“Buzzard Creek” charcoal and graphite drawings

Here are some unfinished studies for a finished work which will probably be as different from these studies as they are from each other.

Like most of my art, these drawings are autobiographical. When I walk around by myself finding fossils in creeks and wild places, I will sometimes hear a flapping of large wings directly above me and look up to see a buzzard or two circling over my head and swooping low to check me out. Very low. Sometimes I have looked up and seen a whole column of buzzards circling above me, the lowest buzzards just right over my head. I understand why they do it: If you spend all day long stumbling around slowly looking down at gravel sand bars and keep bending down to pick something up, then you move just like someone who is about to keel over and die.

Sometimes it can really spook me how low they will get before I even notice them. Buzzards are very large birds and have the faces and demeanor you would expect of an animal that spends most of its life fighting over dead carcasses. I just love ’em.