Diane

I immediately felt happy when saw this cheerful yellow bird! I (think I) can see from the photo that the bird's body is facing away, but the head is turned back at the camera. I found it challenging to get the body perspective right, and to get the eye looking at the viewer. I can see that the edges of the feathers show up as the contours of the body, but it's challenging to make marks that imitate the feather shapes. It's fun how the acts of drawing and seeing interact, like two people dancing. In my case, they seem to take turns leading. After starting to draw the wings, I remembered from another drawing course that the wing feathers are very orderly, with two or three different kinds of feathers. Then I saw the light colored outlines at the end of the flight feathers. I could go back and erase some of the dark pencil there. Also I might erase inside the eye to bring back the white highlight that makes the eye look shiny. I am hopeful that doing drawings from photos helps the hand to get used to the basic shapes of birds, so that when I am watching a live bird, I can see and sketch within the few seconds that are available.