After finishing "Homecoming" (took 3 days and a huge amount of movies based on Jane Austen's novels) I've been enjoying just doing some scetches. So relaxing, not having to worry about every single line and move and spot and whatnot. (Don't get me wrong, I loved the painting process and finding my way through the painting, but it did make me understand and appreciate the freedom of scetching in a new way. I've never spent so much time with one painting.)
On Sunday I went to see a pair of Mute swans that had decided to spend some time near where I live (not that common around here, so they were quite special). For the most part gulls and muskrats made a more interesting scetching target than the swans (there's only so many ways you can draw a white body of a swan floating on the water with the neck underwater). Fortunately just at the end the other one of the swans decided to preen a bit, and I hurried to get my clipboard and papers out.
Yesterday evening - I went to see a Rose-colored starling, and missed the bird with 1 meter and 5 seconds. The problem was that I couldn't stay long, and the bird might have still been there, but there was no way to move around at that spot, since it was just on the edge of a breeding ground of some very rare bird species.
Thus, this morning, woke up around 5, still feeling a bit blue, and decided to take a walk with my bins and clipboard. Walking on the wet road, I heard a high pitched chatter from the ground. Looked down - a baby fieldfare, just out of nest, looking all fluffy and scruffy and comically sweet, hopping around and chattering. After that I was all smiles (you just can't be blue when you've just met such a little scruffball).
And in the evening, went birding with a friend. Our surprise was great, when at the seashore, from the shoremost, bushes flew out a cuckoo.
So far I've been able to keep up with my "a paper or two of scetches a day keeps the scetcher awake" -system. We'll see, what scetchable I'll encounter tomorrow.
Elina
P.s. I've done a lot more scetching the past few days than these, but these are the presentable ones...