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 The cardinals I did looking at the little feeder that is stuck to my studio window. I wasn’t concerned with a fantastic drawing, just practicing the gesture sketches of it. I added a touch of color with a waterbrush and watercolor.
Then I decided to take my sketchbook, watercolors and a simple waterbrush with me when I went out to feed the chickens. It was really cold and windy, so it was hard to draw, but I donned the flip top mittens and went to it! Ok..it was worse trying to paint, but I did some simple color studies. It’s very hard to sketch chickens as they move so much!  Then I headed outside the barn and set my pad on top of a tripod that I attached a piece of wood to, it was very windy! The mount isn’t a very strong one, it loosened up sometimes, but it allowed me to set everything down in front of me. I’m always experimenting with ideas.  Above you can see the some chickens that were roosting in the rafters. I painted them with Chinese ink…from a dry cake I keep in a tin; it used to be liquid I just let it dry and can use it like dry watercolors. Below that is the little landscape study with some notes. The hawk sketches I added today actually. I saw a hawk through the window and tried to do a sketch using my binoculars. I’m pretty sure it’s a red tailed hawk.
My landscape was pretty far away from me, but I was after the colors of the field. You can see the picture below. Oh yes…and then there’s Ginger, always waiting for me to walk on somewhere else! haha….  
That’s it for now…stay tuned for more updates about my trip to England, sign up your email in the box in the right column. Bye!
 This is a watercolor study I did to as a demonstration for my fall Nature Sketching and Painting Indoor class that just finished up. I used it to show the stages it took to make a simple study, step by step, layering washes, values etc. Posted below are the steps it took to make this 5″x5″ study head, be sure to click on pictures to see larger views! Enjoy!
Detailed sketch – Shown below, first I started with a light gesture sketch of the shape of the bird, then rechecked placements of things and refined details.
 Darkest Darks-This is one approach to watercolors, start by laying in your darkest darks and blacks. If you start with a confident sketch it should work out fine, when you work this way you set out from the beginning with a defined dark end of the value range. You can then judge all other values against it as you paint. You won’t have to go back and keep “pushing” your darks to make them pop.
I also painted the eye, being carful not to touch the highlight area, black for the pupil, and brown put into the wet black for the iris. (I think I put my reading glasses on for this step! haha). 
Below I started to lay in more darks of the cheek, as my brush was drying out I would ‘sketch’ areas I wasn’t sure about…just to start to lay in some value so I could see where I wanted to paint.  Color Wash-Here I laid in a bluish grey, ultramarine and black thinned with water. After it dried I laid in some small lines for feathers.
 Changeing the drawing– A pale yellow ochre wash on skin of eye area and nares. A wash over the eye highlight to tone it down and soften it. Here I also made a decision about the beak, now that I was putting values down, I thought the beak looked a bit too heavy. So before committing to paint, I erased! I reworked the curve then I painted keeping all areas soft and blended slightly.
 Feather details-I brushed on more feather details here, laid in more darks with repeated ‘feather’ strokes to top of head and all around eye. Nice spotty look at right edge, I like when the watercolor can been seen for what it is, it gives it a looseness. See the photo below for this step, just repeated tiny strokes.
  Yellow of beak and eye-Here I laid in the yellow on the nares and eye area, and it’s completed! See it on my Art Gallery Blog soon with prices for note cards and prints! 
I thought I’d put up some pictures of the Harris Hawk oil painting I’m trying to find time to work on. I started this a year or so ago! The underpainting shown below, has been sitting around in my studio so patiently waiting for more! It’s done with wet burnt umber then I wiped off to ‘draw’ the bird on the canvas. A very nice, freeing technique, you just concentrate on the shapes like you should.
 Then below, I start what’s called the dead color stage, flat blocked in areas of color as close to the final color as possible.
Below you can see me, wow do I look serious or what? I decided to hold the palette this time, sometimes I put it on my custom biult (by me) painting tower. But I like having the colors right there in my hand so to speak, for mixing and direct painting onto canvas.  This is it so far…shapes are looking good, colors too. I have to decide what I’ll do with the sky or background.
Well as my title alludes…I was in a car crash a few weeks ago, that’s why I haven’t posted. I was rolling right along preparing for my classes, going out hiking, getting ready to do plein air oil landscapes again when I got hit by someone who ran a stop sign! Sigh…well, thank God I wasn’t hurt worse, my car was totaled and I got out myself but I did take a ride in the ambulance to the hospital. I joked with the EMT’s that I guess you need to experience everything in your lifetime. I thought I’d be back to normal again right away but just as friends warned me, the pains and problems might show up later. Yup…they came! I won’t go into detail about all the pain and suffering, I’m trying to focus on the positive.
The killer is the weather turned absolutely gorgeous in my area of the world, and I just didn’t feel like going out to draw. What I did do was carry my sketchbook with me to the doctors offices, I’ve never ever been one to ‘waste’ time sitting around waiting.
I threw my field guide into my small field bag and my sketchbook, my inktense watercolor pencils and waterbrush. So…I nursed my interest in drawing along as I nursed my body and nerves. I even drew a chair while waiting for the Neurologist, chairs you know, are very good to practice drawing skills on. Think perspective!
I have a few pictures that show stages, with more to follow. If you take note of the dates, I did them about one week apart…wow I HATE moving so slow in my work, but I have to be patient everyone says. I am WAY behind on my drawing!  I will also upload on another entry about the wonderful two openings I was in at the Burchfield Nature and Art Center in West Seneca. Lots of great photos from those events. So for now…here’s some pages from my sketchbook, though unfinished still, please forgive my taking so long!
This last sketchbook page is from a butterfly field guide, it’s an Eastern Tailed Blue. I did do more work on it since this was scanned, I’ll upload it soon.
I hope to take you on a walk with me this Friday, I’m going exploring with a photographer friend of mine and I will post about it after.
I was inspired on Tuesday (19th) to paint a Cooper’s Hawk when I saw one (or a Sharp Shinned Hawk) swoop over my bird feeder. I talked about it in my post on the 19th. So I did this small study from a field guide in my 5″x81/2 ” sketchbook.  First I did a “Gesture Sketch” then added some details when I felt the drawing was correct. I started first with black watercolor in various values to ‘draw’ more details in, feather markings, wing values and shape. Then I dabbled on with my fine pointed round brush, a light value of breast color. While it was wet I sprinkled on salt to see if it would help break it up, in a random way, I love the way salt does this. I also put in an orange red for the iris of his eye.
 In the third picture I have laid on more breast value, defining more of the 3d shape of the hawk’s breast and body. I put a pale wash of purply pink under his tail and touched it to his wing feathers and by his eye. I put a tiny bit of blue on the beak and behind the eye to shape his head more. I also colored the branch, legs and put some browns up onto wing feathers.
 The fourth picture I added some more colors here and there on the hawk, more color on the grey wing feathers and around eye. If you notice the longest tail feather in the last picture I rubbed out in this one. If you need to change something, wet it and repeatedly brush it and dab with a papertowel. I wanted to shorted in because it was making the whole tail look too rounded. I used my favorite little Chinese brush to make the pine needles in the background. I have a picture below about this.
 The final picture of my painting (above) shows another little Cooper’s Hawk study, this one done with Inktense watercolor pencils, Prismacolor watercolor pencils and one Graphitint water soluble pencil. You can see the difference between the transparent watercolor painting and the wc pencil painting. I like the grainy look of the wc pencils, it has a softness to it. On my sketchbook I’ve listed the actual colors for those who like to know! You can click any picture to see it larger.
This photo shows how I used a plastic bag to block the birds breast so I could brush right from his breast out, without getting him green! It’s a little trick you can do to protect your areas you’ve painted. I would be holding it down with my fingers normally, but I had to hold the camera! (I need a camera man!)  Then I show how I use my little Chinese brush by splaying it out, to make pine needles, it works great! The next photo shows me putting the needles on with the brush tips.
 Now here’s a little tip that I just put to good use, you can see in the last photo I have two pencils in my hand. You can brush the tips of your wc pencils to get a limited amount of color for light washes. But this time I held two, an Antique White and Tangerine. I brushed the Tangerine then the White to make an opaque wash of orange. I used this very nicely on his eye as it had gotten a bit dark. Then I used the white alone to dab repeatedly to make a highlight on his eye. Besides the Chinese brush, I used the one small brush to do all of the painting on both, a round, cheapo brush from Walmart!
 I hope you enjoyed my painting today as much as I enjoyed doing it! Please leave me your comments if you like and you can sign up to receive email announcements when I do a new post!
Please have a fun visit to my Zazzle Shop where I have my bird paintings on glossy notecards, mugs, canvas bags and t-shirts! More coming all the time.
 I thought I’d do a little color practice using my watercolors, to sketch the field in Winter. I just love the brown, soft tans and red of the bark on the bushes in the far field. My studio is on the second floor so I have a good view.
As I was sipping my coffee and playing around with the field sketch, a hawk swooped down right in front of me over Ginger’s head and across the yard. It was going for the birdfeeder I’m sure, looking for a light lunch of juncoe or sparrow! It landed up in a tree on the side yard and I had to look quickly with my binoculars, hard to see much as it was turned away and not close.
It is hard for me still to tell the difference between a “Sharp Shinned Hawk” and a “Cooper’s Hawk”, and being a stickler for correct identification, I can’t say which it was.
I feel it is a Cooper’s hawk, but need to see more to learn about their size and see the tail better.
If you look at my blog coming up…I did a nice little painting of a “Cooper’s Hawk”, inspired by today’s sighting.
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The cardinals I did looking at the little feeder that is stuck to my studio window. I wasn’t concerned with a fantastic drawing, just practicing the gesture sketches of it. I added a touch of color with a waterbrush and watercolor.
Then I headed outside the barn and set my pad on top of a tripod that I attached a piece of wood to, it was very windy! The mount isn’t a very strong one, it loosened up sometimes, but it allowed me to set everything down in front of me. I’m always experimenting with ideas.
Above you can see the some chickens that were roosting in the rafters. I painted them with Chinese ink…from a dry cake I keep in a tin; it used to be liquid I just let it dry and can use it like dry watercolors. Below that is the little landscape study with some notes. The hawk sketches I added today actually. I saw a hawk through the window and tried to do a sketch using my binoculars. I’m pretty sure it’s a red tailed hawk.
