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Overview:
Levi Whittier is an artist working in many mediums, mostly on one subject: birds. His art for the Cascades Raptor Center includes merch, signage and soon, a BRiGHT Parade float.
What came first for Eugene’s Levi Whittier, who painstakingly documents the details of vultures, owls and eagles and other avians in his work: the art or the birds?
It was the art, pointing to a childhood with a ceramics-loving father in small-town Oakland, Oregon. But the birds weren’t long after that, with Whittier harness training chickens for fun at a young age. Soon, he started drawing them.
Now 33 years old and based in Eugene, he combines those two passions in his artwork, which is frequently commissioned by or donated to Eugene’s Cascades Raptor Center. He uses a range of mediums, including scratchboards, paint, digital art and printmaking.
Whittier, who studied zoology as an undergraduate at Oregon State University, is working on a master’s degree in nonprofit management at the University of Oregon and is now interning with the center, in addition to teaching at the Maude Kerns Art Center in Eugene and the Emerald Art Center in Springfield. (The classes are not bird-centric.)
“They have a lot of interesting traits,” Whittier said of why he’s drawn to birds specifically. “I’m also very drawn to the personality of animals. So in general, I try to get the personality to come out in every portrait and drawing.”
Making art for the center
His art for the center is on T-shirts, pins, and will soon be visible to visitors outside of the gift shop. The signage at the center, weather-worn and not the easiest to read, is being replaced with new versions featuring more legible text and colors, anchored by Whittier’s work. The works aren’t just generic illustrations of birds within a species, but rather portraits of specific resident birds at the center.
He’s also working on a piece of bird art at a decidedly larger scale: a puppet of an osprey, three times the size of the real bird, for the center’s BRiGHT Parade float. He’s sculpting different parts of the bird in the 3D modeling software Blender before they are printed out. (Whittier is working on the feet, wings and head, while another team constructs the body.)
Art is a big part of the center’s community engagement, said Maddy Broedel, development director for the Cascades Raptor Center. Broedel pointed to the center’s art-based programming in local schools and its annual Raptor Art Challenge. She said it’s part of a larger commitment to people exploring their relationship to wildlife and the natural world through art.
“In a time where AI is super-prevalent, and a time where it’s easy to create instant art through AI, it’s really important to be encouraging local artists to use their creativity to create these amazing pieces,” said. “We’re super-fortunate to have a relationship with Levi now for many years.”
Whittier said nonprofits can tend to prioritize getting art quickly and cheaply, to not strain already-limited resources. That makes working with the Raptor Center special, where he’s both donated designs and been commissioned, special.
“Most of the time, other nonprofits are like, ‘Hey, can you donate this to me?’ And it’s like, well, I’m really poor, I could really use some money for that effort,” he said. “I will under-charge nonprofits, because they’re nonprofits, but the Raptor Center has always been very fair about paying me.”
How to capture a bird’s personality in art
Whittier’s works start with taking solid reference photos of the bird, as they’re not the greatest at sitting for portraits. With physical works, reference images are moved over to the actual working material with transfer paper to trace accurate outlines.
He does draw, but his most detailed avian works are based on bringing depth to images through carefully placed brush strokes or, with scratchboard works, carefully scratched-away ink atop a white backing, then colored with inks.
Special attention is paid to little details from the reference images, like eye shine and stray feathers to really characterize a bird. Whittier said capturing those minute details leads to praise from the people who know the birds best.
“When their trainers see it, they’re like, ‘Oh, that is my bird right there,’” he said.
While much of Whittier’s art is done of the birds at the Cascades Raptor Center, other birds are not disqualified from portraiture. (Nor is other subject matter; Whittier’s work includes reflecting on his gender journey and identity as a transgender man.)
Maybe the closest subject is a crow named Speck. Speck often visited him on the balcony of a rented condo in Eugene’s South Hills, where Whittier lived during the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Whittier watched Speck’s whole life unfold on that balcony over the next two years. Speck found a mate, only for that crow to disappear and leave Speck seemingly depressed. Then, a younger female crow started to bother Speck, but Speck kept his distance. They slowly bonded and then mated; Speck would leave their baby crows on the balcony.
When the condo’s owner wanted to move back in 2022, Whittier had to say goodbye to the crow family. Now, paintings of Speck and his mate are on a wall of Whittier’s bedroom, next to his desk. Whittier was careful to document a specific detail: Atop Speck’s painted head, like in real life, is a single white feather.
