Crystal

I like the idea of adding stewardship to engagement with children.

Until I was in 5th grade, I grew up in a rural area. Since my parents, weren't helicopter types, my siblings and I spent a lot of time outside running all over the 2 acres we lived on, as well as climbing over fences to explore areas and fields nearby. One vivid memory I have is of climbing onto the roots of a fallen tree and looking down and seeing dozens of tiny snakes all around my feet! I must have walked onto a snake nest of some sort and I wish I could go back and look more closely at the snakes to ID them. I also remember the bright wings of the Red-winged Blackbirds and the Woodchuck the lived in our compost pile. We had a feral cat that lived outside and occasionally got food scraps and enjoyed being petted. Many of our neighbors had animals, such as cows, pigs, chickens and one couple even bred show pigeons! Whenever I complained of being bored, my parents would say, "Why don't you go outside?" Great advice!

I had heard before that hummingbirds used spiderwebs to build nests, but seeing the various photos made it really clear why. So smart to build an expandable and camouflageable nest!

Same! Well said.

Sometimes I like to draw birds I'd like to see, so that I get to know their points of distinction, especially if they are hard to tell apart at first, like sparrows or terns. It's always a great moment when I draw a bird and then see it because I notice the details so much more clearly.

It took me a year and one day to get this course completed. I think my final bird looks kind of worried, but overall has better proportions than the portly one I first drew. I used the idea of looking at negative space to get the body to be more accurate. From taking the course, I also learned to do the background all at once to start, instead of afterward and I had a lot less color bleeding that way. When I did my first painting, I didn't know about letting the layers dry and everything kind of bled together. In the second attempt, I was able to get more details on the stomach stripes and leaves, from layering and using a smaller brush. Overall, I think the second picture reflects more of the actual bird and the first one is more of the idea of the bird. I still need a lot of practice, but I did make progress! Thanks for the wonderful course.

I tested out all of these techniques. I can see that the wet on wet would be great for backgrounds, but it's kind of unforgiving. I wonder if it dried, if I could do a wet on dry over it. I am going to need more practice to master the texture of dry on dry with a water brush. In the future, I will try the wet on dry for detail work and dry on wet for large areas of color.

I feel like I still need to work on shading to create depth and contrast. I think putting in more hours would help! I found the squint test to be the most helpful. I'd never really thought about using a technique like that to see the lights and darks when drawing. 

I find it challenging to get the proportions right both horizontally and vertically. It's certainly more easy when it is from a photo or a subject that holds still, like a landscape. I do feel that it helps to use this technique. I saw that Liz used an actual ruler when she drew the plant in the last video and it seems like a helpful tool to try out in the field.

It seemed that I did better when I started on the top side of my subject. It also helped me to look at the negative space around the subject.