I love that first bird. How do you decide how to make the shadow? How long? How thin? It is very hard for me to catch that in the field, maybe photos will be better for me.
Now that I see my photo, I can tell that my water color needs much more pigment. The shades should really all be darker. I seem to always have little droplets at the end of my brush strokes, so I think I have too much water in my pigment. Perhaps I squeeze as I paint, releasing more water from my brush! Also, there is no black in my pallet, so I tried to color a big black spot with a black water color pencil and then add water to it, but the best it gives me is a dark gray. Hard to do the mask of a waxwing with no black :( And again, too much water on the red of the wing. also, I did not do the eye yet - waiting to get some real black!
I am quite new to water color, though I have worked with water color pencils before.This was very difficult for me because I do not have a black or gray in my pallet. I am also wondering if it is ok to go back with the fine point marker to add some tree detail.
This is gorgeous, Victoria! Love it!! This little wren is also my favorite. The first to sing in the morning, she motivates me for work each day! Beautiful!
Gesture drawing is certainly a challenge. I need to press harder and trust myself more that I can do this! The duck sometimes looks animated - a mixture of what I saw and what I thought I saw.
This exercise really made me laugh, and I had to concentrate because I wanted to look back at my drawing to see "where" I was on the page. Most difficult, finishing the drawing at the same spot I began.
I chose two bushes that grow in my yard. I was interested in them because it is now late October and they are very different. The Mock Orange shows no sign of fall, really. Still green and strong with dark berries. The Burning Bush has turned a gorgeous magenta/red color and has begun to shed its leaves and has bright pink/orange berries. I enjoyed forcing myself to look closer and notice the similarities and differences beyond their obvious colors.
I think the finished journals are really cool, and they represent a very special time spent with one's self. I have always loved birds and my mother always had feeders and we would feed the birds in the winter months. I am an ESL teacher and try to teach my students about our state of Pennsylvania and, about 2 years ago, I realized they were not familiar with any of our birds. I designed a unit on Backyard birds and assigned each student a bird that we commonly see here. We spent days drawing them and writing short information about them. I was amazed at how much the students helped each other with their birds - the wings go more like this, or a second grader suddenly realizing the relationship of the beak and the eye and how they were located on the head. Drawing the birds was also very comforting and relaxing and the students spoke to one another and developed real friendships even though they were aged from Kindergarten through fifth grade. Students started coming into class telling me what birds they had seen after school or on the weekend and sharing what they looked like. We would look them up on this website and talk about them. I was so inspired by my students, that when I saw a class a few months ago I waited too long and the class was closed. When this one popped up, I jumped on it. I am really excited to start drawing and journaling!