Since the beginning of modern ornithology, there has been a strong connection between birds and art. Art was used to document and illustrate new species and art still plays a major role in modern day birding and its culture. I’m sure many of you own a field guide or two, chances are, those field guides are full of hundreds of illustrations. Even if you’re not really a person who would normally be considered to be an art aficionado, you can probably even name quite a few bird artists, Sibley, Peterson, Fuertez and of course, Audubon.
As a birder and artist myself, I have always been fascinated by past bird artists, how they are all connected and how they shaped modern birding. One artist and their work that I am sure all of you are very familiar with is John James Audubon, famous for his large as life art featuring hundreds of bird species found across the Country. While he himself is considered controversial, there is no denying that the artwork and discoveries that were made from his art are incredible and have greatly shaped the trajectory of bird art and birding history.
I will be going over the creation of Audubon’s Birds of America, and its influence on my current art project.
In 1820, when Audubon was 35, he started the work he would become famous for and announced his plan to paint every bird in North America. He soon set out across America, in a time where the extent of America’s birdlife wasn’t really fully documented, and much of the country was still unexplored. To put it in perspective, Lewis and Clark set out on their expedition just 16 years earlier. From Labrador, Canada in the north, to Key West and the Everglades in the south, from the eastern coast to as far west as the Dakota Territory, Audubon traveled the country in search of birds. Each new bird he encountered, could be new to science, so many hundreds of birds were shot and collected, not only by himself, but others helping him in his pursuit to paint all the birds of North America.
With Audubon’s method of getting references for his paintings, you have to remember, this was a time before you could look up a picture of the bird in a book, or scan the internet for reference photos. So while the shooting of the birds for his paintings is definitely not acceptable, or legal by today’s standards, it was what had to be done to get looks at the birds. Binoculars as we know them today weren’t invented until 1823 and probably weren’t widely available for some time and cameras weren’t available to most until 1888. It’s not until much later that it became a more common place for artists to use photos to create their artwork.
Once Audubon had his specimens, he used a new technique that would allow him to get birds in more lifelike poses than he would otherwise be able to, using wires and pins to pose each specimen how he imagined based on his observations from out in the field.
After each bird was prepped and mounted, they were then posed in front of a background that was carefully marked out into squares. These squares allowed accurate life size measurements, and proportions to be effectively transferred from his display, to the paper. Once each bird was posed to his approval, he would start out with a quick outline sketch on the paper, which measured 30×40, the largest paper that was available to him. This would allow him to make each species life size, even the largest of birds. Once the outline was complete, it was transferred to the final paper. From there, Audubon would add detail after detail, down to the structures of the feathers. While at the time, oil paint was considered the go to medium of professional artists, Audubon instead turned to watercolors and pastel crayons, occasionally also using pencils, charcoal, chalk, gouache and pen and ink. Each painting was also attempted to be completed as soon as possible, while the bird was still fresh, his largest birds took up to two or three days to draw.
When doing this work, he was often far out in the wilderness, so after he finished his drawings, he often cooked and ate his specimens, writing a description of how many of them tasted in his companion written piece, the Ornithological Biography. This was a companion piece to his art and provided detailed written accounts of bird observations and descriptions, as well as personal anecdotes and comments on the habitats and behaviors seen by the birds he illustrated.
The artwork in Birds of America, usually completely attributed to Audubon, wasn’t actually all completed by him, he had several people assisting with the creation of his work. For example, in 50 of the paintings, the backgrounds and plant life was painted by one of his assistants, Joseph Mason, who for the most part didn’t get the accreditation for his work, as well as his role in collecting many specimens and maintaining supplies for Audubon. George Lehman was also hired to draw some of the perches and background detail for Audubon’s work. Some of the details in the paintings, specifically insects, were done by Maria Martin Bachman. There is also at least one bird that was drawn by someone else entirely, John Woodhouse Audubon, John James Audubon’s son.
Soon after he started his grand project, Audubon traveled to Philadelphia and New York to look for funding for his work. He looked into the use of subscriptions to fund it by selling the prints from the copper engraving plates through a subscription basis in both North America and Europe. Each subscriber would receive five prints at a time, containing three small birds, a medium sized bird and a larger bird. Audubon would give each group of 100 plates a title page, with 134 in the final group, where many subscribers ended up binding them into four sets. It ended up costing each subscriber about $1,000, which is about $34,000 in 2025, for the 435 plates along with his accompanying text, the five-volume Ornithological Biography. It is believed that about 200 people eventually subscribed to receive five plates at once, several times a year.
Due to the size of his paintings, Audubon also struggled to find an engraver to tackle the task of etching and printing from these massive pieces of artwork. Not only was the size intimidating, but to create these prints would cost quite a bit of money, many potential engravers and printers doubted Audubon would be able to pay for the service.
It seems when he first started trying to get funding for the project, he might not have been very successful in the eastern cities, as by 1826, he had set sail for the United Kingdom with 250 of his original paintings. While there, he also was in search of engravers and printers for his work. Here, he met the engraver William H. Lizars, who engraved 10 of Audubon’s first plates, but was not able to complete the collection. After Lizars, Audubon then started working with Robert Havel, Senior and Junior, who stayed with the project until its completion in 1838.
This series of prints, often called the Havel addition, was more commonly known as the Double Elephant Folio. The term Double Elephant Folio is actually a specific sized paper, and is most known from Audubon’s work, this folio is a standard-sized handmade paper, measuring 28.5 by 39.5 inches, used by printers, libraries and other groups. This was the largest standard print size available and was needed to accommodate Audubon’s largest birds, and even then, several had to be illustrated in odd ways to have those fit within the borders of the page; this can really be seen when you look at species such as the Flamingo illustration.
After the paintings were complete, they were sent to Havel in London, where they were carefully and meticulously transferred to copper plates. Each detail was engraved into the plates, so shallow and fine they look like they were printed onto the plate. Once the copper plates were finished, black and white prints were created from them. From there, about 50 colorists, primarily young women, would each fill in a different color to the print using aquatint coloring. Color after color, different colorists would each add their own color in an assembly-like style, until each print was completed. Afterwords, a master colorist often made small final changes to each, causing each print to be slightly different.
Once completed, Audubon’s bird of America would be composed of 435 different paintings, representing 489 species. His Birds of America was an historical documentation that helped establish species and their field marks, making them known to people not only in North America, but across Europe as well. While he did not truly document all the species in America, it still was an incredible feat, then, and now. His work was considered revolutionary, changing how birds were illustrated by giving them life-like postures surrounded by their natural elements.
Audubon’s Birds of America opened a new chapter in the documentation and exploration of the birds found in the country, inspiring many future ornithological work. Through his work, he discovered 25 new species as well as 12 new subspecies.
Within the pages of his book, eight extinct species were included, though at the time of creating his work, they still were present across the landscape, those include the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Carolina Parakeet, Labrador Duck, the Great Auk, Eskimo Curlew, Bachman Warbler, Pinnated Grouse and the Passenger Pigeon. With so many new birds being encountered with little if any information on many species, it’s no wonder he did get several misidentified. Look at his Washington’s Eagle, which was likely a juvenile bald eagle, or Selby’s Flycatcher, which will later be identified as a female Hooded Warblers. And recently the Townsend’s Bunting was determined to be an aberrant color variation of a Dickcissel. Also included in his series were several species that still remain unknown. Species such as the Small-headed Flycatcher, Blue Mountain Warbler, Carbonated Swamp Warbler, and Cuvier’s Kinglet. These species that he included, have never been properly attributed to a specific species as of now.
Just as Audubon’s Birds of America showcased the many species of birds found in America, allowing more people both within the country, and further abroad, to see some of the diversity of birds found here, many seeing and hearing of these species for the first time. I plan on doing a similar series of illustrations, with the same goal, of increasing awareness for the diversity of birds found in North America as well as helping people become more familiar with each species.
As far as I can see, no other artist has done a similar project of illustrating many of America’s bird species Lifesize, and in an appropriate habitat.
My Lifesize Birds of North America project aims to illustrate 877 bird species typically found in the
ABA(American Birding Association) area. If I manage to do those, then I will add those found throughout the remaining portions of North America, like Mexico and Central America, as well as the very rare vagrants that have found themselves only a handful of times within the borders of North America.
Each species will be drawn life size, from measurements taken from various sources, primarily from Cornell’s Birds of the World account. I am also comparing each Lifesize sketch to actual preserved specimens to double check that each illustration is as accurate as possible.
For background, just like Audubon’s work, each species will be placed in an accurate background, further demonstrating the unique habitats that North America’s birds inhabit across their ranges.
Just like Audubon had his Ornithological Biography companion piece, I will be writing up a species spotlight for each bird illustrated, posted both in a blog and YouTube video format. For each bird species, I will go over all the characteristics and ecology of that species to help bring awareness to what makes each species unique.
I hope that this project will show the great diversity of North America’s avian life, from all their colors, shapes, adaptations, and most importantly, their great variation in size. But this project will not only demonstrate how unique each bird can look, but also the different habitats that they call home. From the understory to the tops of trees, to ponds and ocean, to fields and forests. In many cases, I may sneak in a bird species favorite food source as well, whether that be a particular insect, berry, fish or plant that produces seed.
I hope you follow along on this art journey, species by species, and that this project helps you appreciate and get more familiar with each species that call this continent home. North America has so many unique birds within its borders, many facing threats from habitat loss and other human caused issues. Each species deserves protection and I hope that this project can inspire others to do what they can to protect and raise awareness for what our avian life needs to survive and thrive.
To see each species as they are completed, please follow me on instagram or facebook at kaylafiskbirds.
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