"A Desire To Copy Nature"

To many of Captain Audubon's neighbors, young John James Audubon was a curious boy. Unlike other boys his age, Audubon preferred to wander off on his own, taking long walks in the French countryside, where he spent hours investigating nature. But his greatest interest was not in the in flowers, pebbles, or leaves, which often crowded his pockets, but rather in the many living creatures who inhabited nature, particularly birds. As Audubon later wrote, "I never for a day gave up listening to the songs of our birds, or watching their peculiar habits."

By his own admission, Audubon's first attempts at drawing his beloved birds left something to be desired. "Like hundreds of others," he wrote in his journal, "I was under the impression that it was a finished picture of a bird because it possessed some sort of head and tail, and two sticks in lieu of legs." Though his early efforts met with praise and encouragement, John saw his artistic efforts as lacking. His father reminded him that the essence of any living thing would be difficult to capture in drawing and painting, but that did not mean that he should give up trying. Audubon never forgot his father's advice.

But John Audubon's choice to pursue a career as an artist came only after he had exhausted almost every other traditional means of earning a livelihood. In 1803, at the age of 18, Audubon was sent by his father to Philadelphia to avoid military service in Napoleon's army. While in the United States, Audubon tried his hand at a number of different ventures including managing his father's plantation, clerking for a business in New York City, operating a mine, and running a general store in Kentucky. He failed at all his efforts miserably.

By 1820, Audubon decided, with the encouragement of his wife Lucy, to concentrate on what he loved most-drawing birds. Working as a taxidermist, a portrait artist, and a drawing teacher to earn money, Audubon would otherwise spend every moment he could with his "objects of delight," as he referred to the numerous birds he discovered. For months, Audubon retired to the forests near Henderson, Kentucky to draw and paint the many different species of birds living near him. But try as he might, he still could not capture the feelings of movement and life of his subjects.

One day he struck upon an idea. Going to a nearby store, Audubon purchased several different types of wire. Then using a dead bird as his model, he then proceeded to attach the bird to a wood board. He then took the wires and attached them to different parts of the bird's body such as the wings, the tail, and the head. By moving the bird with the wires, Audubon was better able to understand the sense of movement that had eluded him for so long. He continued sketching the birds in their natural habitat, but Audubon also worked with his models in his studio. He also developed a method combining the use of watercolors and chalk. With these techniques, Audubon created some of the most dramatic renditions of birds and nature ever before seen.

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