Michael
DiGiorgio
Nature Art
My artwork is created primarily as a visual record of past experiences I have had while observing birds. I am a real advocate of learning to draw and paint subjects from life instead of relying on copying photo-graphs. As my late friend Don Eckelberry often said, "There are too many wildlife artists who study in the school of Kodachrome."
Since birds are the driving force in my life, my goal is to transfer my fascination and joyfulness of these beautiful creatures to my viewers. Hopefully, an appreciation for the natural world will foster awareness for its preservation.
Ivory-billed Woodpecker © Michael DiGiorgio
"Mike Digiorgio is a creative wonder among today's bird artists. He is a consummate field birder, a keen observer, and a talented artist and illustrator equally at home in a variety of mediums." —Bill Thompson III, Editor, Bird Watcher's Digest. http://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/bwdsite/
"Mike DiGiorgio is one of America’s best contemporary painters of birds. His painting of a barn owl in flight is an example of what great bird painting should be: It captures a moment in nature, closely observed and true to life, in misty weather with a threatening sky as the barn owl glides low in search of prey. This painting crystallizes the moment, the elemental weather, and the ghostly bird, placing the viewer right there to experience the artist’s powerful vision."— Albert Earl Gilbert, past president of The Society of Animal Artist, world renowned Wildlife Artist. http://albertearlgilbert.com/
"Michael DiGiorgio’s paintings are old-fashioned in the best senses of the term. Echoes of his mentor, the great Don Eckelberry, are everywhere in his rich portraits. They’re created with great attention not only to detail but to rightness of setting and season. They’re not soullessly and mechanically rendered from photographs, but drawn from the ground up. Careful study of the living bird combines with Mike’s vast knowledge of his subjects to produce entire scenes that are biologically informed, rich with color and mood, and truly heartfelt. Mike paints how it feels to see (and sometimes even to hear) a bird, and that’s a hard thing to do if you don’t know birds inside and out. When I’m asked to recommend a bird artist for any project, Mike DiGiorgio is at the top of my list every time."— Julie Zickefoose, Author/Illustrator, The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds and Letters from Eden: A Year at Home, In the Woods (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) http://www.juliezickefoose.com/index.php
"DiGiorgio's work is distinguished by the convincing manner his subjects are depicted in the fullness of a moment in nature -- His compositions occupy the frame truthfully; "margin to margin", as his mentor the esteemed artist/naturalist Don Eckelberry would say. His painterly designs convey a place and the mood whether a secret location of a whipporwill in the spring twilight or feeling the buffeting rain over morning doves in autumn. In his work there is a passionate commitment to interpreting nature as he encounters it. He has produced an artistic gift we can learn from, savor and remember."—Tony Angell, master artist, author, sculptor. http://www.tonyangell.net/index.html