Hi folks,

I just wanted to share with you some amazing paintings of exhibition standard budgerigars that were made by the artist R.A. Vowles in the 1940s, here in the UK. Vowles was the 'official artist' of the Budgerigar Society in those days and was asked to prepare images that set 'the standard' of the day. His paintings were done from life - by using real champion birds as his models. I used to keep budgerigars as a boy in the early 1960s and I remember them as being trim, tight feathered birds with glowing colours. It greatly saddens me to see what 40 years of inbreeding and exhibition fashion has done to this once-lovely bird. I produced a website about canaries some years ago which is still online at: http://www.canaries.org.uk/

Within this there is BIRD ART section where I included paintings by R.A.Vowles of the classic budgerigars of his day - he was commissioned as an artist to portray the best champions of his day - the 1940s and 50s I think. here is the link. http://www.canaries.org.uk/Art/vowles/vowles.html

 

This is what exhibition budgerigars actually LOOKED like! I know because I remember them from my childhood in the 1950s. Their plumage was tighter than a drumskin; their spots were sharp and clearly defined; their head plumage was as smooth as a helmet and they were a million miles away from the giant-headed feather -dusters of today's bird shows,

 

I attach some scans of Vowles paintings which you are welcome to use on your website - they may remind people of the vanished glory and of what the exhibition madness has destroyed.

I wonder if anyone is attempting to reproduce the classic type of bird.

 

 

Let me know what you think of the paintings. If anyone would like copies of the scans I can provide them -maybe they will inspire a resurrection,

 

 

Light Green Cock - 1930s

 

Violet Cock and Cobalt Hen - 1930s

Beautiful pictures :hi: Thankyou so much for posting them. I would love to see more and will check out the links you provided.

Thanks again

You never know, some people might still be breeding these types of birds. I know there are people still breeding the 'old' standard of certain purebred cats, so why not budgies?

Can't see the pictures! And the link won't work!

The genes for the birds that we had 50 years ago are still around (mostly in the pet type budgies), we just need to selectively breed for these qualities

Edited November 21, 200816 yr by Neville

The pictures are not working for me either.

I was going to say Neville that I had a couple of pet types that looked like that

Sorry about the missing images - my bird website is hosted on a free server at Heart Internet and they disable it every month when my traffic exceeds 100 megabytes - apparently I passed my traffic limit today!. okay, I figured out a way to do it by posting them to my Flickr Photography site. Here they are - apologies for the hitch,

 

Also, if you would like digital copies of these image files - send me a private message with your email and I will email you the image files - or maybe there's a way to add them to this site so that anyone can download them. If you go directly to my Flickr Web Gallery at: Visit My Website you should be able to download them directly. Just go to the Flickr website via the link, click on the image and it will enlarge; then go to the menu heading 'All Sizes; and click on 'Download Original Image'

 

 

 

____________________

 

Official 'Exhibition Standard' Type of the Budgerigar Society [___________} Skyblue Cock by R.A. Vowles - drawn from life

circa 1940 - from Watmough's book.

 

___________

Opaline Blue Hen & Opaline Light Green Cock [_______________] Lutino Cock

 

- - - - - - - - -

 

Light Green Cock ......................................................................Violet Cock and Cobalt Hen

 

Grey Cock and Grey-Green Hen

 

All images painted by R.A. Vowles and printed in the classic book 'The Cult of the Budgerigar' by Cyril Watmough - readily available on the web as a second hand volume. Worth buying for the prints alone.

 

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do; I made considerable efforts to track down the original artwork for Vowles paintings but his work was apparently 'thrown out' by the Budgerigar Society sometime in the 1960s!!!! My honest recollection is that this is what show budgies actually looked like in the 1960s; the colours WERE that intense and the feathering WAS that perfect. The glory has passed away - but could it be re-born?

Edited November 21, 200816 yr by borderglider

The majority of us here use photobucket to post our images

Still only 1 image visable :bluebudgie:

yeah I only have 1 image available... but I was going to say they were more like pet types... I agree with what you are saying in regards to size and things... I see some show budgies in the UK that look ridiculous now a days but hey to the judges think they look fantastic because they have won cc's.

Apologies again - I posted the pictures here and then tried to reduce the size of the Flickr photos - for some reason this broke the links - probably because the file size changed. Here they are - for the very last time.

They can all be seen and downloaded from my Flickr Site at: Flickr Gallery

 

Grey Cock and Grey-Green Hen

 

Skyblue Cock

 

 

Opaline Blue Hen & Opaline Lt Green Cock

 

 

Lutino Cock

 

 

Light Green Cock

 

 

Violet Cock and Cobalt Hen

 

 

Apologies for all the chaos.

Edited November 22, 200816 yr by maesie

Thanks for taking the time to put them up, very interesting!

Thanks for getting them to work. Great drawings and some nice colours there too

Great drawings. It would be nice to get opalines with perfect markings like these