Images from Birding

You know how people either love Marmite or hate it? Well, I find that people react the same way to Michael Warren’s art. Personally I really love his work, but I've discussed it with friends over the years and I know it is not to everyone’s liking.

My first exposure to his style was in 1970 when, on joining the RSPB, I saw a cover of Birds magazine that featured his painting of a Pink-footed Goose. In those days the Warren style showed a bird in careful detail among psychedelic swirls for vegetation. In 1984 I bought Shorelines and was captivated by the way he painted scenes as if they were seen through a wide-angle lens, with a few small birds often well away from the focal point. In more recent times his style has changed again, and while we often see a large canvas and a relatively small bird, his paintings now frequently reflect a series of observations sketched in the field. I’m still a great fan, and now, almost four decades after that first exposure to his work, a 4-ft wide Michael Warren original looks down on me as I write.

To create this book, Michael Warren looked back through his diaries and sketchbooks to recall birding experiences in various parts of Britain and Ireland. He then created more than 60 new paintings to bring those sketches to life. The result is a mixture of rough pencil field sketches and feather-perfect watercolours.

Although one option would have been to organise the memories in date order, the decision was made to follow the normal systematic order, starting with divers and ending with buntings. This approach works, and means that you can logically work your way through the various families. The text is limited, with just a few notes about each set of images.

Every picture conveys movement of some kind, on the part of either the bird or its surroundings: a Dipper sits quietly by a rushing stream or, on a double-page spread, a bush is stuffed full of Fieldfares and Greenfinches with the occasional Tree Sparrow and Corn Bunting. It is in pictures such as the latter that Michael perhaps gets carried away: there is so much action that you almost can’t imagine it happening in real life. But his paintings have always tended towards exaggeration and that’s what makes them exciting.

Despite being a fan, I don’t always like his style. One or two of the newer paintings move away from his wide-angle approach and, for example, his watercolours of displaying Cuckoos and feeding Jays don’t look quite right. To me, the birds seem too double-jointed and pot-bellied respectively. And I don’t really like his large canvas of Puffins. But some people will simply love them – just like Marmite. Regardless, this is a great book, and if you like paintings that motivate you to grab your binoculars and go out birding, this is definitely one for you.

• Images from Birding by Michael Warren (Langford Press, Peterborough, 2007).

• 168 pages, numerous paintings and sketches.

• ISBN 9781904078241. Hbk, £38.

Available from Birdwatch bookshop

First published in Birdwatch 190:52 (April 2008)