Case 13
- Elaine Power 2
Elaine Power. New Zealand water birds: an artist’s journal. Auckland: Collins, 1973.
For her third and fourth collections of bird paintings, New Zealand water birds and Seabirds of New Zealand, Elaine Power includes images from her field sketch books and notebooks, so that the reader can see the images develop from an embryonic stage.
In her preface to Seabirds of New Zealand, Elaine Power describes the difficulty of painting birds from life: “The sea and the boat are rarely still. The birds are in a hurry, and the nearer they are, the more difficult they are to see. Imagine trying to capture an impression of a gannet diving vertically into the water a few metres away from the boat; or a passing tern swooping with the aerobatic mastery of a swallow; or petrels ‘running’ on the water.”
Elaine Power. Seabirds of New Zealand. Auckland: Collins, 1979.
In her preface to Seabirds of New Zealand, Elaine Power describes the difficulty of painting birds from life: “The sea and the boat are rarely still. The birds are in a hurry, and the nearer they are, the more difficult they are to see. Imagine trying to capture an impression of a gannet diving vertically into the water a few metres away from the boat; or a passing tern swooping with the aerobatic mastery of a swallow; or petrels ‘running’ on the water.”
For her third and fourth collections of bird paintings, New Zealand water birds and Seabirds of New Zealand, Elaine Power includes images from her field sketch books and notebooks, so that the reader can see the images develop from an embryonic stage.
Elaine Power. Countryside and garden birds of New Zealand. Auckland: D. Bateman, 1987.
Elaine Power (1931-) is an Auckland-born artist and author best known for her books of bird illustration. Beginning with Small birds of the New Zealand bush, her books have remained popular with New Zealand children and adults alike since the early 1970s. Power’s paintings are pleasing to the eye while retaining a high degree of ornithological accuracy.
