A very mixed up title this week, but it does reflect the content of today's blog post. Above is my sketch of a ram from a reference photo posted in one of the WetCanvas forums. I call it a sketch because I didn't really spend a lot of time on it. The photo reference called it a sheep, but I think this is more correctly a ram. While I believe there may be some wild sheep where the ewes have horns this guy looks male to me.
Below is my figure drawing from last night:
Scott is back, well semi back he will be away next week on vacation (he has been at school) but he was back for last nights session. Last night's model was one I have drawn before. She was wearing gloves so those lines across her forearms aren't me being creative.
All in all I think I am happy with last nights drawing. The feet could use some work, but I think the rest of the pose works. I am deliberately leaving the pencil lines a bit rough and not blending them together. I think it is in reaction to all of the photo realistic work I have been looking at on the WetCanvas forums. Don't get me wrong some of the work shown there is amazing and beautifully drawn. But I find myself wondering if it is art. Where is the artist in those drawings/paintings? Mostly they are reproducing photographs, but why spend hours making a piece of art that looks like a photograph?
Ack, enough I need to get off this hobby horse and just go and make my art. While my personal goal is to accurately create an image of my subject on paper, I am not trying to create photographic accuracy. I don't need or want my art work to look like a photograph. I make enough photographs, and they are sometimes artwork in and of themselves my drawings don't need to look like them. I want my art to have my stamp on it, hopefully I am beginning to develop my own recognizable style.
Yesterday prior to the studio session I spent most of my day wandering around the Marshfield Audubon sanctuaries below are a couple of photographs:
The little bird above was photographed at the Daniel Webster Sanctuary. I believe it is a Spotted Sandpiper either a juvenile or an adult that is no longer in mating plumage. The Daniel Webster Sanctuary is not that far from the ocean, so having one of these little guys come for a visit probably isn't that uncommon.
It had a funny little bounce/wriggle to its walk, every couple of steps it would sort of bounce/wriggle its tail. It was really funny to watch, but from my bird book typical for these birds.
Below is photo of a butterfly I made at the North River Sanctuary:
I believe this is a swallowtail. I don't want to admit how many photographs of butterflies I made yesterday because I deleted almost all of them. Mostly because I was too far away to have a clear photo, but the swallowtail just wouldn't stay still. Even when it was sitting on a flower it would flutter its wings giving me a blurry image. So this is my best shot. I also tried for a couple of skippers but just couldn't get close enough to them. I did make a couple of photos of a clearwing hummingbird moth and I will post the best of those to my flickr account. Besides the hummingbird moth I did see a real hummingbird feeding from cardinal flowers, but I wasn't quick enough to even try to photograph that little one. Oh well it was just fun to see it.
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