This quirky, little bird was all by itself. As its name implies, they migrate solo. It stopped by for a break on its journey south, wading in the shallow creek down the road with its jerky, quick stride.

I’m struggling with color. Oil pastel lends itself to vibrant, strong color, and I like to use all of them at once which leads to a battle for attention. My best laid plans of sticking to color schemes go awry each time. Today, I’ll do a few sketches with neutrals and one color family only. We’ll see if I can resist the rainbow.

I tried Uart 400 sandpaper for this. Oil pastel goes down nicely on most surfaces so I wasn’t sold that I needed this paper, but the additional colored pencil I use did a better job on this surface than a gessoed paper or canvas board.