Autumn has Arrived

Now that the weather is cooler I seem to be more in the mood to draw. I started this little guy earlier this summer and just lost interest. In the past week or two I have been getting back to a couple of these unfinished drawings and spending some time on them to if not exactly "polish" them up at least bring them to a level of completion I am happy with.

Above is a sparrow I photographed earlier this summer at the Trailside Museum in the Blue Hills in Milton, MA. While I am thinking about doing a more finished drawing of this little guy I am not totally displeased with how this one looks.

 

Above are more of my Christmas tag designs that I have been working on in Illustrator. The top one is relatively simple but I rather like the bow on the post. to me at least it looks like Christmas. The poinsettia tag below is a slightly modified version of what I had in my last post. I changed the size and position of one of the flowers in this three flower cluster and think I am happier with this version.

 

More short pose figure drawings from July, I am trying to play catch up so am posting 2 weeks worth this week. Above top are some 2 minute poses then in the 2nd panel some 5 to 10 minute poses of the same model.

A second set from another week in July. Again 2 minute poses in the top panel and longer poses in the lower one. Obviously quality varies, and for this session I think I prefer the short pose drawings, I think they have more energy if less detail.

With fall comes the fall asters and various types of goldenrod. Above is a combined photo of the two flowers. Photographed last week at the Trailside Museum in Milton MA.

Above is a Pickerel frog that I was lucky enough to find and photograph at Houghton's Pond in the Great Blue Hills Reservation. These guys aren't as green as the green frogs I have previously photographed, more copper and brown than green. Still they are 2nd most common frog here in MA so it was fun to actually get a photograph. Green frogs are our most common species.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.

September Update

I actually finished the above colored pencil and ink drawing last month (August) but somehow never got motivated to update the blog with the image. Perhaps it is just as well as the leaves are more like fall in colors than August. I was thinking about redoing this but this time mixing up the size of the leaves as all the leaves in this drawing are the same size. I think with different sized leaves I could reduce the amount of background blue that is showing here. Still it was kind of a fun exercise even if the results aren't wonderful.

I have been spending some time on the computer playing with Adobe Illustrator, the images above are the results. Have to decide which one I like best to have it printed up for this years Christmas gift tag. The Poinsettia is based on a photograph I downloaded off the web. Needless to say I took some liberties with the image to achieve my final results. Looking at these three images I think I need to do some more playing. While I like the third one best there are still some things that I would like to tweak.  The fun part of doing the work on the computer is that making changes is relatively easy. Which one do you prefer?

The above short pose figure drawings are from back in July. The model that evening is very thin, which actually makes her harder to draw if that makes any kind of sense. Top grouping are some of my 2 minute poses, while the bottom groups were 5 to 10 minute poses.

August wasn't a good month for me getting out to my short pose sessions, the Artist who holds the sessions was on vacation one week and I missed another week just because. Not totally a bad thing since I haven't been doing my blog updates as I should have been doing. Ah well now that the weather is cooling off hopefully I will get back on track with my figure drawings and my blog updates.

Also haven't been spending a lot of time out and about photographing nature. Still I have a couple of butterfly photographs to share this week. Above is a Summer Azure, don't know the specific species as it is just too difficult to type this without capturing the butterfly but figure that is close enough for this blog.

Above is another Tiger Swallowtail butterfly. I have seen quite a few of these guys this summer, which considering this hasn't been a good year for butterflies as a whole I am surprised by. I don't think I have seen one monarch butterfly this year, and after so many last year it is a surprise. Still Spring was very wet and cold so I don't think as many Monarchs made it up this far north this year. Also communities have been spraying for mosquitoes which isn't good for bee or butterfly populations.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.