John Thaxtons Birds of Play, Inc.
Smiling widely while gloating with arrogant self-satisfaction about having had it together enough to get my wife a present a full week before her birthday, I sat down to wrap it and experienced a sudden paroxysm of anxiety: I had forgotten to get her a card. I expected her home in less than half an hour.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and so in the spirit of eternally springing hope I turned on the computer, opened up a painting program I had never used and resolved to paint a bird. We had recently seen our first male ruddy duck in breeding plumage, a boldly marked bird with a few vivid swaths of color. I wanted to see what one shade of blue looked like and with a click of the mouse turned the entire canvas a deep and screaming royal blue. I figured out how to paint as though with a brush, looked at my watch, decided I didn’t have time to undo the royal blue background and so I sketched in the bird’s brown, black, white and pale blue field marks, finally adding a bunch of bubbles and a highly stylized line indicating the surface of the water.
I made a quick print on high grade matte photo paper, folded it in half, signed it and put it in another sheet of photo paper that I taped closed in a crude attempt at an envelope, which I placed on top of her unwrapped present on the table as I heard her key in the door.
She liked the card more than she liked the present, and ever since I have painted her a bird card for her birthday and our wedding anniversary.
For years a couple of friends have urged me to turn my bird paintings into note cards or matted prints, and then an artist friend all but insisted I get off the dime and give it a try.
Although whimsical and playful and not nearly in the correct proportions, my paintings nevertheless exhibit the primary field marks of each species I depict, and with sufficient accuracy that experienced birders almost invariably identify the bird, or birds, immediately. One expert went so far as to say that for a beginning birder my paintings would prove more useful than a traditional field guide painting.
I create my paintings primarily on the computer, using either Microsoft Paint or Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo, although I occasionally work with watercolor or acrylic paints. I try my best to portray each bird against an appropriate background, in the sort of habitat where it most often occurs, but frequently go with monochromatic fields of color sprinkled with abstract, highly stylized natural forms. In some paintings I attempted to capture a bird performing a characteristic behavior, such as my male ruddy duck blowing bubbles immediately before mating, or my male northern harrier quartering low over a farm field.
For some maddeningly mysterious reason, I never managed to complete one of my bird paintings anywhere nearly as quickly as I completed my first one, never even came close.
At the urging of friends I decided to create a small business selling my paintings as blank note cards and matted prints. The cards, printed on high quality stock, measure 4 1/4" x 6" and come with a matching envelope. They retail for $ 3.00 and are available on the internet in packs of 6 for $18.00 with free shipping, and in an assortment of all 12 paintings for $ 33.00 with free shipping. On the back of each card I identify the bird and offer a brief remark or two about its behavior.
The approximately 6"x 9" prints each come in a 9"x 12" ivory-colored matte and are available on the internet for $65.00 with free shipping; they are archival-quality, Epson 6-color inkjet prints on Epson 5-star Ultra Premium Presentation Matte Paper. I sign both prints and mattes.
John Thaxton
All painting and photos copyright John Thaxton
Smiling widely while gloating with arrogant self-satisfaction about having had it together enough to get my wife a present a full week before her birthday, I sat down to wrap it and experienced a sudden paroxysm of anxiety: I had forgotten to get her a card. I expected her home in less than half an hour.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and so in the spirit of eternally springing hope I turned on the computer, opened up a painting program I had never used and resolved to paint a bird. We had recently seen our first male ruddy duck in breeding plumage, a boldly marked bird with a few vivid swaths of color. I wanted to see what one shade of blue looked like and with a click of the mouse turned the entire canvas a deep and screaming royal blue. I figured out how to paint as though with a brush, looked at my watch, decided I didn’t have time to undo the royal blue background and so I sketched in the bird’s brown, black, white and pale blue field marks, finally adding a bunch of bubbles and a highly stylized line indicating the surface of the water.
I made a quick print on high grade matte photo paper, folded it in half, signed it and put it in another sheet of photo paper that I taped closed in a crude attempt at an envelope, which I placed on top of her unwrapped present on the table as I heard her key in the door.
She liked the card more than she liked the present, and ever since I have painted her a bird card for her birthday and our wedding anniversary.
For years a couple of friends have urged me to turn my bird paintings into note cards or matted prints, and then an artist friend all but insisted I get off the dime and give it a try.
Although whimsical and playful and not nearly in the correct proportions, my paintings nevertheless exhibit the primary field marks of each species I depict, and with sufficient accuracy that experienced birders almost invariably identify the bird, or birds, immediately. One expert went so far as to say that for a beginning birder my paintings would prove more useful than a traditional field guide painting.
I create my paintings primarily on the computer, using either Microsoft Paint or Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo, although I occasionally work with watercolor or acrylic paints. I try my best to portray each bird against an appropriate background, in the sort of habitat where it most often occurs, but frequently go with monochromatic fields of color sprinkled with abstract, highly stylized natural forms. In some paintings I attempted to capture a bird performing a characteristic behavior, such as my male ruddy duck blowing bubbles immediately before mating, or my male northern harrier quartering low over a farm field.
For some maddeningly mysterious reason, I never managed to complete one of my bird paintings anywhere nearly as quickly as I completed my first one, never even came close.
At the urging of friends I decided to create a small business selling my paintings as blank note cards and matted prints. The cards, printed on high quality stock, measure 4 1/4" x 6" and come with a matching envelope. They retail for $ 3.00 and are available on the internet in packs of 6 for $18.00 with free shipping, and in an assortment of all 12 paintings for $ 33.00 with free shipping. On the back of each card I identify the bird and offer a brief remark or two about its behavior.
The approximately 6"x 9" prints each come in a 9"x 12" ivory-colored matte and are available on the internet for $65.00 with free shipping; they are archival-quality, Epson 6-color inkjet prints on Epson 5-star Ultra Premium Presentation Matte Paper. I sign both prints and mattes.
John Thaxton
All painting and photos copyright John Thaxton