Exploring Abstraction

While staying true to the bird

When I got serious about learning to draw, I aimed for technical skill. I equated technical skill with being able to draw realistically, to depict the subject as it appears when observed. Drawing birds realistically, to me, meant getting proportions correct, field marks in place, every feather accounted for.

Eventually being realistic turned into meticulously drawn, highly detailed works. I used a 0.3 mm mechanical pencil and a magnifying glass. Every piece took many hours to complete. I made thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of tiny little marks on each page.

Double-crested Cormorant in graphite. I wish I had kept up with how many hours I spent on this illustration.

When I look at these illustrations, I almost wonder who did them. I know it was me, but they almost seem as if they were done by a different artist. And perhaps in a manner of speaking, that’s true. I am a very different artist from the me I was then. Partly this is because I stopped seeing realism as a proxy for skill. Skill shows itself in many ways and one of them is abstraction.

Abstraction doesn’t have to mean giving up on realism. Instead, it can be a way of finding new ways to depict the subject with expressiveness, to interpret the bird and collaborate with it. The animal brings its own personality and vibe and I bring mine. Together, we create something new that’s true to both of us.

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Here are a few of the gentle steps I’ve taken toward this kind of collaboration as I’ve begun to explore abstraction in my art.

African Sacred Ibis. The bill, head, and neck are merged into a single shape, using value and hatching to define the form.

Slender-billed Nuthatch. The bill and head are united by outline and the values separate the structures.

White-Crowned Sparrow. The toes are treated as a shapes and the digits were separated using shading.

California Scrub-Jay. The cheek patch and bill form one shape. The toes and nails are treated as one shape and stylized using outlines.

American Crow. Bill, head, and body are treated as sone shape. The Tulip Tree flowers are stylized.

Bulbul. The bill is merged with the head shape. Outline was used to define where the body meets the neck, suggesting a negative space.

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What Abstraction is Teaching Me

I am less self-conscious about mistakes.

When I was aiming for strict realism, mistakes felt like a betrayal. With abstraction, mistakes can signal a new avenue for exploration. I feel freer to make decisions that fueled by what I find interesting or personally satisfying.

Growing in comfort with experimentation.

As I mentioned in my post on letting the pencil choose the colors, I’m getting better at releasing control of results. I’ve never been very good at enjoying the process and being highly realistic in my work was very outcome focused. With abstraction, the how I get to the destination is almost more important than the arrival.

Seeing more than one way to depict the same thing.

I used to think that drawing a bird meant showing every feather in rich detail. Now I see that there are many ways of depicting feathers and every drawing presents a new opportunity to learn and grow.

As I have relaxed my grip on realism, I’ve discovered new ways of expressing line, color, and form. I’ve fallen in love with shading, negative space, and shape design. While I will always value making birds look true to their biology, I see new ways to honor them without straining to recreate the images I see in photos.

Have you experimented with abstraction in your art? Let me know in the comments.