Heron Surprise

As usual there's a bit of a double entendre in my title. The immature Green Heron pictured above was surprising in his behavior(I discovered him above me where I thought I might find a Yellow-billed Cuckoo), and the medium I used for this is watercolor pencil, a set of which I received for Christmas two years ago and which I've never learned to like.

I was at Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia sometime this summer and heard a harsh clucking sound above me, in a heavily leafed out Horse Chestnut if I remember correctly. There was also a lot of activity across the stream to my right, Paper Mill Run. Perhaps it was even early fall as I know I was looking for wood warblers along the stream. When I heard the sound I thought it might possibly be a Yellow-billed Cuckoo. So I put my binoculars above me. There I was astonished to find an immature Green Heron.

I'm always thrown by herons in trees, just like Wood Ducks. Even though I've seen them there, seen them build nests there, and of course that's where they're at in heronries my primitive brain still says: Herons=Water.

I don't believe I got any field sketches that day. But eventually I got some photos, particularly when he flew to some trees, covered in wild grape.

As I was looking through my old photos for inspiration yesterday I was struck by a photo of him in the trees, along with many of the wild grapes.

But why did I choose watercolor pencils? I have only had bad experiences with them. They are in a word: recalcitrant. They don't seem flexible at all. I did pick some up this summer or early fall I think and do a drawing or two. I still couldn't stand them but at least I saw what seemed the proper way to use them: lightly, wtih a soft touch and no expectation of rich colors. Love tints or love trouble.

I'm not big on washed out, tint-ridden work. I like something bolder. So why try these for the heron? Well for some perverse reason I thought that I might be able to use them boldly, maybe mixing them with watercolors, or at least using watercolor brushes rather than waterpencil brushes, with their limited flexibility.

But once I got started I lost all thought of boldness. The boldest I got was to sponge out most of the background toward the end when I felt it competed too much with the bird itself.

The other reason I think I did this is that I just felt like working differently. I've been doing linoleum cuts for about 6 weeks now, with I think one quick watercolor thrown in. I wanted a change.

This Sunday I should have my interview at Printsy posted online. In it there's a question about getting around artistic slumps. My answer is to switch to a different medium. That's what I tried here.

It's disappointing. But not so disappointing as to dispel the notion of finally figuring out how to use watercolor pencils in a productive way, at least once a year or so.

House Sparrows (and Echinacea) in Watercolor Pencil

House sparrows?! Who cares! Who wants to draw/paint/look at House Sparrows? Well this is easy to understand. In our backyard they outnumber other more interesting birds by about 10 to 1. Yes they are common. But they're still interesting birds and can make for good subjects. I believe it was a number of watercolor studies by Chloe Talbot-Kelly in 'Drawing Birds' by John Busby that convinced me you could make some very good drawings/paintings using them as subjects.

I've chosen them today because: 1) I vowed I'd finally do some work from life this summer when bad weather could no longer be an excuse; and 2) they were the only avian subjects that would sit still. A Ruby-Throated Hummingbird made a 5 second appearance but you can't draw much in that short time.

The accompanying sketches are nothing special, though I'm satisfied with them. But I'm so much happier with watercolor pencils now that I'm using a better quality paper, and now that I'm being more patient and not going back into the painting while it is still wet. The new Moleskin watercolor sketchpad is a great help. It seems a bit expensive but for me it's been worth it. What a pleasure to not worry about the quality of the paper, not worry about buckling.

As I've said many times before, so many that you might think 'he doth protest too much', I do believe that you get better art when working from life. There is a connection to the subject matter that is just missing when working from photos. But I've done very little work from life recently in spite of all my claims of its superiority.

So I hope that this will be the start of a real effort on my part to work more from life. I'm sure I'll continue to work from photos, maybe as soon as this afternoon or tomorrow. But I also want to spend more time working from life. I'm sure all of my work will improve in quality as I do so.

One last thought. You might wonder, well why doesn't he show more detail in the birds? Simple, they were too far away to see any detail except with binoculars or scope. So for today the challenge was to do sketches of them knowing that I wouldn't be able to include much detail. My answer was to include more of their surroundings. I've never really painted the sky before and haven't had much luck, or patience, with foliage. But I had no choice today. The birds were so far away as to be very small. That meant taking on skies and foliage.

It was such a nice day, low 80s with a breeze, that I found myself back outside later in the afternoon, after posting this. The Echinacea Pallida continued to call out to be painted, especially with the nearby sunflower and the Bronze Fennel behind. So here is version number two(I tried this for the first time last weekend).

It still leaves something to be desired. The details of the Echinacea are lost. The fennel is just so airy that it's hard to render in paint. And I'm still overwhelmed by all the foliage of the sunflower and the Echinacea. Still it's enough of a challenge, and the results good enough, that I'm sure I'll keep trying to do a good painting of this subject.

Gulls, Echinacea Pallida, Fennel

I made some really tiny changes to this watercolor of Laughing Gulls from yesterday. They were so minor that I decided not to post the new version. I also decided to stop with minor changes before I killed any vibrancy that I achieved yesterday.



But then my wife pointed out that it was dry in the backyard for the first time in weeks and there was a nice breeze. So I took the opportunity to go sit in the yard, bringing my new Moleskin watercolor sketchbook with me. It was time to inaugurate it. There really wasn't much to see other than undifferentiated green. But the Echinacea Pallidas were just starting to bloom and the Bronze Fennel behind them was a nice color counterpoint. I have to add that I love the shape of this somewhat unusual Echinacea. It asks to be drawn, actually in much greater detail than I've done here.

This is just a quick watercolor pencil sketch from life, on good paper. I only had 5 colors, none of them green, so that was a problem when faced with a sea of green. Still it was enjoyable to experiment. It was much more enjoyable using a sturdier paper. When I came back in I used a real watercolor wash of Hooker's Green I think to add a little bit of green to the picture.

Since I was posting this sketch I thought I might as well include the finished Laughing Gulls as well.

Shorebirds in Flight

Even John Busby in his wonderful book about drawing birds from life, 'Drawing Birds', concedes that photography has allowed artists to see things that they haven't seen so well before. I think birds in flight is one of these. Though even there you can find examples, and he does in his book on Eric Ennion, of how an accomplished artists can still do a better job with his naked eye. There is a thrill in capturing movement actually seen firsthand that is not matched in working from photos.

All of which just leads up to the obvious: the watercolor pencil and watercolor sketch above is based on a photo I took at Heislerville WMA in April, 2009. Shorebirds are just not that familiar to my wife and myself, though they could be if we'd drag ourselves out of Philadelphia and the fewer than 100 miles over to Cape May more often. Nonetheless when we do get to see shorebirds it is a great experience. They are subtly beautiful birds in themselves but their story of lengthy migrations and the movements of whole flocks at a time all add up to make them one of our favorite bird types.

So when I got some decent photos I couldn't resist trying to make some sort of art from them. I'm recovering from a truly horrible virus of some sort and so this is the first new work in a week or so. I thought I'd use watercolor pencils for my first attempt. I think this was a combination of just wanting to continue to explore watercolor pencils and the added detail that they can bring to a painting. Because they begin as lines they are much easier to control than a brush, at least for anyone not accomplished in watercolor.

Knowing that I was going to try to be drawing birds in very confusing postures due to being caught at a moment in time by the camera I wanted all the help I could get. So drawing seemed a good idea. And I think it worked for getting some of the shapes.

BUT the still water has again defeated me. I tried to render it in watercolor pencil, then wash. When that looked bad I abandoned my vow not to go back into watercolor pencil when it was still wet and eventually went into it with abandon. Not much help. Finally, as a last ditch attempt, I went to straight watercolor. I didn't totally kill the surface as I did in the Greater Yellowlegs skecth of a week or two ago. But that's about it.

So there's still this dilemma with me and watercolor pencils. How in the world do you make a convincing area of large still water? I'm sure I'll continue to experiment. I'm obviously disappointed with the background and so I thought about just not posting this. But I am happy with getting some sense of the Short-billed Dowtchers and Dunlins in flight though, so I decided to post it for that reason. Shorebirds in flight are mighty impressive.

Finishing Up the Wood Ducks

I believe these wood ducks are done. Of course I thought that yesterday. But I've gone back into it and added more background color among other things. I'm also on the verge of losing too much of the white of the paper and I don't want to turn this into mud as I did with the Greater Yellowlegs. So I think it's done.

I did have to slap my own hand today, and to no avail. A few days ago I vowed to follow a new method of working in watercolor pencils in which I would not touch a pencil to wet paper. Until today I've been successful. But it is an almost insurmountable temptation to try to resist rectifying a mistake right when you see it. So I did that today a small bit. I don't think it did horrible harm. But it's still a danger. Hopefully no one sees anything out of place here.

So that's it for this watercolor. Ever since I saw and photographed the wood ducks on Easter, 2009 I've wanted to do a painting of them. They are incredibly beautiful birds, the female just as much as the more striking male. I'm glad this watercolor pencil experiment gave me the opportunity to do so.

What's on the agenda next? I'm not sure. Should I try working from life again and try to redeem the bad watercolor pencil rendering of the clematis from last weekend? Should I do more experiments inside with watercolor pencils? Go to straight watercolor, and maybe a larger size? I guess we'll just have to wait and see what strikes me this weekend.

Wood Ducks with Watercolor Pencil

I think that World Drawing Day last Saturday, and my very poor watercolor pencil work from that day, must have put a fire under me. I seem to be doing a new sketch almost every day. As I said in earlier posts much of that is motivated by my desire to finally figure out how to use watercolor pencils.

There is an irony here, especially in today's work. I thought I would use watercolor pencils and waterbrushes as handy tools for quick work in the field. Bring along a few colored pencils and some brushes and you can paint anywhere. The resulting work would be quick and without details. Eventually I may do that but right now I'm doing the opposite: working inside, from photos, in detail. Why?! Well I think much of it comes from my disappointment with my work so far. So I'm continuing to experiment letting the pencils take me where they may.



Today I'm working from a photo of some Wood Ducks seen at the Wissahickon in Philadelphia on Easter Day, 2009. They are among America's most beautiful birds.

Since I seem to overwork watercolor pencil sketches so much I'm trying to be more cautious, doing a fairly detailed drawing, putting in small areas of color with the pencils, often blending two or three colors in the same spot.



Tnen finally using brushes to turn the pencil into a watercolor wash. I also abandoned waterbrushes today and turned to my best and smallest watercolor brushes. I've tried to be very sparing as I laid down washes.

This is it for today. I've many other things to do. And I want to stop before I overwork it. I think yesterday's Greater Yellowlegs lost its vibrancy because of my experiments with layers of color in the background. It was a useful experiment but I'd do it differently next time. You just can't work the background that thoroughly and still expect vibrancy in the work. So today I'm doing the opposite. There's a whole lot of bare paper here. But Cezanne, among many others, showed how effective blank paper can be. We'll see tomorrow whether it still looks effective.

Watercolor Pencil Experiments Continued

There were a couple of things that bothered me about yesteday's watercolor pencil experiment with this Greater Yellowlegs. First the bird had too much of a reddish cast; second, the water looked too splotchy and colorless; third, the foreground was pretty undefined and lacking in color.

Normally I'd just go back into them while the painting was still wet and make a grand mess of things. This time I was more patient and waited for the paper to be completely dry before going back into it with the watercolor pencils. I have managed to get the colors of the yellowlegs a little closer to true. But I'm not really happy with either the water or the foreground. I can't say that layering on new colors has worked very well. But it may be more difficult with such a large undifferentiated space as still water. So I'm going to continue to experiment with layering of washes. I do think that eventually I'll find the way to use watercolor pencils to their best advantage. Patience, patience, patience!!

More Watercolor Pencil Experiments

Following up on yesterday's experiments this is another quick watercolor pencil/waterbrush sketch based on a photo I took of a Greater Yellowlegs at Heislerville WMA. I've switched from the cheaper reccyled paper I had been using, where paper buckling was a real problem, to a proper watercolor paper. That has certainly helped the buckling.

I've also tried to do all my color blending with the pencils themselves before using the waterbrush to turn them into watercolors. That's been less successful. I'm unhappy with the colors and values. But I'm not going to go back into them now while the paper is wet. Pam Johnson Brickell has said that she is able to get color blending with this medium if she waits until the paper is completely dry. So that will be the next step. This is an improvement over past watercolor pencil work but we'll just have to see what happens next.

I do have to say though that all artistic media take awhile to learn. You suffer through them for awhile, sometimes quite awhile, and then one day you say: Aha! That's the way it's supposed to work. What a great medium!

Secrets of Watercolor Pencil

I have to admit I'm sometimes embarrassed to post some of my work in watercolor pencils and waterbrush. The results are far below my abilities. On Saturday I posted one of a 'Betty Corning' clematis and the results have been bothering me ever since. Why am I so unhappy with this medium? Especially since I liked it when I first started using it to do quick sketches of yard birds this winter.

Looking at the 'Betty Corning' it hit me. I like nuance in color. I like to modify the artwork until I get it right, either right as in 'accurate', or right as in the colors all work well to create a pleasing painting. When I try to do that with watercolor pencils and waterbrushes I ended up with an overworked disaster.

There are a number of reasons for this: 1) since these are just quick sketches I use very cheap recycled paper; but it just doesn't do well with water and soon buckles; 2)once I go over the watercolor pencil with the waterbrush it presents a different type of surface which no longer accepts the watercolor pencils well; it leads toward darkness and opacity, both detrimental to most watercolors; 3) I still try to get the colors right by color blending and continue with new, more vigorous, darker pencil marks and watercolor washes. I end up with a dark mess, or maybe sometimes a dark, but half-successful watercolor.

So today I decided to do a test. I only had 15 minutes or so. I would work from a recent photo(I ended up choosing Black-bellied Plovers from Heislerville WMA), but I would not try to mix colors, except on the first pencil rendering. I would slap my own hand if it tried to go back in and add more pencil markings once I touched the waterbrush to the paper.

I think the results prove my point. This is much more successful. It's still a quick sketch, not a finished watercolor. But it looks much fresher. The blue water would me much improved by using better, white rather than tan, paper. But that's easily fixed in future sketches. The most important lesson learned is that all color mixing must be done with the pencils on the first go, before touching waterbrush to paper and turning the pencil drawing into a watercolor sketch.

Of course one test doesn't really prove anything. But I'm confident that future tests will show the same results. Blend your colors with the pencils. DO NOT try to do so with a brush or pencils after you've touched the waterbrush to the paper. It just doesn't work!

World Drawing Day 2009

Today is World Drawing Day according to this site. I must say that I really haven't had time to investigate exactly what it is. But any site that says 'Drop everything and Draw' is just fine with me.

Today was also the day of the breeding bird census at Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education and we spent all morning and part of early afternoon counting birds there. But I did like the excuse for drawing that WDD gave me. When we got home I noticed a beautiful Betty Corning clematis in bloom winding through our spicebush. That prompted me to do this quick drawing enhanced (or maybe 'detrimented') by the use of watercolor pencils and waterbrushes. The lack of flexibility in this medium continues to stymie me but that's most likely my lack of experience. In any case here it is.

If I have time, and energy, I hope to do a few more drawings in different media and styles before the day is out. I should also add, apropos my recent comments at Drawing the Motmot, that I'm proud that I did force myself to do this from life. No photos!!

Solomon's Seal, Meadow Rue, Birdbath

Today, beautiful as it was, was a day for work. So after transplanting many tomato seedlings, then tilling six raised beds to get ready for planting, I felt I deserved an art break. Though just about everything in the yard calls out for being painted right now I decided to try the newly visible Solomon's Seal and Meadow Rue, along with the handmade birdbath that is next to them.

I'm always impressed by the beauty of the Solomon's Seal as their red stems break the soil. About the same time they come up a number of Thalictrum, or Meadow Rue, do as well. They inhabit a dark, shady part of our yard next to an ancient bird bath I made from poured concrete years ago.

This seemed like the perfect opportunity to work from life, not from a photo. I'm sure I could have gotten a really striking photo but I wanted to work directly. Unfortunately I chose to work in watercolor pencils and waterbrush. I'm still learning how to handle these and the results weren't that happy. Finally I brought the whole thing inside and went back to work with real watercolor and brushes.

The result is DARK. The scene itself was dark but I think that the first thing most people need to do with watercolor is decide where the light areas will be and be sure to keep them. I find this particularly hard to do with watercolor pencils. Though my guess is that I'd also have had trouble with plain watercolors if I'd used them because there wasn't much light, outside of part of the birdbath and some of the stones. So that's something I continue to need to work on: see the lights and darks, and make up some lights if I don't see them!

Obviously I could also use some work in learning to portray stones in watercolor. In the end I tried to use mainly dark colors to unite this small watercolor. I don't think it's all that successful but sometimes you just need to start working and make the best of the results. If you're not happy remember what you learned for the next one.

Either way, artistic success, failure, or somewhere in between, it was great to be able to be outside again, especially to start working from life outside.

First of Spring Birds

The weather report promised temperatures in the 60s today with possible thunderstorms once the morning showers stopped. But at noon it was still only 50 and sprinkling. Nonetheless we decided to go birding at Morris Arboretum. It just seemed like the right time to be finding our first spring migrants, especially since Pine Warblers, Louisiana Waterthrushes and others were starting to be seen in Pennsylvania.

We weren't disappointed. Well maybe if we had counted on the Waterthrushes..... It turned into a beautiful day, sunny, no more rain and temperatures in the 60s. Among the first birds of 2009 that we saw were an Eastern Phoebe, a Kildeer, in watercolor pencil and waterbrush sketch at top, and many Tree Swallows.

Along with that it's mating season for woodpeckers and 4 downy woodpeckers, 2 male and 2 female provided us with much entertainment. I'd prefer to show some sketches of them but they were moving so quickly that these photos were the best I could do. I THINK that the males were fighting for territory and/or mates and weren't actually trying to find mates. But it was hard to tell. All the downies were in the same tree but the females seemed to be ignoring the feuding males.


As I mentioned above the Kildeer sketch is done with watercolor pencils and waterbrushes. It's based on some photos I took today. Since it was supposed to rain I left our non-waterproof scope at home. That meant if I wanted to do sketches from life I needed to lift binoculars to my eyes for a bit, while balancing the pencils, brushes and sketchbook between by elbow and side. Then put the binoculars down, and pick up the others and try to sketch what I'd seen. Well I tried it briefly...But I didn't get far. So I reverted to the camera.

If I'd had more time when I got home I might have tried real watercolors and brushes. They offer far more possibilities than do the watercolor pencils and brushes. But the latter are fine for doing something quickly. There is something special about nature rendered as a drawing or painting that just isn't matched by photos. Thus my quick Kildeer sketch at top.



When we got back home our bloodroots, which I showed in bud in a post of a couple weeks ago, were in full bloom. As I recall they will only be in bloom for a day or two. But while they are in bloom they are striking. Some wildflowers have a pure white that just can't be beat by any of the many colors of the spectrum. Bloodroots are among them. That coupled with their interesting leaves make them a really beautiful addition to our garden.


As I write I hear hail pounding against the house. I guess the threatened storms have arrived about 6 hours late. And I guess it's a good thing I took a photo of the bloodroot quickly. This hail has probably decimated them.................

Post-mortem on the bloodroot: not a single blossom left! Enjoy the photos because that's all that's left until next year, and of course the foliage.

The Trouble with Hybrids

The trouble with working with hybrids, or multipurpose tools, is that they can be confusing and sometimes not as good as the original, unadulterated tool. Today's case was watercolor pencils and waterbrushes.

I used a larger piece of watercolor paper than usual, 11x14. I also worked from a photo because there just wasn't much activity outside at the feeders. Though the drawing proceeded fairly well I found myself using the pencils in such a way as to use only one color in each area. So the front of the hawk was just white paper with reddish markings. I just used one color in each area. I also was actually doing more of a drawing that I thought I'd change later into a painting. But I don't like working this way and the world doesn't look this way. Colors merge; they overlap; they intermingle. They also intermingle in good paintings and rarely just stay in one area. And drawings don't magically transform into paintings.

I also found that though I'd been happy with using the waterbrushes on smaller works they didn't really seem to hold enough water for this larger scale work. No sooner had I put down the brush than it was out of water. The first version of this watercolor, above, shows the small color washes from the waterbrushes. Their spotty quality bothered me but I was happy that it forced me to keep much of the white of the paper.



When I looked at the earliest version of painting at top it just didn't look coloristically unified. I decided that I needed to abandon the small waterbrushes and pick up my normal watercolor brushes and paints. I mainly just used plain water to pull watercolor out of the previous watercolor pencil marks but spread them out into larger color areas. This seemed to improve things slightly.



But when I stepped back and looked at it the painting still seemed disorganized, a somewhat confused hybrid of watercolor pencil, waterbrush, watercolor and watercolor brush. It also seemed a half drawing/half painting, half-sketch/half watercolor. So I went a little bit further in this last version and used broad watercolor washes to wipe out the detail in some areas and try to unify the painting coloristically. Of course in doing so I've lost much of the vibrancy of the white paper, most of which only remains isolated in the hawk itself.

All in all the problem is in me, not my tools. The tools are fine; I'm just having a hard time making them do what I want. If I'd had a more unified vision of what I was about this sketch/painting probably would have proceeded better. But just as many birding ventures find few birds, many attempts at art, don't come out quite as well as you'd hoped. This was a quick work, two hours at most. I hope that I've learned something for the future.

After I posted this I realized something more. Though the work took two hours at most I should have used more time to just think about it, especially the surrounding environment of the hawk. I'm used to just starting and improvising as I go, especially when it comes to background. This seems to be a fairly common problem in bird art. Watercolor, even as far as I can tell watercolor done with watercolor pencils and waterbrushes, really is better with some advance planning. That's been a very hard lesson for me to learn.

I have been thinking about how comfortable I am working in charcoal. But I've used it for years and that's why. Watercolor, whether pure or hybrid is still very new. It has the excitement of the new, tempered by the frustration of the new.

But the most important thing is to keep working. As John Bogle says in his new book 'Enough': you must always press on. That's the path to accomplishment.

Holiday Communication

I sent out a number of holiday greeting cards based on a photo I'd taken of one of my sketches, and we got normal greeting cards, and online greeting cards and of course phone greetings. But my wife Jerene shows how to do holiday communication the old-fashioned way: with a nose-pat.

We like to take a short walk at the Wissahickon on all the major holidays. Yesterday we were greeted by a Brown Creeper, what seemed to be a dueling Red-Bellied Woodpecker and a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, and a very visible Red-tailed Hawk. But when we finished our walk we were greeted by these two horses.

Jerene couldn't resist saying hello to them. And I couldn't resist taking a photo. That photo served as the jumping off point for my newest watercolor pencil and waterbrush endeavor, this time using my new set of 36 Derwent watercolor pencils. It's a little too early to say much about them but they were good enough to get me started on this sketch. My thought is that I'll soon be very fond of them.

Draw What You See, See What You Draw

Today I finally broke down and put up my spotting scope in our tiny kitchen. Once the tripod legs are spread out there's barely room for anyone, human, feline or possibly even avian, to move.

But sometimes you just need to see your subject better. In this case the Mourning Dove, Downy Woodpecker and Junco were viewed through the scope. The detail that you can see when viewing through a scope always has the potential to make a better drawing. Though I don't show it here, or only with the vaguest suggestion, I could really see the complex and beautiful pattern of the dove. Also the wind-created lines in its breast feathers. That knowledge may not show up in the drawing done the same day. But it does add to my storehouse of knowledge, not to mention my visual appreciation, of the birds I see.

It's a pain to peer in the scope then refocus on the drawing pad remembering what you've just seen. But contemporary artists are lucky that we even have scopes. We should probably just count our blessings and not complain.

I include a small waterbrush in the photo of one sketch. I'm still amazed at the possibilities that this cheap little instrument, especially when coupled with watercolor pencils, opens up. One more thing for contemporary artists to be thankful for. I do think that the colors could be brighter but I expect that will happen as I add more colors to my very small palette of watercolor pencils

This last photo is of an immature accipiter that's been in the yard recently. We've had a number of immature accipiters, as well as mature Cooper's and Sharpshinned Hawks this fall. I've not been able to do much in the way of sketching them live. But I do hope to do a more developed drawing or painting from photos soon.

You might call this a perfect setup: a scope to see detail, convenient drawing and painting utensils, and cooperative birds!

Starting To Be Fun...................

I know. I know. I said I would not publish any work until it showed a little more improvement. This sketch may not qualify. But I've been having fun with it. Last week I changed from pen and ink to pencil. I love pen and ink but it's mighty unforgiving, especially when drawing from life. Pencil allows far more deftness of touch, far more variety of line weight. I also added watercolor and waterbrushes about a week ago.

The waterbrushes are new to me and a real treat. Today I was able to add the third component: watercolor pencils. Watercolor pencils combined with waterbrushes is a great combination, just as Pam Johnson Brickell said in my earlier post about drawing birds from life. Pam, you are right. This is really enjoyable!


You get the sensitivity of pencil and the instant paint quality of watercolor with just two drawing utenstils: a waterbrush and a few watercolor pencils.
So now what had been a real struggle, requiring a great deal of no-pain-no-gain philosophizing, has become something enjoyable.

People really learn best I think when they get some reward for their efforts and not just constant failure with the promise of some faroff gain. Drawing birds from life is difficult so it's important to get some reward as you go about it. There is the reward of knowing that you're understanding what birds look like much better than you used to. But it's important to get a visual reward as well. I think that will happen, both for me and others, with this great combination of tools.

One side note: snow must be on the way. Our feeders were full of some of our more uncommon visitors such as a Ruby-Crowned Kinglet and Carolina Wren. That should make for more drawing opportunities tomorrow. And when you look forward to drawing birds from life as an "opportunity" you know that it's starting to be fun.

Bay-breasted Bonus

Can you tell the difference? Yes, the Bay-breasted Warbler is a based on a photo. Though we DID get snow we also got a lot of wind and there have been very few birds at the feeder. So I finally gave up on drawing from life today and decided to try the new waterbrush and watercolor pencils on a sketch based on a photo. This Bay-breated warbler was very difficult to identify when we saw him at John Heinz Wildlife Refuge in Philadelphia in late May, 2008. Only the bay swatches and strongly defined black and white wings confirmed the identification. If nothing else this illustrates the use of visual clues to identify a bird when you don't get the best look. It also illustrates the difficulty of drawing warblers from life. The numerous Bay-breasted warblers that we saw this day were constantly moving. I had to choose between just indentifying them with my binoculars, trying to draw them in the brief time I could see them, or trying to get some photos(this was the only successful one) to use for later reference. All In all it's probably best just to look at them in binoculars and t try to seal the visual memory. When working from photos there's just too much missing information. So you may be able to draw a semblance of the subject but in the back of your mind you know that you're missing something essential.

This really doesn't seem to deserve a new post. So I'm tacking it on to yesterdays.