Wild Turkey

sorry to inflict so many turkeys at you, but you get a good sense of what it’s like to live where we do. Five bands of them, each with at least ten birds, come through the yard daily, clucking defiantly and looking angry.

A Big Sketching Day

Bird by Bird is nearly a year old. I started out with white-faced ibis on August 27 last year. I haven’t been keeping up with a daily sketch this summer, which has made me a bit distressed, not least because it’s obvious that the facility of drawing vanishes quickly if you (I) don’t do it every day. So I’m resolving to get back to it, even if they are just very fast sketches like yesterday’s red-tailed hawks.

This morning, though, I had a lot of time and did some quick pen sketches of the ibises out on the flooded field just to the south of our house. The birds were a little skittish but stayed pretty much put, and the light was gorgeous on their feathers. I got the pastels out for a longer sketching session.

Ibises are strangely balanced: a tiny head and neck, and a really tiny body, but long wings that give them a weird impression of being about to tip over.

I was ready for breakfast but noticed that the barn swallow babies in the carport were getting ready to fledge, so I thought I’d try and catch them all crammed in their tiny space while they still were. (They have, in fact, already started flying; several left the nest briefly and returned to it while I was sketching, but seem to prefer to let their parents bring them breakfast rather than find it themselves.)

Starlings, magpies: I sketched them too. But when these teenage turkeys settled outside the kitchen window for a nap, I picked up the pastels again. These are the Stabilo Carb Othello pastel pencils, easy to sharpen and a joy to use. It’s good to get back into this.

Richard’s in town and we’re going birding again tomorrow morning; I’m bringing the sketchbook along!

White-faced Ibis

A couple of weeks ago a bunch of us were given a piece of plywood, 8“x8”, and asked to do something on it that could be auctioned off for a fundraiser.

I don’t really paint and I really don’t paint in acrylics, but it seemed like the thing to do if I wanted to get it done in time. Really wish I’d done egg tempera and oil, but that will have to be next time.

There are about 18 glazes on that ibis. I know: you can’t tell, and it doesn’t seem like it looks very different than it would if I had just glommed paint on there in one go. But live and learn.

700 party: Four New Species Sketched

It was a great party, but I was especially thrilled to see pileated woodeckers. Didn’t get many sketches done, but this one was done as we arrived at Lake Solano and were locked out of the park, pondering what to do till it opened at eight: Nothing like a good bird to wake everyone up!

Peacock chicks were everywhere, and you have to hope for some natural attrition or there will be more peacock poop than Canada goose poop here…

There were several gorgeous males. We had a lengthy discussion about exactly how you’d reproduce the peacock blue with watercolor…

A wonderful day, and a great venue for a social gathering.

Bullock's Oriole

The orioles have been whistling and chattering pretty solidly. This young male was good at hiding in the almond tree but came out enough for quick glimpses…

Back from the Sierra

Despite my own best sabotage efforts, I did end up making a sketchbook (with a yellow cover, not gray, because it’s what I had) and took it with me this weekend when we went to Sierra Valley and Yuba Pass.

Texas taught me to work fast, and that has become a useful tool. There was a lot of ground to cover and we saw a lot of birds. The technique of working in pen and then adding color later mostly works…

The Hammond’s flycatcher, left, is for my dear friend Linda, for whom it was a nemesis bird for so long (I think she reached 700 without it).

The red-breasted sapsucker, right, is for Picus, because, well, he likes woodpeckers. (We dipped on the black-backed, Christopher, but saw all the others…)

House Sparrows at the Coop

I had a little wait outside the Coop at lunchtime today; was able to sketch some house sparrows that are nesting in the eaves…

Black-crowned Night-Heron

They’ve irrigated the alfalfa. This springs me into action like nothing you can imagine. I have dug many ditches, planted numerous seeds, tried to keep up with the earwigs (forget it) and my body hurts so much now you’d think I’d been beaten up.

But the night-herons were all over, and I drew lots of them. The watercolor is premature: the bird’s proportion is all off — but I thought I’d include it since I didn’t get to another.

Too much ditch-digging to do.

Here Come the Young'uns

I saw a juvenile Swainson’s hawk this morning. It was flying. That was quick.

This young crow is parked out over by the horse paddock, begging as hard as he can. You do what works.

Trying to Work Larger

People tend to draw at a constant size relative to what they see. What I tend to do is draw what I see, and if it’s far away, that can be pretty small. Some people draw smaller than what they see, others larger, but the scale seems to be constant unless you make an effort. It’s a big brain shift to switch out of that. Working small has its advantages, of course: it’s fast, and when it’s fast you can go for the gesture, which I try and do a lot.

But sometimes it’s not enough. And when Jack Laws suggested I try working larger, I took it to heart, mostly because if you’re doing a bird’s portrait, even in sketch form, it helps if it’s large enough to show detail.

The Bullock’s oriole was feeding in the mulberry tree out back this morning. I could have picked up my teeny sketchbook and done a 1:1 pen and ink drawing, which would have made the bird about 2” tall in my book. But I’m trying to work larger, so I picked up the 12×16 Canson pad and started with color.

It’s a start. It’s a brain shift. But I have to trust it will get easier…