This little blog is ending another year, so why not post one more post in 2023 filled with birds? These hummingbirds and juncos are done in graphite on Etched stone paper.
This year was filled with bird drawings and landscapes. We’ll see what 2024 holds. Happy New Year!
My husband had this wonderful old photo and mentioned it would be an interesting graphite drawing. I gave it a try, taking over two weeks to complete it. It measures 9″ x 12″, and I used Canson Fluid multimedia paper. Maybe the bright leaves on the bottom right are too bright, but after hours of gray, gray, gray, I went a little overboard with the electric eraser.
And here’s the original photo, which measures 5″ x 7″. I just love it. A photo like this is awesome as is, and I wouldn’t normally try to copy something like this, but as I learn more about landscape drawing, it was a perfect exercise in foliage and also creating atmosphere. It was fascinating to take a photo of this and then zoom in. It revealed a white chicken way down the road, a detail I left out of my drawing.
There’s a chance all three of these birds are really the same bird. I mix and match whatever photos I take to create an interesting composition. In this case, I used three separate bird photos and two different sunflower photos to create this drawing. This started with two birds, but I added a third when it seemed too empty.
I’m finding that my drawings are ending up in the middle key, meaning not very dark and not all that light. I’m not getting much of a value range. Something to work on. I’m enjoying drawing the birds, though the branches and foliage have been more difficult with graphite than with ink.
It’s been fun working on landscapes in Smoothie’s class. Can you tell that he’s from the UK? There are castles, mills, fields with hedgerows…
My new best friend is the Pentel Multi8 mechanical pencil. I have another but it was filled with a mish mash of lead brands. This one, I dedicated to the awesome Uni 2mm graphite, my favorite in lead pencils. I was thrilled to see they made the 2mm leads, too. I haven’t put it down since it arrived.