The Ringed Plover
Bontbekplevier / Sandregenpfeifer / Grand Gravelot / Charadrius hiaticula
After the 50 and some birds were all installed at PixLife I went out for a walk along the beach. It was one of those hot days we have more and more often. And so I was the only one walking there along the shoreline still wearing his shoes. Plenty vacationers on the beach and in the water. All of a sudden there it was, somewhere in a lull, the beach less busily occupied, a single little Ringed Plover.
The signal was clear. This one had to be made. It had been a while since I’d made a new bird print anyhow. Writing and compiling a book and worrying about writing and compiling a book tends to take time. I did not immediately start (see previous sentence), but eventually took up the work at the beginning of August.
Design considerations
The Ringed Plover has a lot of white parts on its body, so I picked a coloured paper to provide a contrasting background for those strong black and white markings on chest and head.
As always, the Gestalt came first; the overall posture and silhouette. It would be walking to the right, away from us, with a general air of industriously dribbling along. It clearly has things to do, places to go.
A number of desing studies with notes.
I ususally do not talk about work in progress, but for accountability sake and as a teaser for what’s coming I shared a design study with the collectors and enthousiasts on my mailing list (to which you can subscribe here) with a general message of ‘just about finished, ready to print the edition’.
Well, you can guess how that turned out. Too large brown upper part, too little white undersides. Feet in uncomfortable anges and a bit too low on its feet as a whole. Turns out, again, that seemingly 80% done actually means just about halfway complete. Getting the details in posture and proportions exactly right takes time, patience and attention. (I can probably repeat this little lament with every print I make. Will do!)
Halfway producing the edition.
As soon as everyting was exactly in its place, and the correct colours were defined I could start printing. It’s a very nice sight to see all those sheets together in the drying rack. There’s still quite some work to do, but it’s clear what needs to happen and consists mostly of a concetrated execution of a fixed set of actions.
Then to define the right dimensions for the passe-partout.
Anyway: done. The edition consists of fifty prints. The first ten prints go with free shipping. Run!
