The grey squirrel is done. Yeah, it took what seemed like forever to finish. Of course it didn't take that long, but I think this squirrel is the drawing I have spent the most time on in this series. The ducklings also took a long time, but the issue with them was the feathers and then the rocks. Again this one was started years ago and then put aside. I got a bit nervous about my abilities to render it so ended up putting it away while I worked on others. Finally I pushed myself to just get back to it and get it done.
It is the same size as the others, 6 x 6 inches on Stonehenge paper. I think the tree trunk took the most time to finish and I admit that it gave me the most anxiety. I worried that it wouldn't look like a tree trunk when done. Now that it is done I am relatively pleased with how this came out.
Again not photo realistic, but then I wasn't aiming for that. I did simplify the background behind the squirrel, in the photo there were more tree branches. I didn't want to draw attention away from the squirrel so left them out.
It was a cold cloudless February day when I made this photo in Boston, MA. There was a couple of feet of snow on the ground so some of the light is reflected. The squirrel was looking for a handout, which I wasn't able to give as I had no food with me but it was a fairly close encounter.
The Wood Lily above is one of my next projects. For this one I had an almost finished drawing that needed to be transferred to the correct paper, and outlined in ink. I have all of the first layers of color applied. In fact the background is almost done. Again I used a red wax based pencil (Derwent) covered with a green wax based pencil and then a final layer of a Polychromos dark green. There are some areas that need a touch up and a bit more work but the background is mostly finished.
Wood Lilies are a native New England wildflower, found in open meadows, it is a lovely reddish colored flower. Each plant usually has a single bloom. I photographed this one in the Power Line cut at Ames Nowell State Park in a nearby town.
I have just about run out of prepped drawings for the next in the series. I want to do at least 13/14 drawings so I can put a calendar together.
I love birds, though I admit to being a bit leery about using one of them for these drawings, color patterns on feathers can be very complex. Flowers are usually so much easier. Still I want a variety of subjects so I expect that I will use the above bird as one of my drawings.
The bird is a Cat Bird. They are mostly grey so I won't have much of an issue with color patterns, except for the black cap that is. It is still just in the pencil stage, I need to check it for correctness but I think it is about good to go.
I am also trying to get back to some sketching with pen (no pencil) I have been away from it for so long that I am fairly sure my efforts are going to be pretty bad. But they won't get better unless I bite the bullet and just do it. The flowers above are Spiderwort an early June garden flower that has escaped to the woods. Drawn in a sketchbook with just pen. Not terrible, but not very good either. I will keep at it.
Early June is also the time when the peonies are in bloom. These two photos were made in my local neighborhood and show the varieties of peony's that can now be found in the garden. When I was young we had Peony's in our yard, all white ones that had a large multi petal bloom. I remember that at the time there was also a deep red color, but I don't recall pink of the above flowers or the brighter red in the flower below.
I love the smell of Peonies, but I don't love the ants that love the sweet sap the plant produces and seem to accompany all flowers. A problem if you wanted to bring some of the flowers inside.
Hope you enjoy these two photos. That is it for today. I need to motivate myself and get another of the colored pencil drawings finished. Per usual comments are welcome. .
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