Dvora’s bird paintings range from the abstract through the surreal and to the realistic. Here falcons, eagle, night jars and other birds if prey cohabit side by side with pelicans, kingfishers, chickens and ducks and a rare black swan. The subjects are deeply infused with character and these works are often described as “avian portraits”. Others, cooly look back at the viewer through a dramatic utilization of perspective. In some of the later drawing I employed Trompe-l’œil techniques to help the birds “fly” off the canvas.
No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.
William Blake
The 1993 Kenyan Bird Stamp Issue.
Kenya, is home to 1,068 of the 1,750 bird species found in Africa. Back in 1986 the Kenyan team of Terry Stevenson, John Fanshawe and Andy Roberts broke the previous world record by spotting 342 birds in a 24 hour period. In 1992, to support lucrative tourism to Kenya and in response to to growing interest in raising local and international awareness in Kenya’s exotic aviary, the Kenyan Post office decided to issue a series of stamps. I won a bid to draft the illustrations for this selection of exotic East Africa birds. My Post Office contact set up meetings to consult with expert ornithologist and we created the list of birds together. The illustration were drawn using peserved specimen from the national museum.
My illustrations focused on the bird with a contrasting background representing an equally exotic flora from its habitat. The format also included frame, an obtrusive text of the value, the country and a taxonomy of the species in latin, english and swahili. My husband Zvi helped with these graphic elements using an early color printer which could print on a plastic transparency. The swahili names of the birds were supplied by my contact at the Post Office who had contacted the tribal elders in the location of the bird’s habitat. This took a long time and delayed the publication of the issue.
The series consisted of three large stamps representing larger birds:
- The first was a 50 Ksh stamp featured a “Yellow Billed Hornbill“.
- The Second was a 80 Ksh stamp featuring a pink “Lesser Flamingo“, native to rift valley lake of Nakuru.
- The third was a 100 Ksh “Hadada Ibis” named for its three note call and featuring a distinctive iridescent green wing coverts.
The series also included eleven smaller stamps for smaller birds:
- The first is a 50 Cent stamp featuring a “Superb Starling“.
- The second is 1 Ksh stamp with a smart looking “Red & Yellow Barbet” with red rosy cheeks and sporting a polkadot plumage.
- The third is a 1.5 Ksh stamp showcashing with a “Ross’s Turaco” a social bird with a red crest, yellow beak and a blue plumage.
- The fourth is a 3 Ksh stamp portraying an “African Fish Eagle“
- The fifth is a 5 Ksh stamp showing a “Greater Honeyguide “
- The sixth is a 6 Ksh stamp portying a ” Vulturine Guineafowl“
- The seventh is a 7 Ksh stamp presenting “Malachite Kingfisher“.
- The eighth is a 8 Ksh stamp presenting a lovely “Speckled Pigeon“.
- The ninth is a 10 Ksh stamp representing a “Cinnamon Chested Bee Eater“. You can see a painting of one in the gallery above. I still wonder if including a bee eater is an inside joke, since I often break the ice by explaining that my name in Hebrew means “honey bee”.
- The tenth is a 11 Ksh stamp with portraying a “Scarlet Chested Sunbird“.
- The eleventh is a 14 Ksh stamp with “Reichenow weaver“.
This series achieved its goal as it became very popular among collectors who focused on birds, wildlife or Kenya.
For or more information on philatelic design look at this page.