Happy Canadian Thanksgiving and Happy Draw-A-Bird-Day! A few Magnolia Warblers made a stopover in Mill Creek Ravine Park (Edmonton, Alberta) on their way to winter homes closer to the equator. I photographed this bird on August 30th. Continue reading Magnolia Warbler
Happy day after Draw a Bird Day! Flocks and flocks of Bohemian Waxwings visited Edmonton this winter and I took many, many photos of them feasting on berries and flying in and out of trees and bushes. A few photos turned out well, with interesting poses and enough detail to be drawing-worthy. I was super excited to do some quick, fun sketches, but I soon … Continue reading Draw a Bird Day – Going Eraser-less!
It has been a while since I participated in Draw a Bird Day. I was happy to see some bird drawings in my blog reader this morning and decided to get inspired. I’ve been mostly sketching lately and none of the results have looked quite showable. But I did have a partially coloured drawing of some bird wings. And now, it’s fully coloured! When I … Continue reading Wing Feathers – Draw a Bird Day
Happy DADABD (Day After Draw a Bird Day)! Thanks to Ron Dudley of Feathered Photography for letting me use his image of a Black-billed Magpie attacking a Swainson’s Hawk as a reference. I love the flight position! I used other photos to help me whimsically assign colours to the feathers. Black-billed Magpies are the birds I see the most in my Edmonton neighbourhood these days, … Continue reading Draw a Bird Day – Magpie in Flight
Happy Draw-A-Bird-Day! Last month, I had fun with a few pencil sketches of birds and other animals. Using a classic yellow HB pencil with pink eraser reduced my “expectation anxiety”. I did, however, use 4 different erasers to create this sketch. The pink one and the classic white Staedtler wrapped in blue and the essential kneaded eraser (because I can mold it into any shape … Continue reading Draw a bird day – hawk!
Happy Draw-A-Bird-Day! Thanks to Tony LePrieur for permission to use his photo of a male Audubon subspecies Yellow-rumped Warbler as a reference. The photo was published in a Birds Calgary blog post titled Birds of Bridlewood and Carburn Park. As Bob Lefebvre noted, the other subspecies, Myrtle, is more commonly seen in Calgary. I saw many in juvenile plumage but only two adult males in … Continue reading Draw A Bird Day – Yellow-Rumped Warbler
Between my last school assignment and the day I needed to seriously start studying for final exams, I had a few moments of free time last month. I could have played with a bird drawing but I felt like it was time for drawing a red fox (I’d started contemplating this about a year ago). My first red fox drawing was a whole fox sitting … Continue reading Vulpes vulpes
Happy Draw a Bird Day 2017! This yearly celebration of the joy of drawing birds was inspired by a little girl named Dorie (Draw a Bird Day website). Two years ago, I was inspired to draw my first bird by Laura of Create Art Everyday and M.R. Emberson of A-wing and A-way. The drawing is based on a photograph of a male Red-winged Blackbird I … Continue reading Draw A Bird Day 2017
Well, it is hard to tell, in black and white, that the little bird is a golden-crowned kinglet, but that is what it is. I have big dreams of painting it in colour some day, but I thought it would be fun to do a pencil drawing first. I used 140 lb cold press paper, a neat experiment which I’m not likely to repeat. I … Continue reading Draw A Golden-Crowned Kinglet Day
My blogging friend Sébastien Palud went to Iceland in June of 2015 and has been publishing his experiences as a little illustrated dictionary. So far, he’s written and illustrated A through O with poetic descriptions and spectacular photographs of immense, other-worldly landscapes and comparatively tiny plants and animals (lots of birds!!!). For the lettre M, he included a series of beautiful photographs of Atlantic Puffins … Continue reading Atlantic Puffins
Happy New Year and Happy Draw-A-Bird Day!!! (The monthly version of Draw a Bird Day was yesterday, so I’m a bit late!) This pen and ink drawing of a female Red-winged Blackbird snacking on a cattail was initially meant to be a doodlewash for May 2016’s #DoodlewashDinner. But I drew it on very smooth paper which I soon realized was not watercolour friendly. I did … Continue reading Draw A Bird Day – Snacking on Cattails
I was happy to see that a bunch of people posted bird drawings today. So, I thought I’d join in the fun with a Rufous-tailed jacamar. I drew it back in February from Audubon’s Bird: The Definitive Visual Guide and added a green background with Photoshop today. Continue reading Draw-a-Bird-Day: Rufous-tailed jacamar
