ARTHUR BISHOP
Well-known member
way to go all the power of a Grin there
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JTMB's Bird Art (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter JTMB
- Start date
solitaryVSong
Well-known member
I just don't see Peregrine's all that often. But I certainly trust the truth of what Arthur and Nick say. Hope you get some better weather soon so you can resume your sketchbook from life. Another day of rain here I'm afraid.........
RussB
Going for Gold
Nice work again, John.
I'm intrigued with the practice of drawing from photographs, or rather the difficulty of it! Recently I re-drew (copied) a few field sketches for illustrations but the birds in question have all but lost the vitality of the original sketch and are even proportionately off the mark - not apparent at the time! I wonder if drawing from pics is fraught with the same dangers? Obviously not everyone has the problem, as the work here testifies.
Russ
I'm intrigued with the practice of drawing from photographs, or rather the difficulty of it! Recently I re-drew (copied) a few field sketches for illustrations but the birds in question have all but lost the vitality of the original sketch and are even proportionately off the mark - not apparent at the time! I wonder if drawing from pics is fraught with the same dangers? Obviously not everyone has the problem, as the work here testifies.
Russ
JTMB
Well-known member
Sage Thrasher
My propensity to get involved in a lot of things and be spread too thinly as a result is happening again. (As we said at one company where I worked, sarcastically, well - consistency is a good thing.) I need to get over to the falls and do more Peregrine sketches, but our just awful 'spring' weather continues - one of the top 5 or 6 most rainy springs since records began, and much cooler than usual. We have been getting down close to freezing every night, which in a normal year would have stopped more than a month ago. I pity the early nesting birds (we have a number of hummingbirds using our feeder and between the wet and the cold I suspect a lot of their nesting attempts will fail this year). Ah, but I'm digressing and whining...so on to productive activities...!
A fellow board member of mine who is a professor at a college in central WA told me about a class he's doing which made me extremely envious. He is a PhD ornithologist who apparently also does art (which I didn't know). Not every year, but this year and this term, he is teaching a double-credit course that combines art and ornithology. The nine hours per week of class time is split between ornithology lectures and art instruction, starting with the basics of drawing. The students keep two sketchbooks, one on basic academic sketches, and one on bird studies. They are given a list of 84 species that have to be sketched during the term and handed in at the end. They can draw just one aspect of each species, or the whole bird, or the bird in context, and the more they draw from life the more credit they get -although 'life' in this case includes study skins, of which the college apparently has a fairly large collection. I had the instructor send me a list of the species, and I am going to try to sketch them all on the same timeframe as the students. Unfortunately the college is about a hundred miles away, so auditing or attending the class is not feasible - however I've been invited to go along on their field trips if I would like...which of course I'm going to try to do.
So last night while relaxing in the recliner I grabbed a friend's photo of a Sage Thrasher and did a quick 10 x 8" drawing in graphite. This species is not on my side of the mountains (the wet side) as it is a dry open habitat species as the name implies. This is the time of year to see them because the males are out in the open on top of sage in their territories singing madly. After breeding season, this species becomes a skulker buried down in the sage and very tough to see.
My propensity to get involved in a lot of things and be spread too thinly as a result is happening again. (As we said at one company where I worked, sarcastically, well - consistency is a good thing.) I need to get over to the falls and do more Peregrine sketches, but our just awful 'spring' weather continues - one of the top 5 or 6 most rainy springs since records began, and much cooler than usual. We have been getting down close to freezing every night, which in a normal year would have stopped more than a month ago. I pity the early nesting birds (we have a number of hummingbirds using our feeder and between the wet and the cold I suspect a lot of their nesting attempts will fail this year). Ah, but I'm digressing and whining...so on to productive activities...!
A fellow board member of mine who is a professor at a college in central WA told me about a class he's doing which made me extremely envious. He is a PhD ornithologist who apparently also does art (which I didn't know). Not every year, but this year and this term, he is teaching a double-credit course that combines art and ornithology. The nine hours per week of class time is split between ornithology lectures and art instruction, starting with the basics of drawing. The students keep two sketchbooks, one on basic academic sketches, and one on bird studies. They are given a list of 84 species that have to be sketched during the term and handed in at the end. They can draw just one aspect of each species, or the whole bird, or the bird in context, and the more they draw from life the more credit they get -although 'life' in this case includes study skins, of which the college apparently has a fairly large collection. I had the instructor send me a list of the species, and I am going to try to sketch them all on the same timeframe as the students. Unfortunately the college is about a hundred miles away, so auditing or attending the class is not feasible - however I've been invited to go along on their field trips if I would like...which of course I'm going to try to do.
So last night while relaxing in the recliner I grabbed a friend's photo of a Sage Thrasher and did a quick 10 x 8" drawing in graphite. This species is not on my side of the mountains (the wet side) as it is a dry open habitat species as the name implies. This is the time of year to see them because the males are out in the open on top of sage in their territories singing madly. After breeding season, this species becomes a skulker buried down in the sage and very tough to see.
JTMB
Well-known member
Sage Sparrow
Here is another sage-steppe habitat species, called appropriately enough the Sage Sparrow. This is a skulky, tough-to-find species most of the time except in breeding season when the males are up on top of their sagebrush territories singing away like this fellow. The head on breeding plumage males is bluish gray that is very striking despite the overall understated plumage - back feathers are variations of brown with a slightly grayed belly and breast. This is in a 10 x 8" sketchbook done in graphite.
Here is another sage-steppe habitat species, called appropriately enough the Sage Sparrow. This is a skulky, tough-to-find species most of the time except in breeding season when the males are up on top of their sagebrush territories singing away like this fellow. The head on breeding plumage males is bluish gray that is very striking despite the overall understated plumage - back feathers are variations of brown with a slightly grayed belly and breast. This is in a 10 x 8" sketchbook done in graphite.
timwootton
Well-known member
There's a real confidence to your approach now, John - excellent work.
solitaryVSong
Well-known member
Particularly like the sage sparrow John. It's funny how sparrows can have a really subtle beauty. Outside of Song Sparrows though I don't know of a single sparrow that sits up and poses, at any time, at least not for me! Hope you get some good weather soon so we can see some field sketches.
Woody
Well-known member
JTMB
Well-known member
Peregrine Chick Sketch - pen and wash
Hi folks,
I've been busy...and absent from the forum for too much time. Need to get caught up on looking at everyone's work. Here is a quick sketch - not a very good one - of the one remaining Peregrine chick/eyass from this year's clutch of eggs at Snoqualmie Falls. This is, I believe, the first year that the pair has only gotten one chick to this stage. There were four eggs in the scrape this year, but we officially had the coldest April on record, and mostly likely one of the wettest as well. Apparently that took its toll. We think two of the eggs hatched, but only one of the hatchlings survived. This one, so far, is doing fine - and had a distended crop in the fuzzy reference shot from a friend that I drew this from. Having raised four young at least once, the parents should have little trouble providing enough food for this single youngster, so hopefully no mishap will prevent his/her fledging.
I did this in pen and wash, something I haven't tried much before but am dabbling with due to its portability (with a waterbrush) and an interest in pens.
Hi folks,
I've been busy...and absent from the forum for too much time. Need to get caught up on looking at everyone's work. Here is a quick sketch - not a very good one - of the one remaining Peregrine chick/eyass from this year's clutch of eggs at Snoqualmie Falls. This is, I believe, the first year that the pair has only gotten one chick to this stage. There were four eggs in the scrape this year, but we officially had the coldest April on record, and mostly likely one of the wettest as well. Apparently that took its toll. We think two of the eggs hatched, but only one of the hatchlings survived. This one, so far, is doing fine - and had a distended crop in the fuzzy reference shot from a friend that I drew this from. Having raised four young at least once, the parents should have little trouble providing enough food for this single youngster, so hopefully no mishap will prevent his/her fledging.
I did this in pen and wash, something I haven't tried much before but am dabbling with due to its portability (with a waterbrush) and an interest in pens.
JTMB
Well-known member
Thanks Gaby and Colleen!
Well, it's been way too long since I've been here on the forum, and the first time I dropped to the second page since becoming active. Shame on me! Gotta fix that...
.
Thanks for your concern, Gaby, but we've been fortunate where we live - cold and rainy spring weather, but no issues with floods or tornados.
The bad news is that I haven't done any additional Peregrine chick sketches (weather continues to be bad, plus I've been doing a lot of landscape work, including some plein air when weather allows). The good news is that the one surviving chick is doing quite well by all appearances. I led a birding field trip for one of the local Audubon societies on Wednesday and we went to the Falls to check on it and it appears well-fed and active. The tail feathers have started to grow in and a few other dark spots are showing where the feathers are replacing the down.
Here is one quick sketch in pen and ink that I did recently. It is in a 6 x 5 inch journal, done with a fountain pen, Diamine Graphite and J. Herbin Cafe des Isles inks washed with a waterbrush. Very surprisingly, we have had no House Sparrows in the yard for months, and so when a pair showed up, that was cause for a mini-celebration (not usually the case for this non-native species here). These were done from a photo reference.
This morning, after sporadic visits by 5 or 6 birds over the past week, a flock of 45 (!) Evening Grosbeaks showed up to chow down on sunflower seeds. What an enjoyable racket they made. I did two pages of life sketches in pen that I haven't photographed for upload yet, but it got me back into focusing a bit more on birds again I think.
Anyway, here is the House Sparrow.
Well, it's been way too long since I've been here on the forum, and the first time I dropped to the second page since becoming active. Shame on me! Gotta fix that...
.Thanks for your concern, Gaby, but we've been fortunate where we live - cold and rainy spring weather, but no issues with floods or tornados.
The bad news is that I haven't done any additional Peregrine chick sketches (weather continues to be bad, plus I've been doing a lot of landscape work, including some plein air when weather allows). The good news is that the one surviving chick is doing quite well by all appearances. I led a birding field trip for one of the local Audubon societies on Wednesday and we went to the Falls to check on it and it appears well-fed and active. The tail feathers have started to grow in and a few other dark spots are showing where the feathers are replacing the down.
Here is one quick sketch in pen and ink that I did recently. It is in a 6 x 5 inch journal, done with a fountain pen, Diamine Graphite and J. Herbin Cafe des Isles inks washed with a waterbrush. Very surprisingly, we have had no House Sparrows in the yard for months, and so when a pair showed up, that was cause for a mini-celebration (not usually the case for this non-native species here). These were done from a photo reference.
This morning, after sporadic visits by 5 or 6 birds over the past week, a flock of 45 (!) Evening Grosbeaks showed up to chow down on sunflower seeds. What an enjoyable racket they made. I did two pages of life sketches in pen that I haven't photographed for upload yet, but it got me back into focusing a bit more on birds again I think.
Anyway, here is the House Sparrow.
