David Tomb
Bird Nerd. That is me - ever since I was a kid. Loved art, too. I stomped through much poison oak looking for hawks, owls and other birds. Every morning Gothic looking vultures sunned their wings in a dead oak snag in our backyard. I drew them. Naturalist Rich Stallcup and artists Louis Fuertes and Bruno Liljefors inspired me. Studying representational work at C.S.U.LB. set a course of developing my craft. For the ensuing years, I then wove my closest friends into my art as subject matter.
In 2005, I began a sabbatical after twenty years of non-commissioned portraits. Then I circled back to my first love... birds. Bird paintings/collages resulted from my research and drawing of bird skins at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at UC Berkeley, and the AMNH in New York. Additionally, I have traveled to and researched birds in Mexico, Ecuador, the Philippines, Borneo, Indonesia and Ghana.
My bird imagery is generated directly from my studies/drawings. Great care for verisimilitude and accuracy of painted birds coexist within a broader context of art. The environments and context for the birds is both real and invented, delicately described and flat, abstract and ambiguous.
Art making both personalizes and deepens my birding experiences and allows me to share my passion for the natural world with others. A new goal has arisen which is to inspire people to become active stewards of our natural resources and to, well, ...love birds. In 2010, I co-founded Jeepney Projects Worldwide - Art for Conservation.
For more information about the artist, please visit his website.