BIRD PEOPLE

I have this weird obsession with bird-people lately. It stems partly, I think, from this class I'm taking right now, called "Birds in Books". It's taught by Mike Fink, a very old and pretty well-known English teacher here at RISD. He's got this obsession with birds, and basically decided to make a class about it. He's fascinated with the symbolism and folklore that is associated with birds, and he loves to tell what he calls "bird stories". The class really consists of little more than him standing up in front of all of us and just telling stories about birds, either drawn from his own experience, that of others he's spoken to, or from books he's read. It's pretty interesting (although, at times, a little difficult to take seriously... I hope Mike never reads this...) and during every "lecture" I find myself doodling in my sketchbook to keep myself from zoning out.


And, more often than not, I end up drawing these strange, goofy/creepy, anthropomorphic bird figures. Here's a few that I scanned a little while ago. There's more where that came from, though.

There's some mysterious symbols in the corner of this one... not sure what that was about.

Oh, and then there's another mopey little self-portrait that found its way onto this page too, on whatever morning I was drawing this in class. I sort of always feel that way when I have to wake up at 8:30 in the morning... it's simply too early for anything to exist.