John James Audubon (1785 – 1851) The Blue Jay and Other Bird Prints

1820-1826
The Blue Jay

John J. Audubon is a very interesting artist to study for his life and works cross many fields for he was an artist, a naturalist and a scientist of birds (ornithologist). In our studies, it even crosses with history, for I find it both interesting and helpful to look at artists in context of what else is going on at the time. We found this beautiful book, The Boy Who Drew Birds: A Story of John James Audubon an excellent biography of this artist.

He was born in France in 1785, but in 1803, his father obtained a false passport so that Audubon could go to the United States to avoid conscription in the Napoleonic Wars. Audubon set about to study American birds, determined to illustrate his findings in a more realistic manner than most artists did at the time.

It is hard then to study Audubon's bird prints without studying birds as well. We chose a bird to study first, the blue jay and I made copies from Audubon's Birds of America Coloring Book for them to paint. We also read about the bird from The Burgess Bird Book. 

All of this easily led into a nature study of the Blue Jay.  Nature for the Very Young has wonderful sketches of

the Blue Jay in the various stages of its life, so I thought I would take this opportunity to teach them that birds look different in the various stages of their life. 

Young children, too, sometimes think that the color of the egg and the color of the bird should be the same or that all eggs are white like the eggs they get from the store. The Blue jay has a cream colored egg with brown spots. 

Quentin
painting a coloring page of a Blue Jay
April 2009

"John Audubon said that as soon as he began waling and talking, his father constantly pointed out objects in nature. His father would bring him birds and flowers and show him details such as the birds' elegant movement, or the softness of the feathers, or how they showed fear or pleasure, or their perfect form. He would talk about their seasonal migrations, where they lived and how they would change. It was this early influence that excited Audubon and inspired him to make birds his life's work and think about the God who created them."

Charlotte Mason, volume 1 page 59

We will continue our study of Audubon's prints by picking other birds out of his Birds of America book and studying both the art prints and the birds themselves.A helpful resource for studying Audubon is this booklet of six of Audubon's prints. In it are postcard sized reproductions of his prints of the whooping crane, great blue heron, roseate spoonbill, American white pelican, wild turkey, and American flamingo.

Bird Sculptures

When I saw the beautiful bird sculptures on That Artist Woman, I thought that they were the most beautiful three-dimensional project I have ever seen for young artists to do. She has a step-by-step tutorial as well, so you might want to look at hers, but here is how we did it.

If you are making a particular type of bird, look at a picture of one while you sculpt so you can get a more realistic shape for the bird.
Take a quarter sheet of newspaper and crush into a pear shape.

Tape into place.  Twist out a little to form a beak shape.

Make sure you look at your bird's beak if you are doing a particular bird, as some birds have longer and some birds have shorter beaks. We made the mistake of not noting this and some of our beaks were too short.

Cut some paper towel into strips about 1/2 an inch wide or so. Pour some white school glue into a recycled container and add water in a 1 to 1 ratio. Mix well. Dip the strips into the glue mixture and start covering your bird. With paper mache you want to overlap your strips for strength and smooth them down as you go.  Use a few dry strips to soak up excess glue.  That way your bird will take less time to dry. You just want it moist not sopping.

Leave to dry in a warm place overnight...turn once to ensure even drying.

Out of thin cardboard from a cereal or cracker box cut out a wing shape. You will want to look at the picture of your bird to get that shape right. Cut out a tail shape as well.

Take the cardboard shapes tape it to your bird at the right angle. Cover  the wings and tail in a coat of paper mache, using overlapping strips where they attach to the bird's body.

While the shapes are moist you can curl your wings if you wish.

Leave to dry.

Paint with acrylic or tempera. Katie taught us a bit about how to mix acrylic colors.

For the feather and eye detail you can either paint it in with a fine paintbrush or use fine sharpies after the paint has dried.

Robin

Black-capped Chickadee
Katie, age 19

Robin
by Quentin, age 7

Ruby-Throated Hummingbird
James, age 10

Now you need legs and feet.

To make the feet take piece of wire about 16 inches long.  The wire needs to be soft enough to bend with your fingers but firm enough to hold the shape without collapsing.

Starting at the middle of the piece of wire, make a foot shape with four toes, three going one direction and the fourth going the opposite direction and then twist the one end of the wire around the other section to form the leg.  Instead of making your own bird feet out of wire, you can use clips instead and use a bit of wire to attach them to the body of the bird. They are less realistic this way, but you then can clip them to things.

Trim them down and bend in the knees. Remember a bird's knee bends backwards.

To color the legs, take the end of some embroidery thread and loosely wrap from the top of the leg down, double back and wrap tightly now. When you reach the top, tie a knot.

Using a knitting needle punch holes for the legs. Put some tacky glue on them.

Push the leg through the glue into the hole, placing the knees are backwards.

Add some more glue if needed. Let dry.

If you want a shiny coat you can add a coat of Mod Podge.

The Great Backyard Bird Count 2011

 Today we participated in The Great Backyard Bird Count by going down to the beach.



It was very windy, misty and cold, and so we only lasted 15 minutes there.






 Here is our count for this year...

7 Herring Gulls

14 Black Vultures

 And on the way back home, we saw...



2 Common Grackles



1 Mourning Dove

and 2 Cardinal Grosbeaks; one female, one male



What birds are in your neighborhood today?

Nature Study Lesson # 12 The Bluebird & Lesson # 5 The Beak of a Bird

"Each kind of bird has a beak especially adapted for getting its food" -HNS
I told the boys that when they see any bird, whether they can identify it or not, they can be detectives and by looking at the bird's beak can tell what it eats. We looked at pictures of all sorts of beaks and began to see how the shapes and what they eat tend to go together. We then looked at the beak of the Bluebird, our subject of the day, and we could determine by its short, thin and sharp beak that the bluebird primarily eats insects. They painted the mobile from the Outdoor Hour link, which included pictures of their food and nests. We will put these together tomorrow and hang them in the kitchen, where we change the things we hang from the ceiling from time to time.

I told them that the bluebird is often called "the blue robin," and this lead to a discussion of the similarities and differences between the two birds. We also listened to the songs of both birds and the boys decided that, although similar, the robin's call was definitely bolder.

"The bluebird is related to the robins and the thrushes and is as beneficial as it is beautiful"-HNS, p.64

The Burgess Bird book can be found here.

Nature Study: The Blue Jay and Baby Birds

Nature for the Very Young (Maria Bowden) has wonderful sketches of the Blue jay in the various stages of its life, so I thought I would take this opportunity to teach them that birds look different in the various stages of their life. Young children, too, sometimes think that the color of the egg and the color of the bird should be the same or that all eggs are white like the eggs they get from the store. The Blue jay has a cream colored egg with brown spots. We are also reading The Boy who Drew Birds: A Story of John James Audubon as part of their evening readings. So, for the adult Blue jays, I made copies from Audubon's Birds of America Coloring Book for them to paint. Another resource is the Burgess Bird book which can be found here.

Nature Study Lesson #11, Parts A & B: The Robin

The lesson on the Robin is probably the most detailed lesson on birds in the HNS. It is actually broken down into six parts, to be given at different times throughout the spring and summer. We began talking about the Robin last week, discussing the fact that some robins spend the winter here, but most winter further south and return in the spring. I showed them a picture of the bird and played its song to help them identify this bird. I simply asked them to keep a look-out for them and to let me know if they saw one so I could write the date of when they saw their first robin in their notebooks. We can then refer to their notebooks each year to compare the dates of their return. In this way they can begin to see the cycles in nature.

This week I decided to go on to the second set of questions despite the fact that no one has spotted a robin yet because this lesson is looking at the details of the robin.

"...the pupils may have individual notebooks in which each may write his own answers to the questions...The cover or first page should show the picture of the robin colored by the pupil, and may contain other illustrative drawings and any poems or other literature pertinent to the subject."

When the robins begin appearing, we will continue with the rest of the questions, which include observations of their behavior. The discussions about the robin reminded me of last summer when we went blackberry picking at a friend's farm and discovered a robin's nest with an older baby bird in the nest. He was very unhappy to see us so close to his nest and made lots of fussing noises and wing flapping. He was fussing so much I had a hard time getting a picture of him! This is the best I could manage, but it is enough to see his untidy new feathers.

Another resource is the Burgess Book of Birds, which can be found here.

Nature Study Lesson # 33: Cardinal Grosbeak

Barb has suggested for our Nature Study of birds that we divide this task into three parts. The first part is the inside preparation work. This is when I read the information for the teacher (Handbook of Nature Study pages 127-130) so that I know what to look for and what things to point out to my students about a particular bird; in this case, the cardinal. I also prepared the kids so that they could recognize the cardinal by sight or sound. The cardinal stays all year round in this area, so we have a good chance of spotting one on our nature walks.

"The cardinal is the most brilliantly colored of all our birds, and one of our most cheerful singers." -Anna Comstock

We talked about how the cardinal is a little smaller than a robin, and that it is a bit chunkier. We discussed how the bird gets its name from the position in the Church. This bird gave me the opportunity to discuss the term "crest." We also talked about how the shape of the beak and its strength are perfect for crushing seeds and grains. We listened to the cardinal's call in our birdsong book. This is the time, too, to add the bird to our own field guides of local birds. We decided to use watercolors.

"What cheer! What cheer!
That is the grosbeak's way,
With his sooty face and his coat of red"
-Maurice Thompson

Katie chose to paint it in the female's more subdued colors, while the boys went for the bright red of the male. They also had the opportunity to create pages in their nature journals for whatever interested them on their outing.

Emperor Penguin Hatches an Egg and Adele Penguins

The boys learned about how Emperor Penguins manage to hatch eggs on the ice -the hold them on their feet and cover them with a layer of their fat! They had lots of fun pretending to be penguins hatching eggs. I tied a pillow around their waist and let it hang to their toes. Then they put a plastic egg on their feet and let the pillow-fat hang over the egg. They found out how hard it is to walk around with an egg on their feet! They waddled just like penguins. The egg then hatched and out came a baby penguin, which we posted next to the Emperor penguin.

Next they were introduced to the Adele penguin, which Katie had drawn for them (life-sized again.) We talked about how the two types of penguins are alike and how they are different.

If you want to learn about all different types of penguins, this activity at Layers of Learning is great for noting their differences in coloration.