Pine Siskin Pencil Sketch p48

I’m finally trying to get through a big backlog of sketches that I haven’t posted. It has been a busy Spring and Summer!

Pine siskins are great little birds. The past few years we have had many of them in the winters visiting our thistle feeders. I really love to hear their Zweeeee call. I know I’m anthropomorphizing, but I do imagine that they have fun making that sound.

Pine siskins are one of the reasons that I really got into birds. One day I saw a different bird at our feeder that I couldn’t ID. I was familiar with most of our obvious backyard birds in western NY, but was not an avid birder… yet. I thought it was beautiful and just had to know who it was. My brother’s room shared split duty with the family library. It had what seemed like 4,000 surgery and medical textbooks, the oft-used Encyclopedia Brittanica, every National Geographic Magazine from the mid-60s til that date, tons of novels and classics, a stash my favorite literature—cartoon books like BC, the wizard of ID and Garfield—and what I needed that day, a myriad of Peterson’s field guides.

After a little hunting through Peterson’s Eastern Birds, I found out that I had seen a Pine Siskin. Afterwards I started leafing through all the other great birds, amazed that many could be seen in my part of the country. To this day I still prefer Peterson’s guides to others, partly because I’ve used them for so long. The National Geographic guide is a close second, because is it still compact while covering all of North America. I have a ton of field guides now on many topics. Between myself, my wife and kids, I think we have just about every bird guide for North America. I do like Sibley for around the house, but find it too big for the field. My Peterson’s is getting a bit cracked, worn and browned on the edges from my thumb rifling through the pages, but I love it.

When I took Gross Anatomy at the University of Michigan, I used Frank Netter’s Atlas of Anatomy and, as an illustrator, in some strange ways I find it similar to Peterson’s Guide. Both  books have strong illustrations… although they are not necessarily stunning artistically. Where both truly excel is that they teach so incredibly well. In my opinion that really is ultimate goal of an illustrator—to organize and convey information. I had three different anatomy books and always went to Netter; he made something incredibly complicated easier to learn. Peterson certainly did the exact same for birds. Peterson rethought bird ID and made it accessible to the masses. That was applied to all sorts of other natural subjects. The world would be a different place had he not been around. His field guides have inspired and instructed countless scientists, backyard naturalists and artists as well. Both Netter and Peterson get knocked for not being artistic enough by the fine art crowd. Who cares. Their ability to organize and teach was simply outstanding!