After the coyote left, I spontaneously began to sketch the animal. A sly predator, the coyote plays a key role in my new book, The Grassland Queen, which brings readers into the lives of the animal communities in the American grasslands through the story of the long-billed curlew—the largest shorebird in North America. Having experienced curlew predators such as coyotes and foxes over the years of doing field work, I kept working on my coyote sketch from memory, field sketches, and my Cubist photographs.
I had just come off a round of manuscript edits and finalizing endnotes and, in comparison, drawing felt meditative. The deadline to submit the artwork for The Grassland Queen was looming. My plan had been to submit my long-billed curlew photographs but I learned that they would not be published in color.
Now I looked more closely—though some were visually striking, black-and-white photographs wouldn’t have the emotional resonance I was looking for. I wanted readers to feel the intimacy I had experienced while observing the curlews. After years of grassland research and hikes through curlew habitat, evocative moments from the birds’ lives were vivid in my mind.
But did I dare to draw the curlews? I’d loved art in high school and won a few national prizes and, as a naturalist, I routinely make field sketches—but these are for my own reference. Not wanting to overthink the process of drawing, I decided to do flash experiments and test whether I could transmit how I see curlews.
So I stopped thinking and began drawing. The book was going into production the next month and I was obligated to submit the artwork within three or at most four weeks. My first three attempts at drawing curlews weren’t any good.
As the days went on, I slipped into working more seriously. Mornings are my good time, and when I began summoning curlews onto sketch paper in the mornings, it grew clear that I was prioritizing drawing over field work. Eventually the curlews heard my pleas and they came.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
