Lisa Foor Rojek painting & drawing

A site to share my artwork and thoughts

My Year of the Crow

My friend and coworker, Elizabeth, has commissioned me to create a painting for her son, who is a crow enthusiast.  I already have a standing fascination for these birds and their activities around our house, so I am keen to do it.  Feeling that this subject, the ubiquitous crow, deserves to be approached from a place of greater understanding, I resolve to pay close attention whenever crows come into my life.

Taking photos, watching their movements, noting crow-to-crow interactions, sketching crows, and reading about crows has led me to recognize and hear the individual crows who frequent my yard, to realize how often they watch me, and to see how we affect each other as two living beings.  Clearly I am witnessing, not a visitation of random crows, but the habits and activities of a family of crows whose long-standing home includes my yard.

My work on this painting is a brilliant connective thread that has been woven through my summer, and has given me joy: intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.  I continue to reflect on, and learn about my friend, the crow, as the painting progresses.  With just a few pencil strokes I have learned to sketch a crow’s form in ways that distinguish it from similar Corvids like ravens and rooks.  I have considered the specific blackness of crows and which black hue I might use: ivory, mars, carbon, or bone?  I have experimented with how to express the alluring blue/purple iridescence which bounces off of crow’s feathers in bright sunlight.  I have painted my main crow subject larger-than-life, which is appropriate given what I know about her now.  Flight and voice are important crow features, so I have alluded to those special powers in this piece.  I have done the same with crow’s penchant for stealing shiny treasures.  I now have friends and family members telling me about their crow experiences and pointing out crow antics.  It seems I have become a magnet for all things crow!  I have sketched out plans for two more grand, larger-than-life “crow” paintings to work on after this one is complete and sent off to California.