#2861 "My Ruffed Grouse Friend"

#2861 "My Ruffed Grouse Friend"
16x20 inches oils on canavs
Started June 4th, 2024

This is the sequel to #2857 "Ruffed Grouse". This particular ruffed grouse would accompany me as I worked on the trails within the forest. The sprouts of grass poking through last season's leaves were a promise of growth to come in the springtime forest. 

I think it is a young male but the sexes of ruffed grouse are challenging to decipher. The only difference is the extent of the dark ruff around the nape of the bird. During courtship activities, the male can fluff those feathers out to look more elegant and perhaps more attractive to the female. 

I took this picture of my new friend on our third encounter. I rarely take my camera into the forest when I am working but hoped that my ruffed grouse would come to see me. He did. I have seen him several times since and we have even walked together on the lane.

This painting was an exercise in "paint what you know". I know the birds and the forest very well. Plus I loved this little creature that should have displayed much more fear than it did toward humans. The simple goal in this painting was to strive to get better and to learn. 

John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin, April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was a French-American self-trained artist, naturalist, and ornithologist. 

About 1820, around the age of 35, Audubon declared his intention to paint every bird in North America. In his bird art, he mainly forsook oil paint, the medium of serious artists of the day, in favour of watercolours and pastel crayons (and occasionally pencil, charcoal, chalk, gouache, and pen and ink). As early as 1807, he developed a method of using wires and threads to hold dead birds in lifelike poses while he drew them.

John James Audubon's Birds of America is a portal into the natural world. It contains 435 life-size watercolours of North American birds.  The book was first published as a series in sections between 1827 and 1838, in Edinburgh and London.

My friend and I going for a walk in the Singleton Forest

For this and much more art, click on Pixels or go straight to the Collections. Here is the new Wet Paint 2024 Collection. 

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick