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JTMB's Bird Art (1 Viewer)

Western Screech Owl and Cooper's Hawk

Wow, I can't believe it's been over a month since I've posted in the forum. I have been doing mostly small oil painting and miscellaneous sketching, but still have done some birds. The first one here is a pen and ink piece of a Western Screech Owl from a reference photo. I opted to leave it unfinished, at least for now. The second page is in an A4 Moleskine sketchbook, also done in pen and ink. Yesterday this Cooper's Hawk came roaring into the yard trying to pick off one of the birds that frequent our feeders. On this particular trip, it didn't succeed, but not from lack of trying. It sat for a few minutes in a small tree only about 30 feet from our kitchen window, allowing me to snap some great reference photos with the bird intently scanning this way and that. The Cooper's Hawk page took about an hour in total.

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Terrific work John - the owl is wonderful and the bottom right Cooper's is beautifully balanced and full of savage menace. Excellent!
 
The owl is coming on a treat, John. You've captured that expression perfectly. I'd very much lke to see the finished article.

Russ
 
The owl is coming on a treat, John. You've captured that expression perfectly. I'd very much lke to see the finished article.

Russ

I'm with Russ on finishing this one. It's very rich so far. And those Cooper's sketches look very believable, with the head in various positions scouting for prey.

I could have sworn we had one yesterday as there wasn't a bird in sight at our backyard feeders. Now is the time we start seeing them regularly.
 
those two sheets screech owl and cooper's look great

especially that Cooper's toe turned and just resting on the branch: its so tempting to put mighty effort into making every drawn raptor toe visibly gripping the branch, with result that you can forget that the bird itself is often quite happy with just a couple of toes' worth of grip and the rest just chilling
 
Rainbow Lorikeet

Hi folks,

Here is my most recent bird piece - a Rainbow Lorikeet and banksia (I'm told that's what it is, anyway) flower. I had sketched this in pencil a couple nights ago with the TV on in the background and set it aside to paint later. Later turned out to be yesterday while I was tending my paintings table at a local holiday bazaar where I decided to see if I could sell any of my smaller plein air landscape pieces. (Pleasantly surprised to have sold four, although they were priced quite reasonably, being unframed and more studies than anything else.) This is watercolor, about 10 x 7 inches, with bits of sepia pen work added for some detail after the watercolor. Also I used pigmented white opaque ink to add some detail in the bird's head, and the 'fuzz' on the flower.

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I love it fella sorry I cant go into more detail I don't have enough knowledge of artwork I just think it would look great on my wall:t:
 
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Love that back yard hawk. I get sparrowhawks so rarel in my garden that it's always a big thrill to see them. Pity they never seem to hang about long enough for sketching like yours!

Mike
 
Great Gray Owl, watercolor

Hi everyone and Happy New Year! (belatedly)

I need to get cranking on some more birds and wildlife...been spending much of my time working on portrait sketching and drawing, to try to improve my overall drawing ability. Plus, am taking several more classes over the next few months, so having to pick and choose where to spend serious work time.

Here is a watercolor sketch (about A4 in size) I did before the holidays but realized that I hadn't posted. It was done fairly quickly from a reference photo (I've tried multiple times to find one of these birds in the wild in the very short time and geographically small window in which they're possible in our state, without success so far) - one of these days hopefully.

Haven't decided what, if anything to do with the background yet, since I didn't do this one with the intention of a finished piece. Another nitpick that for now at least I've decided to leave as is...the eyes are two orange for the species, they should be a cooler and paler yellow. At least, that's what I see in the references...!

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have spotted you on Larry's thread over at WC...way to go John you are really going for it...look at this compared to your first year and you can see how far you've come.
 
have spotted you on Larry's thread over at WC...way to go John you are really going for it...look at this compared to your first year and you can see how far you've come.


Amazing progress John. I'd be tempted to leave this one just as is and worry about backgrounds in future works. Sometimes it's good to just stop while you have something that you're very happy with.

Since I never see owls I have no idea about your nitpicks regarding eye color.
 
Amazing progress John. I'd be tempted to leave this one just as is and worry about backgrounds in future works. Sometimes it's good to just stop while you have something that you're very happy with.

Since I never see owls I have no idea about your nitpicks regarding eye color.

happy new year

another vote for the less-is-more approach and leaving the background where is

you could just try colour shifting the eyes form orangey to lemon yellow on the computer- with the scanned and tweaked digi version then becoming the master
 
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