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Bird Artwork (Art By Artists Focused on Birds Only)

tony bennet bird art

Featuring the artwork of some of the best bird artists in the United States.

Welcome to Birdzilla.com’s Bird Artist Colony. We enjoy art focused on birds. In this section, we’ll be featuring some of the top bird artists in the country.

Bird paintings can be both inspired and inspiring.  Both bird paintings and bird illustrations are used in bird guides.  The bird paintings and bird illustrations by John James Audubon are perhaps the most famous. John Gould is sometimes referred to as the British Audubon.  His paintings of birds are outstanding.  Perhaps his best-known bird illustrations are of hummingbirds.

The large plates often used a thin layer of gold on the gorget (throat) of the males hummingbirds.  The gold was then overlaid with various colors of enamel to produce the brilliant colors flashed by hummingbirds.

 

Violet-crowned Woodnymph

The beautiful Crowned Woodnymph (featured below) is a species of hummingbird in the Trochilidae family. It has a wide distribution and is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela. It is found in subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, subtropical or tropical moist montane forests, and even in heavily degraded former forest.

It has been known by several different names and has not been well-studied by scientists.

tony bennett bird art

Crowned Woodnymph by Tony Bennett

Everyone at Birdzilla.com loves bird art, and we want to provide artists who feature birds with increased exposure.  Drop us a note  if you would like to be the featured artist on the Birdzilla.com site.

If selected, we’ll place from one to ten samples of your artwork on the site, along with your biography and a link to your web site or other contact information.

 

Becci Crowe Bird Art

Becci Crowe is one of the top wildlife artists in the Northwest.  Specializing in pen & ink, watercolor, and graphite, her art is inspired by personal encounters and observations in the field. Becci’s desire to study her subjects in their natural environment has lead to adventurous travel across 6 continents and over 41 countries including Antarctica, The Amazon, China, India, Nepal, Thailand, Borneo, Russia and many countries on the African continent.

“I grew up in Oregon where I developed a passion for the beauty and diversity of its natural resources. My work is a reflection of this fascination with nature and all things wild. I seek out the wild around me whether it’s in my own backyard or halfway across the globe.”

Birds have always been one of her favorite subjects and multiple trips to Africa have expanded her horizons to include many of the mammals seen on her safaris.  After years of travel to Africa, she was featured in the television documentary   “As Close As You Dare – Africa” which broadcast on PBS stations across the United States. Now available on DVD, it shares her passion for wildlife and her adventures as an artist in Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe.

Becci was also interviewed by National Geographic Adventure Magazine following a journey to Rwanda in search of rare Mountain Gorilla.

Becci is a Signature Member of Artists for Conservation. She not only sees the wonders of the world, but witnesses firsthand the critical importance of conservation. In addition to art exhibitions and demonstrations, Becci presents programs from her experiences sharing photos and video captured on location to audiences of all ages, raising awareness and sharing the wonders of the planet. In 2014 she was invited to be a TEDx speaker on “The Art of Living an Unimaginable Life”.

elephants

Becci Crowe on the Zambezi River.

 

becci crowe

Okavango Delta, Botswana – A birding paradise

 

Visit Becci’s web site for more information on her art and her PBS special, As Close As you Dare – Africa.

All work is copyrighted by the artists and can not be copied or used in any way without written consent.

courting puffins

Courting Puffins

 

great blue heron

Great Blue Heron

 

Scarlet Macaw

Scarlet Macaw

 

 

Charley Harper’s Art

Charley Harper is well-known for his distinctive style and unique way of looking at nature. His serigraphs are large expanses of rich color which give the viewer a very different perspective on the animal kingdom. A conservationist as well as an artist, Harper revealed the unique aspects of his wildlife subjects through highly stylized geometric reduction.

Visit the Charley Harper studio to see more of his works.

Here are a couple of our favorite examples of Charley’s work.

charley harper

See how many of the birds you can identify on the following poster.

charley harper

 

Hans Peeters Bird Art

Most birders have seen Hans Peeters’ illustrations of North America birds in field guides such as The American Bird Conservancy’s All the Birds of North America (1997) and Book of North American Birds published by The Readers Digest Association. His larger pictures have been featured in books including Wildlife Art, (1997).

His work has appeared in popular publications such as Audubon Magazine and Architectural Digest: and it hangs in permanent collections of the prestigious Leigh Yawkey Woodsen Art Museum and the Peregrine Fund, among others.

Hans is best known in the United States and Europe for his skill in painting raptors but he also enjoys the exotic species he sees on frequent peregrinations to India, Africa, and Latin America. His commissions include illustrations for a guide to the birds of India to be published by the Smithsonian Institution; and has been honored by the Mexican Postal Service, which used his painting of a Golden Eagle for a postage stamp.

Hans paints mammals as well, and is illustrator and co-author of the field guide, California Mammals, published by University of California Press.

Sample Portfolio

All images are copyrighted by the artist and may not be copied or used in any manner without written permission.

hans peter bird art

But Can They Sing? – Fiery-billed Aracaris

hans peters bird art

Young Warriors – Immature Martial Eagles (Africa)

hans peters bird art

Kestrel, Foggy Morning

John O’Neill Bird Art

To describe a new species of animal stands as one of the major accomplishments of any biologist’s life. To describe thirteen new species of birds, as John P. O’Neill has done, is enough to set him apart, but that is only one part of this man’s work.

As an artist, John P. O’Neill successfully communicates the beauty of both common and uncommon birds to all who view his paintings. Massachusetts Audubon Society previously named him Artist of the Year. John’s work has also appeared in Audubon Magazine, National and International Wildlife, Encyclopedia Britannica, the National Geographic Society Field Guide to the Birds of North America, A Guide to the Birds of Trinidad and Tobago, the Audubon Society Master Guide to Birding and numerous other books, publications and exhibits including the prestigious Leigh Yawkey Woodson“Birds in Art” exhibit.

Aside from some original work that is available, John does have several different prints for sale.

 

Sample Portfolio

All images are copyright the artist and can be copied, duplicated or used in anyway without written permission.

john o'neill

Curve-billed thrasher with Texas prickly pear cactus

john O'neill

Turquoise-browed motmot in Costa Rican dry forest

John O'neill

Scaled Quail

Tim McCarthy Bird Art

Tim is a wildlife artist, specializing in stone and clay/bronzed cast sculptures, acrylic paintings, color pencil drawings.  He has been closely involved with wildlife all his life, starting out with reptiles, and then becoming a falconer, and bird of prey ‘care-taker’, ie; taking care of injured birds of prey until they could be released back into the wild.

Working ‘hands on’ with his favorite subject matter he has made it possible for him to visualize and lay down the various scenes that he’s witnessed.

We really like his unique approach to art and recommend a visit to his site, although birds are a small part of it.

 

Tony Bennett Art

F.P. “Tony” Bennett, Jr. is one of a handful of artists who specialize in birds of the American tropics. While still in college he painted the plates for A Field Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Central America by L. Irby Davis. His illustrations appear in the Distributional Checklist of North American Birds by DeSante and Pyle and in a revision of The Birds of India & Pakistan by S. Dillon Ripley.

He has also painted 100 species of hummingbirds for a book on the birds of Peru. Other works in progress include a book on the complete Hummingbird family, a work not attempted for the last one hundred years. His work is included in many private and corporate collections including the King Ranch.

Tony’s paintings are exceptional not only for their brilliant portrayals of neotropical birds but also for the richly detailed plant life that fills the background. He is also known for his expertise in the field and has led many groups in Texas and Mexico for Victor Emanuel Nature Tours.

Sample Portfolio

All images are copyrighted by the artist. The images can not be copied or used in any way without written permission.

green honeycreeper

Green Honeycreeper

 

hook-billed kite

Hook-billed Kite

 

motmot

Turquoise-browed Motmot

 

tony bennet bird art

Crowned Woodnymph

 

 

 

Other famous bird artists and bird illustrators:

Louis Agassiz Fuertes

Roger Tory Peterson.  Famous for the bird illustrations in the Peterson Bird Guide Series.

Doug Pratt

David Sibley: Famous for the bird paintings in his suburb field guides.

George Miksch Sutton: Famous as an ornithologist, writer and artist.

Alexander Wilson: Famous ornithologist, naturalist and for his bird paintings and illustrations.

 

About the Author

Sam Crowe

Sam is the founder of Birdzilla.com. He has been birding for over 30 years and has a world list of over 2000 species. He has served as treasurer of the Texas Ornithological Society, Sanctuary Chair of Dallas Audubon, Editor of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's "All About Birds" web site and as a contributing editor for Birding Business magazine. Many of his photographs and videos can be found on the site.

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