Adrienne
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Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
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I actually found a nature journaling monthly meetup in my city. Each month we meet up in a different park or forest preserve and journal for ~3 hrs. I've met some nice people and have enjoyed learning from them and sharing our experiences together. This year was full of hard times but this group really helped me focus on the good things in life - nature and people who are inspired by it. -
I like both of my sketches, but like the attention to values on my second one especially, as well as the detail on the wings. I spent more time on the second. Love this cute little yellow friend.
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I went to Syracuse University for my Masters degree, and lived close to downtown. Walking home from class I remember seeing huge roosts of crows gathering in the trees and still remember those chilly October evenings so vividly. I now live in Naperville, and though I see and hear crows sometimes, I haven't been able to attract them to my yard. (Though we have many bird feeders and other features to attract birds.) West Nile hit the local population hard, and I hope their numbers rebound quickly.
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Love this! Great job!!
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I enjoyed the process of going back to refine the sketch from the gesture drawing session. Make me realize how hard it is to get things down on paper accurately in such a short period of time. One of the aspects that really drew me to the course was learning the skills to draw birds in the wild. Now I feel like practicing gesture drawings and then refining them with photos of that species will help make my drawings spontaneous, lifelike and accurate.
I must agree with the others that this bird's bill was difficult! Had to refine many times. It's perspective and dimensions are just a little off what your brain wants them to be.
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This exercise was fun but still challenging. The breast of the bird took a long time to draw! Negative space was particularly helpful in positioning the feet and drawing the space between the beak and tail. It's a really great way to slow down and practice drawing what you're seeing accurately. I've done this type of exercise before, but not in a long time. It's good to revisit techniques like this no matter how long you've been drawing to sharpen your skills.
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I absolutely love the aesthetic of this journal page! Beautiful lizard and the different writing styles are wonderful!
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Finally getting back to the class after a longer hiatus during the holidays that expected. For this exercise I studied two nests, it was a good way to make more focused observations than just looking at one object.
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This is my journal page from my second visit to McDowell Grove Forrest Preserve, in Illinois. I went earlier in the week but didn't have my sketchbooks with me, so I used that day to mostly write my observations. I wanted to go back again since it was so enjoyable. The downy woodpecker was literally right in front of me, but only for 3-5 seconds. I wanted to try and draw him from memory so that was a little challenging. The two visits were quite different mostly in how I recorded my observations. Both days were really nice fall days and I ended up sitting out there for a few hours yesterday even though it was in the 40s, I painting the middle scene well into dusk, and watching the sky change color as I painted was really special.
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I really like that you included a map! What a great idea.
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This was a fun first assignment. The sketch itself didn't take long, and I tried to jot down the scene as quickly as possible to get in the habit of field sketching. Painting from the photo took longer because I had the luxury of taking my time. I tried to loosen up and paint shades of color and textures rather than focus on too much detail. This drawing helped me notice the subtle pallet of colors in the yellow warbler that go beyond yellow.
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@Deborah Wow, small world! Lisa and I worked together on the SUE project and other exhibits related projects. I work in vertebrate paleontology. Lisa was one of the best people I've worked with, we miss her a lot! Turns out Lisa and I worked with the same people in our archaeology field work days but never crossed paths until our time at the Field. It's nice to meet you, Deborah!
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I love this! Great work, very expressive!
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I was so excited when I saw this course. I've been drawing all my life and love natural history (I work at the Field Museum in Chicago.) This part year I've also become interested in birding and have had a lot of fun making lists of all the species I can identify. I often work from photos or the taxidermy exhibits here at the museum, but I've started sketching outside more, especially on trips to the southwest and really love it. Still, when sketching outside I choose to draw landscapes or plants - because they're more static. What I really want to learn from this course is drawing animals, especially birds in the field. I want to hone my skills of observing and translating those observations to paper to bring more movement and life to my drawing. Even before watching the first video, I've been thinking about creating a journal for a year, to emphasize the passage of time and the changes of the seasons. I liked the idea of doing a page a month to represent that time passage. So far my sketchbooks have a few pages devoted to earlier trips I took this year to Arizona and Wyoming, but they don't capture the extent of the trips, mostly because I couldn't spend as much time as I'd like on the sketches. I'm hoping to learn to jot things down more quickly and focus less on a refined, complete drawing. I look forward to interacting with you all in this awesome class!
I actually found a nature journaling monthly meetup in my city. Each month we meet up in a different park or forest preserve and journal for ~3 hrs. I've met some nice people and have enjoyed learning from them and sharing our experiences together. This year was full of hard times but this group really helped me focus on the good things in life - nature and people who are inspired by it. 
I like both of my sketches, but like the attention to values on my second one especially, as well as the detail on the wings. I spent more time on the second. Love this cute little yellow friend. 
I enjoyed the process of going back to refine the sketch from the gesture drawing session. Make me realize how hard it is to get things down on paper accurately in such a short period of time. One of the aspects that really drew me to the course was learning the skills to draw birds in the wild. Now I feel like practicing gesture drawings and then refining them with photos of that species will help make my drawings spontaneous, lifelike and accurate.
I must agree with the others that this bird's bill was difficult! Had to refine many times. It's perspective and dimensions are just a little off what your brain wants them to be. 
This exercise was fun but still challenging. The breast of the bird took a long time to draw! Negative space was particularly helpful in positioning the feet and drawing the space between the beak and tail. It's a really great way to slow down and practice drawing what you're seeing accurately. I've done this type of exercise before, but not in a long time. It's good to revisit techniques like this no matter how long you've been drawing to sharpen your skills. 
This is my journal page from my second visit to McDowell Grove Forrest Preserve, in Illinois. I went earlier in the week but didn't have my sketchbooks with me, so I used that day to mostly write my observations. I wanted to go back again since it was so enjoyable. The downy woodpecker was literally right in front of me, but only for 3-5 seconds. I wanted to try and draw him from memory so that was a little challenging. The two visits were quite different mostly in how I recorded my observations. Both days were really nice fall days and I ended up sitting out there for a few hours yesterday even though it was in the 40s, I painting the middle scene well into dusk, and watching the sky change color as I painted was really special. 
This was a fun first assignment. The sketch itself didn't take long, and I tried to jot down the scene as quickly as possible to get in the habit of field sketching. Painting from the photo took longer because I had the luxury of taking my time. I tried to loosen up and paint shades of color and textures rather than focus on too much detail. This drawing helped me notice the subtle pallet of colors in the yellow warbler that go beyond yellow. Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)