Surfbirds: The Folio Edition is a celebration of the art of the National Geographic Field Guide series. Was it solely for the art that prompted you to scale the guide up?
JA: That was the main reason. As the art consultant for the last three editions, I've had a chance to see the original plates for most of the book and wanted the birding community to see the amazing quality of those paintings. The size compromises necessary to keep the field guide portable just didn't allow the art to shine the way I knew it could. Illustrated Birds has all the printed information that is in the 5th edition, but at 9" x 12" and 5.4 pounds this is obviously a book that will stay at home to be consulted at leisure. By the way, the range maps have been updated and enlarged as well.
Surfbirds: Do you have any favorite plates that reproduced better than you expected in the Folio Edition?
JA: The woodpeckers and owls painted by Don Malick (who died in 1986) are some of my favorites. His painting technique is very crisp and self-assured, which allows his paintings to reproduce beautifully. Dave Quinn, a British artist who painted many of the Old World vagrants, as well as the loons, has an amazing ability to capture a bird's soft feathery quality and his technique is flawless. I've had the honor to have some of my own work appear in the field guide, and am most happy with some of the seabirds and shorebirds that I worked on.
Surfbirds: During the course of printing new editions of the field guide, is it a tough decision to decide which plates get re-painted?
JA: Jon Dunn, the lead editor of guide since the first edition in 1983, and I have discussed this issue endlessly and invited the input of many birders as well. These decisions are always tempered by the budget we have to work with for each new edition and the time available to the artists. In the end a consensus usually emerges. A new sixth edition of the field guide is in the planning stages (tentatively scheduled for 2014) and will include major revisions to all sections--text, art, and maps. Jon and I both feel that a field guide is a work in progress and that there's always room for improvement.
Surfbirds: How do you think the latest run of photographic guides compare to illustrated guides?
JA: I love to see all the amazing bird photography that is being done these days, but for identifying birds nothing beats a great illustration. The artist brings a lifetime of experience to the equation, whereas a photo documents a specific instant of a specific bird's life. As a bird painter myself, I attempt to paint each field guide image to reflect my internalized image of a species that has been built up over years of experience, not a photo-realist image of a specific bird. Additionally, art images allow for a much more coherantly organized page than a series of small photographic images each with different lighting and shadows.
Click here for a review on the Surfbirds Forum
Buy the book online at the National Geographic Store
