JTMB
Well-known member
Bushtits, Purple Finch, House Sparrow and Osprey
Thanks so much Phil, Colleen, Tim, Ken, Russ, Matteo, Nick and Arthur! Thanks particularly for the encouragement and the comments on my progress - it's always very hard to judge one's own work accurately. I've played music most of my life, part-time professionally for several decades and I realized many years ago that musical ability truly is an open-ended scale, and it may be logarithmic. At any level you reach - even at the professional level - there are continually people out there who are in a different and much more advanced part of the universe. I found it amazing and inspiring. Visual art certainly is comparable, from what I've seen so far.
Anyway, here are a few more from the sketchbook - all from photos this time, but not much time spent and not intended as finished pieces. As I'm wrapping up some classes in mid-November, I think I'll spend much of the winter doing (or trying to do! :-O) some decent finished pieces.
I ran into a flock of Bushtits recently at my local birding area, and decided the cute factor they have was worth some sketches, so I pulled out a couple photos I took in the past and did them in graphite. Also in graphite is a (female) Purple Finch, a species that shows up occasionally in my yard. The last two are graphite starting sketches with watercolor washes and are a male House Sparrow and an Osprey with a trout in its talons. I'm very familiar with Osprey from an annual river float trip I've taken for the last 25 years down the Deschutes River in central Oregon. This is a beautiful wild and scenic designated river in a high desert canyon with no roads running through most of it. It is a world-class native trout fishery and so is perfect Osprey habitat. The one I did here from a photo I took grabbed a very nice sized trout and had some initial challenges getting both sets of talons into the fish, which was doing its best to wriggle free. The Osprey eventually won that battle and the trout became dinner for three soon-to-fledge young in a nest very near to our traditional campsite.
Thanks so much Phil, Colleen, Tim, Ken, Russ, Matteo, Nick and Arthur! Thanks particularly for the encouragement and the comments on my progress - it's always very hard to judge one's own work accurately. I've played music most of my life, part-time professionally for several decades and I realized many years ago that musical ability truly is an open-ended scale, and it may be logarithmic. At any level you reach - even at the professional level - there are continually people out there who are in a different and much more advanced part of the universe. I found it amazing and inspiring. Visual art certainly is comparable, from what I've seen so far.
Anyway, here are a few more from the sketchbook - all from photos this time, but not much time spent and not intended as finished pieces. As I'm wrapping up some classes in mid-November, I think I'll spend much of the winter doing (or trying to do! :-O) some decent finished pieces.
I ran into a flock of Bushtits recently at my local birding area, and decided the cute factor they have was worth some sketches, so I pulled out a couple photos I took in the past and did them in graphite. Also in graphite is a (female) Purple Finch, a species that shows up occasionally in my yard. The last two are graphite starting sketches with watercolor washes and are a male House Sparrow and an Osprey with a trout in its talons. I'm very familiar with Osprey from an annual river float trip I've taken for the last 25 years down the Deschutes River in central Oregon. This is a beautiful wild and scenic designated river in a high desert canyon with no roads running through most of it. It is a world-class native trout fishery and so is perfect Osprey habitat. The one I did here from a photo I took grabbed a very nice sized trout and had some initial challenges getting both sets of talons into the fish, which was doing its best to wriggle free. The Osprey eventually won that battle and the trout became dinner for three soon-to-fledge young in a nest very near to our traditional campsite.
