Three H's, Hosta, Hearts, Heron

I finally finished the above drawing. Poor thing was put aside for a couple of weeks while I adjusted to the summer heat and nerved myself up enough to go in and work on the details. Not terribly large, the drawing area is approx. 4 x 5.5 inches, but when you are doing it all one dot at a time it takes a while to do even a small piece. I am rather pleased with how this came out. The drawing is based on a photograph I made earlier this spring/summer of a Hosta starting to put out its flower stalk. I believe I posted that photo on the blog.

I rather enjoyed doing this piece but have a feeling that it will take me a bit before I want to attempt another stipple drawing. They do take forever to do.

Below is the colored hearts and shells drawing that I posted last week:

I used mainly Derwent Inktense pencils for the color. When water activated these pencils display a brilliant color, brighter then most watercolor pencils so they are really fun to work with even if the resulting colors can be a bit tricky to prejudge.  This wasn't a preplanned drawing, just something I did for fun as a break from the Hosta.

Below is my figure drawing from last night.

Due to several factors we only had one 45 minute session last nigh instead of our usual 2 1/2 hours so the above drawing is really more of a sketch. It is mostly done with a 2H lead, though just before the break I had switched to the 2B lead  which can be seen in the sketched in background.

This drawing at least lets you see how I go about doing my weekly figure drawings. I start with a 2H lead (lighter marks, easier to erase) to rough in the figure/face and any furniture. Erasing and redrawing until I have the figure blocked in the way I want it. This usually takes me through the first posing session. After the break I will go back in with a 2B lead to refine and darken the face/body putting in shadows and shading during the 2nd session. In the last session I add details to the hands/face and work on the background details. Though usually I have the figure pretty much finished by the end of the 2nd posing session and spend the last session filling in the cloth shadows and background.

My last image is a photo I made yesterday at one of the MA Audubon Sanctuaries:

The bird pictured above is a Green Heron, and I photographed it at the Daniel Webster Sanctuary in Marshfield, MA. yesterday afternoon. Yesterday was the first time I had seen this bird other than in a photograph. They are MA's 2nd native Heron species, the other being the Great Blue Heron. These guys are quite a bit smaller then the Great Blue's, but still larger then most of your backyard birds.

I was thrilled to have see it, and probably spent over 20 minutes watching it wander around the shore of the pond and feeding. I think it was catching tadpoles, but even though I was fairly close (in one of the Sanctuary's hides) I couldn't really see what it was eating, other than it look black and wriggled a bit.

Well that is my three H's for today, I think I much prefer my three to the weatherman's three. Per usual comments are always welcome.