A studio for bird study

Tag: art

New HawkWatch International Shirts, Featuring My Artwork

by Bryce W. Robinson

HWI new shirts

HawkWatch International recently released a few shirt designs featuring artwork of mine. My friend Mike Shaw had the great idea for a design that took a field guide type format, and put it on the shirt. The shirts feature two Buteos, the Red-tailed Hawk- Buteo jamaicensis, and the Rough-legged Hawk- Buteo lagopus. These illustrations feature callouts that give the viewer a few key tips at identifying the bird. I love the idea, and the shirts turned out great.

A little background on the development of one shirt, the Red-tailed Hawk, might be interesting to some. I really love this illustration for its purity. While counting the raptor migration last fall on the Goshutes Raptor Migration Site in eastern Nevada, I had plenty of time in the evenings to sit by candle light and draw some of the things I saw that day. This illustration was done at nine thousand feet, on the top of a mountain, in the middle of the magic of migration, by candle light. It makes it more special to me, and I hope those that now know where that illustration was born, might enjoy it all the more. I love things with a story attached.

Here are a few images of the illustration on the mountain:

The inception of the illustration

The inception of the illustration

The result, with a splash of the candle light that helped create the image

The result, with a splash of the candle light that helped create the image

If you would like to check out the shirts, or would like to buy any HawkWatch International merchandise follow the link below:

New Shirt Designs Featuring the Art of B William Robinson

HawkWatch International is an incredible organization. I encourage you to support them by purchasing one of their new items. To be transparent, I do not benefit financially from the sales of these shirts. I simply want to see more people joining conservation initiatives. It would be neat to meet someone on the road that I didn’t know from Adam, garnished in one of these shirts, supporting and spreading the good will of conservation, and of course the knowledge and fun of raptor ID.

The White Owl of the North

by Bryce W. Robinson

Snowy Owl- Bubo scandiaca. 9x12" prismacolor on bristol.

Snowy Owl- Bubo scandiaca. 9×12″ prismacolor on bristol.

Sometimes the internet, or electronics, take so much away from life. I wanted to write in depth about my experience of seeing my very first glimpse of a Snowy Owl last week. I powered out a long story about the experience. When I went to post the story, the page reset and I lost everything. For whatever reason the regular save as you go feature was not working. Oh the misfortune, but life goes on.

So now I have neither the time nor the energy to write about that day. I just wanted to share an illustration I did of the bird. It was too far for any photographs, so I decided to capture and celebrate the experience by illustrating the white owl. I have found that illustration is always an appropriate way to pay homage to new experiences. This way, all I need to do is look at this image, and memories will flood into my mind of the evening that I first saw the white owl of the north.

Short-eared Owl at Sunrise

by Bryce W. Robinson

Short-eared Owl- Asio flammeus. 9x12" prismacolor on bristol.

Short-eared Owl- Asio flammeus. 9×12″ prismacolor on bristol.

After such an amazing winter with Short-eared Owls, I knew I needed to sit down and illustrate at least one bust of the bird. Here is Asio flammeus, with a distant gaze, as if it were perched in Skull Valley as I have seen them, watching the rise of the sun and the inception of a new day.

Illustrating Birds

by Bryce W. Robinson

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I love the process of illustration nearly as much as I love watching birds. Nothing calms my mind more than putting on some music, drinking a full bottle of wine, and losing myself in the exercise of illustrating an avian subject. I will draw until the day I die.