fawn&forest

To round out this month's Forest Finds Q+A, Matt of Mincing Mockingbirds. I am intrigued with the personality Matt captures in his bird painting (+prints) and was delighted to have his work as part of September's Forest Finds.

When you were a kid what did you want to be when you grew up?
I always knew I wanted to be an artist. When everyone else was giving up art as silly, childhood nonsense, I just kept plowing ahead. When I was five years old, my grandmother thought there was something terribly wrong with me, and pestered my parents into taking me to a psychologist. He met with me, and watched as I drew a bunch of dinosaurs. Not only was he impressed with the drawing skill I exhibited, but also with the fact that I could spell both their common names as well as their Latin scientific names. My mother asked what it was that had, and the psychologist said, "creativity." He thought my grandmother was nuts.

What is it about birds that captures you?
They are incredibly dynamic creatures, and naturally lend themselves to painting and art. I'm very much interested in science and natural history, and for whatever reason, capturing a bird's "expression," or the certain tilt of the head, just does it for me. There's some mind-blowing bird illustrators out there able to expertly render every feather, but I enjoy a much more painterly approach, or putting them in situations that maybe are not traditionally found in bird art.

What does the rest of '08 hold for you?
I just finished a whirlwind three months that included going to Australia, buying a house and building a new studio. I'm very excited at the prospect of just being able to sit down and throw some paint around!

Thank you Matt! Check out Matt's blog here.