Jean Blackburn paints with a bird's eye view

Jean Blackburn self-identifies as a bird nerd.

As a child, her mother would take her on Audubon Society bird counts.

As an adult, she and her husband have worked on bird-rehabilitation projects.

And now, birds are the centerpiece of her art exhibit at Selby Library, where it will remain until July 21.

For this set, Blackburn, who splits her time between Myakka City and the village in Longboat Key, was motivated by 2018’s Year of the Bird, which marks the centennial of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

Blackburn, 67, uses photographs her husband takes as the starting point for her paintings and goes from there. For works of specific species, Blackburn wants to be accurate and not just go from memory, such as when she needed to know how many primary feathers pelicans have.

“There’s a transformation that happens when it’s been filtered through a brain … and there are things that are lost because of the accuracy of proportions and that kind of thing,” she said. “In the same instance, the birds are important because I want them to be specific and right to that species.”

Sometimes, she mixes media to create her work. For her piece titled “Painted Buntings,” Blackburn incorporated cut up beer cans to illustrate the images. Blackburn found that the colors of beer cans, such as Bud Light blue, often are useful to help illuminate her vision.

Crafting these pieces take her a bit longer -— she estimates about six weeks — because  she has to make the piece fit like a jigsaw puzzle.

She’s collected beer cans from friends, and sometimes even from the side of the road. Some pieces on the panel are constructed from  litter she found on a trail, such as a small piece of a kiwi iced tea can.

One piece even has cutouts of images, including dollar pieces, floating around a bird. Blackburn said the piece gets a bit political and highlights the encroachment on birds’ environments.

“The political climate can’t help but elicit some comments in artwork,” she said.

While Blackburn has painted woodstorks multiple times, she can’t say she has a favorite bird. She does know, however, that she is most interested in native species. That’s why she probably won’t be painting the Longboat Key peacocks anytime soon. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t like them. She finds something to like about most bird species.

“I’m pretty fascinated with just about all of them, and I really want to explore their character and let the medium reflect the character of the given bird,” Blackburn said.

Along with seven birds pieces, Blackburn also has eight water reflection pieces in the exhibit.

“I really love water, as much as I love birds, so I love to see what happens with things when they’re under the influence of water.”

The pieces are also based on photos. The paintings show a human, either one of the Blackburns or their friends and family who are often subjected to Blackburn’s pleas to “please go underwater,” swimming below the surface.

“I work from literally thousands of water photos to find little sections that I think will work best as a painting,” she said.

Blackburn, who earned her MFA from the University of Oregon, a bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida and an associate degree from the State College of Florida, is responsible for artwork featured at the Whole Foods in downtown Sarasota. She also has had paintings exhibited in Cuba in the Palacio Salcines.

When she isn’t painting, she and her husband spend time volunteering at Myakka River State Park removing invasive plant species while on horseback and rehabilitating river otters. They serve on numerous environmental boards.

Some of the pieces in the Selby exhibit will go on display at a museum in North Carolina. Blackburn plans to continue adding to her bird collection for at least the rest of the year. But, knowing herself, she said she  doesn’t know if she’ll be able to stop herself.