Sketching Day

"Drawing is the discipline by which I constantly discover the world."

                - Frederick Franck, The Zen of Seeing

Not included in this sketch was the great horned owl's intended lunch - a skunk.

It was kind of a chilly day with snow in the air. I managed to get in a brisk walk ("brisk" both in the temperature and pace sense) along the river this morning but afterwards I sought out some warmer indoor activities.

There's a small natural history museum on our university campus so I packed up my pencils and sketchbook and headed there. It's been a while since I sketched and I've missed it. I know some artists hate drawing and sketching but I love it. I just don't do it enough.

Bird feet fascinate me.

This sketch doesn't do justice to the grebe's "ears" - a beautiful gold-blond spray of feathers just behind the eyes.

Sketching Magpies

Magpies have had no trouble adapting to life around humans. This magpie spent quite a lot of time checking out the bed of this truck and eventually I saw it jump in and fly off with what looked like a small piece of brick.

There are lots of magpies on campus. Many people are annoyed by their loud calls and opportunistic habits, but I find them highly entertaining. And how can you not admire the iridescent feathers and that gorgeous long tail?

A family of them live around our apartment building and I've been enjoying observing them. When we were moving our furniture into our new home, we had our front door propped open and at one point we watched as a very bold magpie stood in the doorway peering into our place, deciding whether to explore further. Luckily it didn't - I'd hate to think of the carpet cleaning bill.

It's been a bit showery lately, with the usual post-rain worms scattered about the ground and sidewalks. Today I watched as our group of magpies went worm-hunting. There was a lot of picking them up and then dropping them again, so I was never quite sure if they actually wanted to eat them or were just having fun playing with their food.

Pencil sketches of some of the magpies on campus. Sketching them is a little challenging as they never stay still for more than a few seconds. I had to use photos to supplement my live sketching.

Painting 13 - Magpie

You may have noticed a lack of posts this past week. Paul and I met up with our dear friends Denise and her hubby for some R&R on the Oregon coast. Doing a few posts ahead of time and then scheduling them to publish while I was away was on my to-do list, but I only managed to get one ready. Pre-trip insanity reigned supreme. The kind that makes you wonder why you bother going away in the first place because it is so stressful trying to get everything taken care of for while you are away. And this thought runs through your head at 1 am as you lay wide awake knowing you have to get up in 4 hours to start a 10 hour drive so you really, really need to get some shut-eye or you'll fall asleep at the wheel and truly ruin your vacation, but you also know you just aren't going to be able to relax enough to get any sleep. But of course it was worth it in the end, and the post-trip insanity was thankfully at a minimum (although I haven't been back to work, so maybe I shouldn't say anything yet...) I will post about some of our seaside adventures once I sort through the photos.

Anyway, I am very proud that I've been home for less than 24 hours and I've already managed to complete another painting in between loads of laundry, grocery shopping, and gently prying the cat off of me while reassuring her that we did not abandon her and that we love her and remain her devoted servants.

I did this one on a brand new block of Arches hot pressed watercolor paper that my wonderful husband picked up for me. I've been working on Canson cold pressed for most of the paintings I've done so far in the 100 Painting challenge, and the difference between the two surfaces is amazing. I much prefer the smooth surface of the hot pressed. I feel like I can control the paint, and it dries so fast that I can do layers of color in half the time. I don't tend to work very wet anyway, so a rough surface doesn't really contribute to my painting technique. Arches is much more expensive than Canson, but is probably worth it.

I really wanted to avoid using pure black on the magpie and instead just have it read as black against that background. The black is made up of a mixture of the orange background color (grumbacher red and cadmium yellow pale hue, with just a touch of paynes grey) and ultramarine blue. I'm very pleased with the results.