Dee
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I believe that this is a female rose breasted grossbeak. but I have not seen the golden marking on one of these birds before. I am wondering. Is this unusual or more common than I think.
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Any quality #2 pencil and a mailable eraser will do. I also like watercolor pencils . They are easy to transport . You color your drawing with the colored pencils and then use a wet brush to transform your drawing into a painting . ( I use Fabre Castell or Prismacolor watercolor pencils) Also ,The Sakura koi watercolor travel size kit Is easy to carry into the field.
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This course was a birthday present to myself. I have always been interested in nature and plant and wildlife conservation . It has helped me to concentrate more on the overlooked details of plants and animals. The journal documentation really makes me look further and ask myself questions. For instance up until now I would never have attempted drawing birds. Now I feel like I can render a nice image of a bird and with practice it will get even better. I look forward to documenting woodland plants especially wildflowers as spring is warming up . .I’m going to share the joy of making an ongoing nature journal with other people who I know who would enjoy getting closer to nature. A funny experience that I encountered would be when I documented a “porcupine” in a willow tree in my backyard. I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if I wasn’t looking for something to journal about every day during the classes. So, it forced me to do a drawing of the critter in the tree and do some “research about porcupines”too.
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John Muir and John Burroughs come to mind for me when I think of naturalists. I have enjoyed reading materials from both. I also visited the sparse cabin of the American naturalist John Burroughs in Roxbury, NY. It has fantastic views of the beautiful Catskills Mts. You can see the huge rock in a field that Burroughs would often sit on where contemplated nature. I usually wake up early. Most of the time it is just before dawn when the sky is a l pale blue-white but brightening. Sometimes It may be cloudy too but interesting enough I found out that if you have patients you may suddenly see clouds move away and slight hints of pink appear, and if you stay with it you may see rays of color suddenly dash across the sky like a pale watercolor wash. But if you can keep watching you may see transformations that will “amaze”you. I found out that I had some beautiful sunrises that looked like pictures I had taken on vacation but to my surprise this was in my own backyard while I was sleeping . I have developed an interest in watching as many sunrises as I can. I love seeing the first rays of sun creep along the horizon with very dramatic effects at times. This all happens just as the sun is coming up and it’s a magical time. It won’t last too long, and every sunrise is different. That’s nature. Prepare to be “amazed” !
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I like using the watercolors and I try most of the techniques. I know I still need to work on proportion, especially when drawing animals. Birds are really complex and the proportions and sets of wings are perplexing but I know I can get better with practice. I like to do the birds eyes. Here are my before and after images of the warbler , I definitely think I showed improvement.
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This has been a challenging attempt to draw and paint a female cardinal. I used mainly wet on dry technique in most of this picture with layering of color in the body. Used some dry brush on the branches and layering over them. I tried to create the shape by varying light wash on body .
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I have tried all three techniques. Wet on dry offers more options for control . It is direct painting. You make your mark in the spot where you want it to be. You have to pay more attention to what is happening with wet on wet because the colors can mix or go in direction that you might not want them to go. It can be challenging. I really like the textured look that you can achieve with dry brush on dry paper. For instance you can make a field of grass without making a brush stroke for each blade of grass.
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I mixed five colors for each of the paintings Wasatch Mt. and the rosy finch. Each of these colors is mixed, none is straight from the paint set. I would use them in different values, lighter or darker as I rendered the painting . I would also need to mix more colors as needed if I was doing these paintings.
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When creating depth I find that concentrating on negative space, and shapes is really important . However, shading with the side of my pencil the way that I would do in “chiaroscuro” exercise works best for me. So I always lean on that technique. I find hatching and cross hatching very difficult even though I like the look in drawings . I guess it’s something I really need to practice to add variety. I recently tried using a pencil or small ruler to judge proportion . I’ll carry a ruler along in my art tote now. I use to guess for my proportions.
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I found this difficult to draw . Honestly , I had to keep referring back to the video . I caught a fragment at a time in order to complete the drawing. The moving feather details were hard to follow. I tried to capture as much as I could . This duck is only shades of gray but the feathers are really awesome in action.
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I tried using the pencil tip to judge proportion between the flower and the stem and leaf length. This is a white daffodil and it has some especially interesting texture on the flower .
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I think that concentrating on negative space is very useful to help you to define and refine shapes and proportions more accurately. Color or value of background can interfere or complicate identifying neg spaces.
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The time limit for each drawing really forces you to focus on the subject.
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It was hard to follow the moving video of the duck but it was good practice to try to draw the subject while in motion.
