Tuesday, October 20, 2009

New Work and Some Changes








I've been continuing on my drawing and painting kick lately and made some changes to one of my works, "Kitty in the Garden", and did a new "In the Gloaming" picture without the "critters".
I've also been working more with pen and ink and teaching myself to draw birds from life. The colored bird picture here is based on a picture in my "Birds of North America" book. My goal is to draw birds with the correct markings from life. Difficult to achieve because photographing wary birds like the English sparrow is tricky. I look out my window to do my real life sketching because if I'm outside and get close enough to really see them, they fly away immediately as soon as I make a move with the pencil.
The Indigo Bunting in the colored bird picture (which I have also seen in real life) started out as a black and white pen and ink drawing, but buntings are one of the most colorful birds and this one cried out for color. I used colored pencil over the pen and ink for the bird and leaves, and chalk pastel for the background.
I did another abstract eye picture with ball point pen and ended up coloring it with colored pencils too. These were done on a left over pad from one of my tech courses, on the blank backs of the pages.
I decided to upload some of my( very rough) learning sketches of birds too, done in pencil first and highlighted with ball point pen after. These were done very quickly as birds are constantly in motion. I've been feeding them for years and find them adorable, in all their ways. That includes all the birds I see in my yard, from the common English sparrow to the exotic warblers and colorful finches and blue jays.


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