Goldfinches and a New Beginning
Goldfinches for me are the most exciting bird to return in the spring. We didn’t have them or perhaps they weren’t drawn to our bird feeders when I was a girl, so when I discovered them in New Jersey I was entranced by them! This particular painting marks a new beginning for me in my art. I had been planning a series on wild birds and had started with them; the Chickadee piece is in the Wild Bird gallery, I have a cardinals piece started. However I knew I wanted to tell more of the story, to have more hidden meaning in the image. I wanted to create puzzles with answers to the lives of these creatures.
Goldfinches is the first experiment in this deeper story telling. Using graphic elements, patterns, symbolic images and realism I’ve created a map, an inventory of scientific information but communicated in art form. I wanted this to be read without written language. Life cycle, food, patterns of behavior, nest shapes, eggs, all of these are important bits of information to understand the nature of the particular bird. The inspiration also came from DaVinci and other scientific hand drawn manuscripts, the Voynich manuscript, and all those visits to the Carnegie Natural History Museum… even treasure hunt books!
The next one is already on the table!
Gouache painting – Goldfinches ©2017 Julia L Powell