This was more fun than I thought it would be.  I really took my time and tackled it over a few different days and was very free with my eraser.  It was a great exercise to work on seeing shapes and using negative space.

Once or twice I almost flipped the page and had to catch myself. It took me more than an hour but once I was done I flipped and got so satisfied with the result! It also taught me the value of patience (the tail, the last bit, was definitively a little bit raggedy since I was getting tired at that point), and the benefits of negative space and proportions to keep the bird in the right size. A great exercise!

This was a fun exercise!

I was a little intimated at first. Then I zoomed in and decided to take it as chunks. That helped me forget it was a full bird. I was really happy with my end result! I took my time and used the skills from the proportion measuring and negative space lessons.

  It was not difficult at all, but it did take quite a bit of patience.  I was really amazed at how much it resembled the cartoon sample of the song sparrow; it really did seem like a collection of shapes - a song sparrow "deconstructed" and upside down.  

I found this challenging with proportions (Again!) That is my biggest struggle in drawing and always has been. I had to take a break after several tries then got back to it. Now it looks better, but not quite right. Using negative space really helps me adjust my drawings and shift things to the right spot or shape or position. Overall, I was pleased with how it turned out!

WOW that was one of my better ones...go figure!

An excellent exercise.  An old trick in human portraiture, too.

I, too, am happier with the outcome than I thought I would be! It was a challenge to keep thinking "this shape" rather than "this feather" or "this piece of the plant." I haven't had time to work on this class since December, but I had a lull today and was glad to get my drawing materials back out! And I can't find where to upload my image although I've done it before...sorry about that!

It definitely turned out better than I expected, although it was not perfect -- for example, the twig was not as angled as it was "supposed" to be so the leg on the right didn't turn out as long as in the sample provided. But on the whole I am pretty pleased. It was a good exercise, but I do wonder about the usefulness of trying to replicate exactly the lines/squiggles on the breast of the bird.  It was also definitely easier to draw this bird from the black-and-white sketch provided than if we had been asked to draw it from a photo!!

I tried three times before getting to this one. That was a challenging assignment, but worth the time. I really had to study the image carefully and used lots of measurements to even get this one. I will use this to capture one of our white-throated sparrows; they are all over our yard now. I love how they scratch  for seeds like a chicken.

I am WAY behind in this course, so this comes much later than the rest. I found this exercise STINKING HARD but I'm glad I did it. Had to fudge and add a couple middle sections to my poor chubby sparrow but I'm glad I finished it. The feet and the branch were the most difficult for me. Yikes.

This was a very good exercise for observation and concentration. To keep motivated , I amigined the Song sparrow singing  Diana Ross’ hit: ‘Upside Down, you’re turning me’ ;)  The most tricky part for me was  keeping  the mutual  angles  of the branch, the legs  and bird’s posture  right.  But ,once again,  concentrating on negative spaces helped me to move on.  I also ‘discovered’ a technique to draw the complex irregular stripe patterns. I first jot many tiny dots outlining  the negative space with the adjacent stripe till and then I strenghten the contour with a more solid line.

Upside-down drawing was really fun. At first it was difficult getting the right proportions, until my mom came and told me to sketch the outline first 😅, which I forgot to do. That really helped me get the right proportions, and I'm really proud of myself for doing a pretty good job! I hope to improve on drawing upside-down subjects!

Y’all, I promise I measured proportions when I drew this poor sparrow. There’s a reason I’m taking this class, and I’m so thankful that my livelihood does not depend on my artistic abilities. All-in-all, it’s not too bad, but I have to laugh at his truncated head. 😂

Another great drawing exercise to hone the skills.   Fun to do.  Will do this exercise again.

That was HARD, but worth it! Learned alot.

This took a long time and I really spent the time trying to see the different shapes.  I did not get the proportions exactly right - but that will come with practice.  

I've done this exercise before, and it's usually successful.  I don't always generalize that skill to drawing live objects.  It was fun, but doesn't really help me much when it comes to the real thing.  Here's my attempt.  I saw it as a collection of shapes and lines.

Drawing from as a colection of shapes made me real look for the shapes without being concerned to proportions, or how it looks like. Because of that, to my view, getting shapes correct made me focus really hard. Such a level of brain focus made me draw a quite more accurate picture then I'm used to do. The exercise is really good. Probably I will do it more and more, as the ones of gesture drawing.

I did not really think I could do a good job of this exercise, but slowing down and focusing on the details and proportions yielded a solid effort! Perhaps a little fat, but so are the birds at my birdfeeder :)

I've tried this technique before and found that I was more successful if I only revealed one piece of the picture at a time so that I didn't get ahead of myself .  It is a wonderful trick that builds up my confidence and is easy to practice using photos .  I know a wonderful artist who likes to look at things upside down before she starts painting and it sure works for her!

A very interesting exercise.  Great way to train my brain to stop just "drawing a bird" and focus on looking.