy Chinese books and poems to use in my collage, and that will change to other languages in time as we move to other countries for my husbands work.

Below is the latest painting that I finished. 'Summer sunday' The sparrow is as usual painted in oil on top of a collage. Reference photo my own!

Birds are amazing and fascinating, and I like painting beautiful things. It really is as simple as that! 

*big smile*