Audubon, John James (1785–1851)
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John James Audubon (1785–1851)
Do you think you could paint a picture of every bird in the United States? How would you find them? What tools would you use?
More than any other job he did, John James Audubon enjoyed painting. Sometimes he ignored his regular work and painted instead. He mostly liked to paint birds in their natural settings. In 1820, at the age of 35, he made a choice. He knew what he wanted to do with his life.
Audubon would paint American birds in nature. He began drawing and painting birds, from dawn to dusk. He did other work, but only to pay for trips to paint birds.
Audubon traveled throughout North America. He sailed up and down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers studying birds. He took a trip up the Missouri River to the West. He explored the East Coast from the Florida Keys to Labrador in Canada. He crossed the Gulf Coast from Florida to Texas.
All along the way, Audubon studied and drew the birds he saw. When he finished in 1838, he had 1,065 life-size images of birds. The paintings were printed in four books of 435 hand-colored pages. The books were calledThe Birds of America. Audubon also wrote a book that described the lives of the birds.
The Birds of America was a huge success. Audubon was not the first person to have had his paintings of birds put into books. But Audubon’s birds seemed ready to fly off the page.
How did Audubon do it? First, he would use wire to put recently killed birds into positions of action. Audubon used these posed birds as models for his paintings. Then, he used pencil, watercolor, and glazes to show how the bird really looked. Finally, assistants traveling with him painted true backgrounds. This helped show how and where the birds lived.
Audubon combined science and art in his work. Scientists value the exact look of Audubon’s birds. Artists admire their beauty. Many people believe that no one has ever painted birds as well as John James Audubon.
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