Thanks, plus House Finch and Pileated Woodpecker
HI guys!
Thanks Nick, Colleen and Ken for sharing your experience and advice. I definitely will wean myself off of photos as much as possible, but as with Colleen and Ken, they do have a practical purpose, especially for folks who are new at the game.
Nick - I didn't realize Ruddy Ducks were an invasive species over there. They have been declining in our area, and although not rare, they are not that easy to find. I see one or a couple each year, and that's about it.
Here are some more from life that I did yesterday evening and this morning. The first page contains three quick line sketches of House Finches near our feeders. They are in Pigma pen and the only one I had was a 1.0, so the lines are on the too-strong side. I feel I got the basic shapes sort of ok, but to me the birds look too generic. I'll have a lot of chances to practice on this species, as they are one of the daily species that is quite heavily represented around our feeders during fall and winter.
The second drawing was done this morning on a quick birding walk through a natural area near my place. Right by the parking lot, a Pileated Woodpecker was hammering away on a dead tree within about 50 feet of the car. I dug out the camcorder and shot for a few minutes while he worked away. Later, a half mile away, I sat down to wait for some fall migrants to hopefully show up and TWO Pileateds landed in a nearby snag and started working. I decided to concentrate on the head and did this sketch quickly in Pigma 0.1 sepia pen and had only a couple minutes before they flew off. I think this came out a bit better overall than the House Finches, but it was another lesson in not knowing what you don't know as Ken mentioned. The dark stripe through and above the eye I got more or less correctly positioned in the field. However, even with binocs, it appeared to me that the dark malar stripe went from front to back across the chin. But when I got back and looked at the field book, it curves down along the neck and to the shoulder. Oh yes, in the field the eye appeared dark and so I drew it that way. In reality, the eye has an orange iris and a black pupil, different than what is shown here.
At that point I decided to put some watercolor washes on the bird using watercolor pencils. So here is the Pileated drawing/painting.
All comments and advice are very welcome.