David

Since started this course I've been staying at home, just going out to the garden in a dense urban area. Even so, I'm doing a diary about the "true" nature I see. I'm not drawing the plants and flowers in the garden because they aren't wild. House Sparrow and Blackbirds probably don't agree with me. Some of the suggestions in the list are very good. I hope I already start doing some of them. My final words about this course are:

• I enjoy very much.
• I started my project and I share some pages
• My lastest wow moment happened a couple of days ago when I saw a Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus) in my backgarden an event that at least has 30 years.

I think I improved my painting technic in the last few weeks. Although I'm starting using standard A4 (letter size) for my paintings which is kind of big to take pictures of...

I think it shows progress. First drawing was a flat bird. This one is a much more rich bird. But you can say it better than I.

My exercises took me time. I'm not full adjusted to the dry-on-dry with the waterbrush. I must keep doing it. At some point I used the old style brushes to finish the painting. Maybe doing it in a small scale doesn't help too. These techniques for sure will be used while I'm doing nature journaling. For more satisfing results I need practice and practice more and more to give me better results.

All techinques were helpful. The negative space to set proportions, the stippling to shade the reed, the hatching and contour-hatching to fill the shadows, even the blending for some effect on the back and wing of the Wren. I'm happy with the final result overall.

Unable to go outside mainly because weather conditions, I looked up to old pictures and did the task sugested. Proportions with this technique is quite accurate, and even if is not by the milimeter, gives realism to the drawing. I tried with different objects and for me all objects are good for it, although choosing where one takes the measure can help a lot. My flower is a "starish" shape but not in a frontal view and before all I took the proportions of the petals, stem and leaves. All the drawing went from there.   

I feel that this blind contour made me focus and slow down the drawing speed very much. Blind contour in a single line produced some unrealistic drawings. But without looking at the draw that much, quick glimpses, I think I was able to produce some good images. Even the main darks and lights in the draw was quite easy to do. Starting with contour blind and them make a few corrections to the draw almost without looking creates reasonable drawings. I add a picture I made in blind contour of some animals, that were "cooperative" a caterpillar, a damselfly and a Mallard duck.

The list of birds observed

During a walk in a enviromental educational area I came across the track of a wild boar. I assume it was a wild boar since the distribuition of the other ungulates is far, and their number is not increasing as wild boar. Giving a simple justification. Also there were signs of rooting nearby the footprints. To my surprise the dew claws were absent in every footprint, and some asymetric hoof prints were found. This break my mental pattern for the species. I took pictures of those and created an entrance in my journal. I also add a book reference to compare with what I saw. This made me ask some questions that are also visible in the picture. 

I was in my backyard garden. It's in urban area surrounded by houses, but I can see the neighbours garden's too. There's a lot a concrete in the ground but some islands for trees or flowers. Biodiversity is low in general although one can see some buterflies, some caterpillar, snails, slugs, earthworms, wild birds, pets. The feature trees are 2 Persimmon trees that atract the "wildlife". This time of the year Spring is on the move, some flowers blossomed already. Even if the Persimmon trees lack leafs, birds use them as perch site for singing. The activity of the Magpies (Pica pica) was a thing to notice and created questions to explore. Their behaviour in the tree and later on the ground caught my attencion. Another highlight was a call sound of a European Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) which is unusual to ear, based in the past experiences, although they are ubiquous species in Portugal. Also the lack of European Serin (Serinus serinus) calls or songs today was a surprise because I know their nest site.

For the aplication of the different techniques of drawing I think I can understand it. And I tried to mix the different techniques in the same drawing. My cross-hatching is a bit rough, my lines tend to overlay on top each other not giving the subject good definition. My 3D benefit from the blending. I just really feel this very helpful.