Tuesday, January 17, 2012

A Bellowing of Bullfinches

bullfinches

How could I resist a "bellowing" of bullfinches? We don't actually have bullfinches (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) here in North America, apart from the odd, very lost, Eurasian stray. We do have many other types of finches, and living next to such a huge park, we get them regularly in the back yard. Without first hand knowledge, I had to wonder, are they loud? Do they bellow? Perhaps the "bellowing" is an allusion to the 'bull' in 'bullfinch'. So, I hunted down a surprising number of YouTube videos of a bellowing of bullfinches. They do not appear shy. They do like to sing. I listened to their songs and hear triplets and short strings (tuplets) of likely irrational eighth and sixteenth notes. So, I tried to illustrate my bellowing of bullfinches bellowing their songs in this fashion.

Detail of bullfinches

The males are the flashy pinkish-orange breasted birds and the females are the dun colour. You know how the males like to dress to impress.

The typography is designed to match the words. The letters of 'Bellowing' ("to make the loud deep hollow sound characteristic of a bull") are hollow and capitalized. The serifs on the 'B'of bullfinch are evocative of tail feathers. The letters are cursive and organic to suit the birds.

bullfinches686

2 comments:

swig said...

I just discover and LOVE your work! warm greetings from Paris!

minouette said...

Greetings from Toronto! Thank you, I really appreciate that. And, now, thanks to your comment, I can say the same. I had a look at your trilingual blog and I love the felted animals, especially the foxes.

Merci beaucoup et mes meilleurs voeux,
Ele (aka minouette)