Birds and flowers

Spring is advancing, we are getting some warm days and some cool wet days along with some that are just cloudy. Wet and/or cloudy days are not good for photography. I have managed to do a couple more watercolor paintings. Again I am drawing my main subject first with pencil then inking an outline that I then paint with watercolor. My drawing skills are a bit rusty and since I want to concentrate on controlling the paint/color and not shapes I am finding this the easiest way to work.

So the above tulip was drawn and then outlined prior to my adding paint. That said I am relatively pleased with how it came out. I am trying very hard to not overwork the paint, but it isn't always easy to just stop.

After the tulip I thought I would try a more challenging subject. So I drew an outline of a robin and then attempted to paint it. Hmm, well the shape of the bird isn't quite right (it is a bit too fat in the belly). and it was a challenge to leave the white areas (unpainted paper) but I think I got the colors almost right  Anyway it looks like a robin so I am semi happy and plan on trying more birds in the future.

The background above is only sketched in with paint. The robin was on the ground in the reference photo and I didn't want to try and paint tan dried grasses. Not a masterpiece but a learning experience that I am not unhappy with. 

It is not all watercolor work here. I have pulled out my colored pencils and gotten to work on pieces that I had started a cople of years ago and ended up putting aside for no particular reason other than I had gotten tired of working with colored pencil .

I just finished the one above, Bindweed and Birdfoot Trefoil flowers with a bit of fern. The scan isn't the best color wise but it is a fairly close approximation.

I am currently working on another flower drawing (day lilies) but have also been trying to select photos for the additional drawings, I want to do 13, enough to create a calendar. So far I have selected some additional flowers and some animals. Which reminds me that I really need to finish the squirrel. Just have to say that trees are hard to draw, which is what is holding that one up.

As a closure here are a couple of Spring photos. Above is a close up of some Red Bud flowers that I made earlier this month. Love the pink. 

The building above is my Public Library with a blooming Dogwood tree. The library actually has 2 Dogwoods in the front, but the 2nd (which is pink) is hidden by the maple tree on the right.

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

Back to Watercolor with Pen and Ink

Today's blog update is actually revisiting work I did in May (or earlier) but never got posted to the blog. What can I say, my bad. With the return of warmer weather I am spending a lot of time out and about with my camera. Photographing flowers, butterflies, Odes and anything else I see that will hold still long enough. Leaving me not a lot of time or energy for my art or the blog. That said I am trying to get back to doing daily sketches. These are just very quick drawings usually with pen but sometimes as in my last update graphite. The sketches will probably be the art I will be posting for most of the summer now that I have these pen and ink works posted.

The above is about postcard sized. On cold press watercolor paper I first laid down a wash. No real pre-planning with these, I just pick a couple of colors and then work it from there, no rules except I like to keep the colors fairly light so that the ink work will show up. Once the paper is dry I look at the resulting wash and try to think what would look good on it. For the above piece I decided that abstract/geometric would probably be best, so hauling out my compass I drew various sized circles in pencil then got to work inking.

I used my technical pens for this, mostly the 0, and the 00 tips  So here it is, not sure if I like it or not, it was certainly more work than I expected when I started it.

These next two are ATC's or Artists Trading Cards, so the size is 3.5 x 2.5 inches. For these I used hot press watercolor paper and kept the watercolor washes very simple just a couple of colors.

The above is based on some of my photos of Jack in the Pulpits. I love those flowers and have tried to use them in my art in the past, with mixed results. This card I like, course the pink might seem a bit strange but I am not going for total realism here so for me it works.

With the background colors I selected for this card, I though water so drew a couple of fish, again revisiting previous art work, though these aren't really copies of what I have done before, just similar. I textured the background to make the fish stand out. I thought about adding some texture to the fish bodies, but decided that if I did that then the fish would just blend into the background instead of standing out. I decided to do minimal ink work on the fish bodies. I am not sure about the water plants, I thought I wanted something to add a bit more interest, but after I had done it, I was kind of sorry.

This past week I spent a day in Boston, mostly so I could make photographs, but I also made a side trips to the Boston MFA and to the Public Library. While there I made this quick sketch of a fellow patron. His thumb is a bit out of wack, proportion wise, to the rest of him, but I am not totally displeased with how this came out. Done in my small sketch book with a Copic .2 Multiliner pen.  

It is surprisingly difficult to get a good photo of a waterlily. Mostly because they are usually in the middle (or at least not near the edge) of ponds, and I don't have a boat. The one in the above photo was actually next to a rock near to shore, so I was able to photograph over the rock for the above photo. I cranked up the ISO so that the shadows would show up. Finally a water lily photo I am pleased with.

This is a photo of Copley Square taken from the steps of the Boston Public Library. I can't recall the name of the church in the square but it is rather well known. What I find interesting in this photo is the John Hancock building with it's reflective glass windows. On the side facing the viewer you can see reflected clouds, making it a bit hard to actually make out the building. Fun effect and very Boston. Though when I first moved to Boston back in the 1970's the building was covered with plywood because the windows kept pooping out of their frames, took a bit of engineering and a law suit to resolve the problems. But resolve them they did, I haven't heard of any glass falling for years.

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

Nature Journal, portrait and a design

Above is another of my nature journal catch up pages. Again the place was Daniel Webster in Marshfield, MA and the time was May 6, 2013. Images for this page are more of my old standbys. The fact that I started using basically the same images over and over is I think one reason why I lost interest in the Journal. There are still a few more written observation pages and I want to finish the illustrations that go along with them.

Again the tree stump in the panne with a few turtles, only 4 on this day, but one was fairly large. Next is a quick drawing of a pair of mating Canada Geese. I saw most of the courtship "dance" (head bobs) that lead up to the actual mating. As I recall they waited a while and then started over. After a series of synchronized head/neck bobs the male mounts the female as they swim in the water. I have a feeling this was a rather late pairing since the bottom image is one of a pair of parents with 2 goslings. I was being warned off by the arched neck and loudly hissing parent.

I must say that all my visits to Daniel Webster over about a year and a half allowed me to observe a lot of Canada Geese behavior that I had never realized prior to this time.

I made the above graphite portrait the other day. Not sure if I am pleased with it or not, the photo (another of the May WetCanvas Pen and Ink forum challenge images)  has very dramatic lighting, both making it easier to draw but also in a way trickier. This man has the most androgynous face that I think I have ever drawn. Hair was very fluffy, and the mouth just doesn't seem male, however the nose and chin are very male. The subject had very dark eyelashes accenting the arc of the top eyelid.

I tried to do this portrait with just tone and very little line, it should really be done in Pen and Ink for the challenge, but I don't think I will be attempting to do that.

Not quite sure where the above design came from. I was just sort of doodling around and this just evolved. The birds came first then other elements got added in until it seemed finished.

I was thinking it looks a bit like a Pennsylvania Dutch motif, but why it should surface at this point in time I have no clue. Sketched first in pencil, then inked and color pencil added, drawn in my sketchbook.  Though in some way blue birds might make sense, after all it is spring, and spring here in MA brings mating blue birds, so maybe that was origin of the design.

It also looks like something that could easily be translated to applique for a Baltimore Album Block. Course I don't do hand applique and have never had any desire to make a Baltimore Album quilt so it won't be me who does the sewing. I wasn't consciously coping anything though in fact there are probably similar designs out there.

Above is a photograph of the Brockton Public Library with a white dogwood in full bloom. On the other side of the entrance there is a Pink Dogwood also in bloom. But I think the white tree gets more sun light since it has a more dramatic show of blossoms. This is the front of the old Library building. A few years ago they build an addition toward the back with a second main entrance.

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