​Naturalist John James Audubon, who was born April 26, 1785, first rose to fame through the 435 magnificent paintings he created for his landmark work, "Birds of America," which detailed more than 700 bird species.

In an era before mass production of photographs and when books were the way people learned about anything, his work was very important. He documented bird species in America and discovered 25 new species in the process. He was also the first person to tag (tie string) around the legs of birds to identify individuals and study their migration patterns.

He killed every bird he painted so he could position them and make the paintings from long term observation. He claimed to get no joy out of having to kill the birds. 

He was born in Haiti to a prominent white plantation owner and one of his mistresses. He claimed his mother was of Spanish decent from Louisiana but since his father had other illegitimate children with his slaves the facts are unclear. 

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Sketchbook Assignment:

In your sketchbooks, please draw 3, 3 x 4 " boxes. You will do 3 thumbnail sketches in those boxes of portraits of 3 different birds. We will choose your best bird to do for the final collage. 

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Project:

You are going to sketch in pencil your bird portrait on a large sheet of good paper.

Then using ripped up pieces of magazine pages, you are going to fill in your bird using appropriate colors and shapes. Think about it like coloring using paper.

​The background will be a value gradient of a color from dark to light.