Stowaway aka Varied Thrush
Notes on the making of……
I’ve wanted to add the Varied Thrush to my wild bird collection since Winter began. I first noticed them, when shortly after a marathon leaf-raking session, a flock turned up in my garden. They were partially camouflaged amongst the inky black, wet leaves, but the entire flowerbed seemed alive, animated by bright orange heads and wings. There were dozens of them - pecking, foraging and flicking leaves this way and that, in search of tasty bugs hidden underneath. In dramatic contrast, the teal blue of the birds’ mantles took on a lavender hue reflecting the cool winter sky overhead.
I had a particular look and feel in mind for the background, so I did several colour sketches before landing on the right scale and colour palette for the leaves. The challenge then, was to find a position for the bird and a balance between subject and background. I want my birds to feel integral with their background/ environment and vice versa, so any opportunity to reveal the underpainting through the body of the bird is a win. In this piece though, I got very caught up in defining its bold markings - they absorbed me like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. There are only one or two small pieces of background visible in the bird’s mantle and belly. I also loved an excuse to block in bold sections of Mars Black on the bird and in the corners of the painting (suggesting other birds and helping to define the leaf shapes.)
Leaves in my garden beds, 2. Sketches and exploration, 3. A section of the finished leaf background.
Another signature element I like to include is some kind of graphic, abstract shape in contrast to the loose painting of the background. This resolved at the very end and wasn’t at all planned. I had noticed in my reference photo a secondary pattern amongst the leaves, created by thin blades of dried grass, criss-crossing the picture. As a finishing touch, I felt a certain thrill in painting a precise, thin line directly across and in front of the bird (I know, I’m so easily fascinated!)
Finally, just as I was ready to submit the painting to the R.A. it was pointed out that Varied Thrush don’t migrate as far West as the UK. I turned to Google and found there had been a remote sighting in the UK in 1982, which caused a flurry of excitement amongst UK twitchers. Speculation for this rare occurrence was that the bird had come across the Pacific on a cargo ship. My clever step-mother suggested a new title for it - Stowaway. More recent digging online revealed an article by birder David Roche, describing his fairly recent sighting in the Orkney islands at the Northernmost tip of Scotland, October 2021. In a frenzied Whatsapp message to his wife he wrote 'f****** Varied Thrush! Second British record!' Hopefully the significance won’t be lost on the jury panel in March.