Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Yesterday I visited the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca with two friends from bird club. We went to see the mural that is being painted by Jane Kim illustrating one of each family of birds that exist in the world. The entire mural is about two stories high. The background is a map of the world and over it she is painting a life-sized bird from that part of the world representing one of the bird families--223 birds ranging from the hummingbirds to the ostrich. She has been working on it for a year and expects to finish by the end of 2015. Most of South America is done and a start has been made on Central America but Norh America is still blank. Her work is just incredible. We got to talk to her for a while before she went up on the lift to resume work.
We managed to get a little birding in, too.
We managed to get a little birding in, too.
~ Sharon
Jane Kim at work--up on the lift to reach the top of South America
Australia, Asia, Antarctica, Africa, and Europe are done and most of South America. She still has Central America and North America to finish
Australia--The biggist bird is the Cassowary
Lyrebird from eastern Australia
Closeup of a Cassowary
Jeanne ~ very dino-ish
Splendid Fairy-wren, my favorite Australian bird
Asia. The biggest bird is in the hornbill family
Africa and Asia
These birds are in southern Africa right around the area I will be visiting in three months.
Petrels over the Southern Ocean
Europe
Great Gray Owl hovering over Scandinavia
Peregrine Falcon
It was fascinating to see this section of the mural with birds in various stages from preliminary sketches on paper placed on the map through birds with colors blocked in to some completely finished.
This Sun Bittern in full display is magnificent
Paper sketches just into Mexico mark the progress to date.
We were able to watch Jane Kim work from windows on the upper floor.
She paints in the background color in a flat coat then puts in the details to make it look three dimensional.
Attention to detail. These paintings are incredibly intricate.
There is already a neat mural of bird silhouettes on the opposite wall outside the gift shop.
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Here's an update from artist Jane Kim, who's at work on her From So Simple a Beginning project. Eventually it will feature more than 250 birds and will be the most comprehensive bird mural ever painted. Here's the very first to take shape: the rare New Zealand Saddleback. Watch the video, then click through to support this great project: http://bit.ly/XSMOAD
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From So Simple a Beginning - Painting the first bird
Jane Kim has painted the first bird of our From So Simple a Beginning mural project. The black-and-chestnut songbird is a Saddleback, or tieke, a threatened species from New Zealand. Learn more and support the mural project at http://igg.me/at/CornellLabMural
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