“The woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those who sang the best.”
– John James Audubon
John James Audubon was a French-American ornithologist, naturalist and painter who is most known for his work, The Birds of America.
Audubon was born in Haiti in 1785. His father was a French sea-captain and plantation owner. At a very young age he was interested in birds and nature. When he was 18, Audubon was sent to a family owned estate near Philadelphia. He met his wife, Lucy Bakewell there and conducted the first bird-banding experiments learning about migration habits.
For this project our students started with a light pencil sketch on watercolour paper. Next we used liquid watercolours to paint our parrot. The feather-like strokes were made with the end of a paint brush scraped through the wet paint. This project was inspired by a post on a wonderful art blog, That Artist Woman.
