B4
THE ASTORIAN • SATuRdAy, FEbRuARy 19, 2022
Hiroko Cannon’s
‘Bewick’s Wren
in Lilac Tree.’
Watercolor artist
paints birds in detail
By ERIC SLADE
Oregon Public broadcasting
On a sunny morning in Pendleton,
Hiroko Cannon quietly opens her back
door, silently slipping into the yard where
she can watch the birds beginning to gather
around her array of bird feeders. This is
research, gathering images for the meticu-
lous watercolor paintings she’s been creat-
ing for the past 20 years.
She never uses a camera, preferring to
simply watch and remember what she sees.
“Just my brain and my eyes are the best
camera,” she jokes. “Best quality in the
world.” She adds those images to her deep
knowledge of birds gained through years
of research in books and online, and from
wandering nearby trails and scenic areas.
“When you know the bone structures, you
can move them around and know how
they’re going to look.”
But Hiroko isn’t just trying to show what
the birds look like, she wants to reveal their
personalities, too. “I watch their move-
ments and their activity, and then I make
a story,” she said. “They have a hierarchy,
who’s the strong one, who’s the weak one
— stuff like that. They are just like humans.
They are really funny creatures.”
Hiroko was born in Osaka, Japan and
moved to Tokyo at age 23 to study with
renowned painter Saetsu Nagasawa who
taught an ancient form of Japanese art. She
was soon working as a commercial illus-
trator, creating work for department stores
and international clients like Sears and
Toyota. But in 1986 her husband landed a
job in the U.S. and she moved with him to
Pendleton. When she got her first glimpse
of the town, “all I could see is this green
thing surrounded by wheat farms. I’ve
never seen a place like that. I thought it was
some kind of punishment — I was almost
crying,” she remembered. “It was a culture
shock!”
But over time she became involved
in the community, raised a family, made
friends and adapted to her new life. One of
her favorite new customs was the potluck.
“You put all kinds of food in a big tray. And
then sometimes the juice from the casse-
role runs into the cakes and the cake soaks
it up,” she said. “I liked that!”
Each of Hiroko’s paintings starts with
a sketch where she can play and explore,
finding the shape and design of the image.
“Sketching time is kind of fun,” she said.
But when she gets into the painting, “that’s
kind of Zen work. No one around me. I
have to be really careful, working on each
feather. I feel very calm.” Though she stud-
ied oil painting back in Japan she aban-
doned it years ago when the smell became
too much. Now she uses a translucent Win-
sor Newton watercolor, in her own signa-
ture style. “I use tiny brushes and apply
the paint in a colored pencil kind of way,”
she said. A single painting can take many
weeks or months to complete working in
her intricate technique, slowly building up
layers of color to bring the feathers to life.
And though Hiroko always works alone
she feels a deep connection with the bird
she’s painting, as if it’s with her there in the
room. “So I talk to him or her sometimes,”
she said. If it’s been a long day of painting,
she tells it, “Hey, I’m tired. I don’t want to
take care of you today. Bye!”
Her work is prominently displayed at
the Pendleton Art Center, and at other Ore-
gon galleries and shops. People in Pend-
leton sometimes stop her on the street to
thank her for her work. Recently a man saw
her at Walmart and told her, “I put your
card in a little tiny frame and then put it on
the kitchen wall.”
And maybe that’s part of the reason
Pendleton seems to be her home, for good.
“I don’t want to go back to Japan because
I’d miss the people,” she said. “People
really like my art, and they say it from bot-
tom of their heart. I can feel it. And I really,
really appreciate it. And I’d to say thank
you to all the people in Pendleton for being
so kind to me.”
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