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I need a lot more guidance in this area... I don't have a lot of nature to look at, and it would help a lot if I had some examples, like the yellow warbler in the first lesson, to work on.
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Hello Mike, My favorite place to look at bird photos and videos is eBird Explore. eBird Explore photos, sounds, videos You can search by species, location, date etc. You could also try watching wildlife cams. Cornell Lab of Ornithology has several LIVE cams and you can actually pause the video feed and even scroll back a couple hours to find something you like. Bird Cams My favorite place to watch LIVE cams is Africam Africam Explore has great full color cams. Bears, tropical reefs, birds, and more. Explore Cams These might be interesting to practice on. I am not sure what the wildlife is like in your area but there are usually some bugs and birds to be found without going to far from your house.
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@Lee Ann van Leer I checked out the first couple of suggestions, and found a lot of birds to practice on. Now I need to do some still life so I can work on dark vs light. I feel a bit better with the additional practice, but I'll be moving slowly for a while. Thanks!
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@Lee Ann van Leer Thanks for these links, they are great.
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I used cross hatch lines in my sketch, something I wouldn't have used before. I like the stone walls in our backyard and used some of the skills I'm learning.
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glad to have the refresher course in shading and chiaroscuro. i've been painting a lot of fruit and veggies lately, so great for practicing!
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wow!!! excellent job.
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Good to eat!
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I sketched a hummingbird, using a combination of blending, stippling, and contour hatching. It was nice to see the different values in the photo and decide which skill to use.
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Not sure I would eat the lime and plum I drew.
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Aw, come on :-) - I think you did a great job with the subtlety and variety of the colors, especially since watercolor is so difficult.
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I've found that I like using shading to depict light and dark, even though it takes longer than hatching or scribbling. In the field I'll probably use more hatching, especially contour hatching, as it's pretty fast and effective. Stippling goes way too slowly for me to use in the field, but I drew some illustrations for my dissertation using stippling, and it is a very good way to depict both light/shadow and curvature. I want to get better at depicting 3-dimensional objects on my pages. It'll take a lot of practice. Does anybody else have trouble seeing the reflected light?
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I have always seen the reflective light but missed it in my drawing of it. I think it would be easy to overlook, but am happy to know the breakdown and realize how I missed it.
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Yes, Allison, I also have trouble seeing the reflected light. The demo helped though, especially when we looked at the strawberries. I think the point is that we should be sure to draw in the reflected light even though we can’t see it well because this will help us get a 3D effect.
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I've not yet practiced chiaroscuro on fruit. Here are acorns and wood. I'll try these again in a few weeks.
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I love what you have done here and delighted to see it. Once I get more control of my practice time I will try to share as well. This is fun.
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It's interesting that I can see that the chiaroscuro happens even within the seed spots on the strawberries. I love learning things that we already know, but take for granted.
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I noticed that in the seed spots too! Very cool to notice things like that.
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I took the line drawings of the acorn, daisy and butterfly and did shading on all of them using the techniques presented and it was fun to see them come to life.
Not sure I would eat the lime and plum I drew. 
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