Category: Bird

Day 379 – Ice Cream!!

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Ita summer time and it is warm outside!! Time to eat ice cream. With the help of yelp we discovered this tasty ice cream shop called Two Spoons. 

  They have all kinds of designer ice cream like toasted coconut and cinnamon bun vanilla ice cream. The strawberry has huge chunks in it. The waffle cone was incredible. So thin and crispy and light. Delectable. 

Right on the main drag Roosevelt next to Five Guys. Also has a parking lot full of chickens that will pose for photos. 

   
   
We also voted him most gorgeous Key West chicken. I took these today when I stopped by to feed him as I promised for earlier photos of him. He obliged. Have fun drawing him if you want!! 

Most of the Key West roosters are russet and black. This is the only buff one we have seen. I did see one today with a few black and white feathers. I sketched a lot of chickens today.   

 
All the chickens on Key West are federally protected. So they breed and multiply everywhere.  These are in the USPS grounds living under a few big trees loaded with seed pods. After I drew them I put some fresh pods down on the ground for them to eat. 
Back to the sketch. It’s about 48″ long done on Stonehenge paper. Lovely heavy stuff. With my Pentel brush pen that started to run out of ink. I know I need to add a few more chicks. The real question dear reader is should I paint them or leave them black and white?! What do you think?! 

  After sitting on a law offices steps to sketch these cuties and an almost three mile walk I went to a nearby starbucks on Duval for water and to chill out drawing people that walked by. Hard to get a site line on passer us.  A lot of the people are combos. 

Paint or not?! 

    So many pictures. About 9 am  I did start the day urban sketching this awesome Art Deco aka South Beach style hotel the Pegasus on Duval and Southard. I meant to have it painted to share today but wandered the city and was worn out from all the walking in the heat. 

Here’s a photo of The Pegasus if you want to have a go at it. Don’t you love the colors?!

Would love to see what u do with some of the photos. 

Thanks for reading.  Sofa time!! 

Margaret xxx

Day 377 – and chickens

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  I love drawing chickens. I NEVER used to understand WHY anyone would like painting drawing buying chicken paintings. Now I know. They are just fun to draw as are all birds.  These are drawn with my Noodler creaper Ahab in my almost finished moleskine. Thank goodness.

 I still really don’t like that paper!! The paint just seems to stick to the paper. You can not wash out the color. It just sticks. NO FUN!! 

From now on I am sticking to Strathmore 500 mixed media paper or Stillman and Birn Zeta sketchbooks. NO MORE moleskine watercolor books ever again.  At least I only have one more page in that moleskine!!  HURRAH!! 
 Here’s a picture for you to draw that I took at the Wildlife Center yesterday!!  

I still have to go back and draw the egret  pelicans hawk and various sea birds at the Wildlife Center. 
I rounded the corner there and on the sidewalk was a HUGE white egret. 

  I guess we were both scared.  

 He flew off. 

If you want to draw either the egret or the chickens feel free!! 
Thanks for reading! 

Margaret ️xxx

Day 376 Ibis!  

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Yesterday we went on Lloyds Tropical Bike Tour. It was great fun but that’s for another day. He took us to the Key West Wildlife Center. They shelter a lot of injured birds a quite a few iguanas that run like crazy when you get near them. 

Today I went back to sketch. The birds cooperated. Once again the iguanas didn’t. 
 

I did this one entirely on site sta picnic table there. Watch out for the bird poo lol. The ibises were great. They loved to pose. Some of the younger ones would let you get quite close.   The younger ones have brown heads or totally brown bodies. The ibises are painted with cerulean and raw sienna for shadows. Beaks are painted with cad red light and Winsor yellow. Legs same with a little cobalt blue added. 

Background is green apatite,  Inathradone blue, Winsor yellow, and a bit of cobalt. 

  
Here’s the set up I used to paint this. 

  This one was painted at home. Te birds were shaded with cerulean and Quin good. Other colors are the same. 
Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 343 – Lorikeets

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As perhaps you know I enjoy sketching birds. I drew the lorikeets from a shady spot while I waited for my family to show up at the zoo. For $2 you got a cup of nectar to feed them. 

  Oddly I like the double page spread as long as he pages are separated. I think it’s because there are six birds. I like odd numbers in compositions. 
     

I drew the big bird first.  He was off. The beak too low the biggest error. The eye off. He should have looked like the one to the right. They were great fun to paint. Mixing and slapping greens around. Started with light yellow green.  Then added darker and darker greens and blues with bits of mineral Violet to the leaves and the birds. 

  
The left page. I added the tree trunks after I drew them as I did the leaves. I only drew the birds on site. It was fun making up the background as I went.  Really like the limbs which are Quin gold mineral Violet and Inathradone blue. They started out a grey of burnt umber and Inathradone blue.  How boring. Paint red them wet on wet. Sometimes with Quin gold and mineral Violet on the paint brush at the same time. 
 

Here’s the whole page. Just isn’t quite right. Oh well. Beaks are cad orange and Quin coral. Fun stuff to paint. I just wish I had drawn the red ones. Oh my goodness red from head to toe. How did I miss those.  

Day 332  – Those Darn Squirrels

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On our day trip to Columbia SC  Tuesday we stopped by City Art which is carries all the supplies for both Charels Reid and Mary White then we went to Nonnahs and last Mast General on Main Street ended we found this super SQUIRREL PROOF bird feeder. 

  Mast General Store an old fashioned general store on Main St. The original is in Valle Crucis near Boone NC. 

The squirrels are gluttons for bird seed gobbling voraciously. This bird feeder is actually squirrel proof. They are now entertaining us trying to figure out how to get into it. The top locks on and the bar across the front licks the seed up when the weight of the squirrels sets it. LOVE it. They don’t. They are actually hanging out on the porch rails staring at it with occasional attach forays and leave soon after. Very entertaining to watch their consternation over the shut off food supply. And of course they sit there staring making them easy subjects to draw. 

Colors used. Inked with my Noodler creaper Ahab loaded with platinum carbon black my go to ink. Greys cerulean and burnt sienna or Inathridone and Burnt umber for darker greys on squirrels. All done wet on wet. Bird feeder is vermilion and cad red medium. Same greys were used on the roof. Background is cerulean toothbrush  splattered with Inathridone blue. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx 

Day 299 – Silver Wyandottes 

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  aka chickens. More of the reason I drove across the mountains. Sketching chickens is THE most fun and I highly recommend giving it a go. 

  Silver Wyandottes are interesting looking chickens. With white diamond and a swirl of light feathers streaked with black around their heads. 

 
Stillman and Birn Zeta with a Noodler Conrad Flex loaded with Lexington Grey ink. I am actually not sure if all these chickens were Silver Wyandottes but they are colored like they are. 

  The bottom left chicken was colored with a tombow pen. It’s fun to wet them and see them run. You can lift the colors. I thought it might be a good way to color these oddly colored birds. Actually I think the Tombow was a little strong for these chickens. Next I tried a black and an indigo inktense  pencil. Things were going better. The blue softened the black. I drew a diamond pattern all over the hens bodies. Then I added white gouache after the inktense dried.  The benefit of inktense is that once it dries its permanent and you can paint over it. White gouache was also used around the beaks and heads to eliminate dark grey lines I didn’t want especially on the big chicken on the right.  That defined the face and beak better. The waddles and red bits on the head where colored with watercolor pencils- red yellow and orange! The background is 2 light blue watercolor pencils and a purple one for shadows. White gouache was brushed over the neck feathers to make them look fluffier. 

My gift to you this Sunday is these chicken picture so you can join in the chicken sketching fun. At least these aren’t running anywhere. Have fun and I would love to see what you do with them.  

Don’t forget to draw the silver Wyandotte earlier on this post. 

 

Drawing chickens is like drawing bumpy triangles.  The legs are two sticks with upside down trees on them. 

More park sketches tomorrow. 

Thanks for looking!! 

Maggie XX  
  
    

Day 296 – A few Barred Rocks

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you know what those are. Chickens. They were so cute and fluffy. Eating constantly. I drove all the way across the Great Smoky National Park just to draw them. Over a huge mountain.  I may be in love. There’s just something about these chickens that’s so appealing.   

  I hear you shaking your head. I used to do the same thing before I started drawing birds. If the cars were all Lapins fault the chickens are all Roz Stendahl’s fault.  I want to go to the fair and draw more in the fall!!😳

These were actually drawn as the chickens ran around me at the Oconaluftee Farm. I should have drawn them with black or grey ink but for some reason I drew them with De Artrementis Brown in my Noodler standard flex. 

It’s not a good idea to draw in the rain but I did that a lot the week I was in Gatlinburg because it rained almost daily. Thank goodness the ink dries quickly.  

  

They were colored with my Caran d’Ache using the side of the flat end. I decided it was easier and quicker to use them than my watercolors though thinking back I don’t supposed it mattered that much. 

  

I still have two more pages of chickens to color –  silver wyandottes a much shyer chicken that ran any time anyone was near it and even worse to color than the barred rocks. I will probably use my watercolor pencils. But these will take a while to color!! 

  Silver Wyandottes

I also had fun journaling stray thoughts about the chickens as I drew them and later as I colored them. 
Hope you enjoy them as much as I do. I need some chickens. 

Thanks for looking. 

Day 266 A Few Seagulls or Thoughts on Fifty More Shades of Grey

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Sometimes it’s just fun to go sit in the middle of a parking lot and draw the seagulls. No idea why they congregate in the parking lots but they do. If you decide you want to draw seagulls take some crackers or old bread with you. They will follow you like you are the pied piper. 



I actually drew a lot of seagulls last week but didn’t get around to painting them till a few days ago. I like this one best. Drawn with Noodler Konrad flex nib and Noodler lexington grey ink in my Stillman and Birn Zeta it’s painted with watery gouache. Much faster than using it opaque. Or at least that’s my story so far.  

I have a bunch of premixed greys made from indigo and schminke English red. Sometimes I add more white. Sometimes more indigo. Thee indigo can make a great grey mixed only with the white. Try it.  U will love it.  

Lettering is done with indigo and a brush. The background is turquoise with bits of green made by mixing Indian yellow in with the turq. That makes a muddy green. 

Anyway. Gotta run. My paints are waiting and drying out. 

Thanks for looking. 

Day 251 – The Brown Thrasher

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i had three other things I meant to be working on today instead I drew more birds?! I have had a touch of bronchitis and was sitting on the den sofa feeling bad. I glanced out the window to see a huge brown bird on the back deck. He was at least five times as big as any bird out there. Thrashers are ground dwellers and I had only seen one once before on the deck though I see them in the yard a lot. 

And my sketchbook was in my purse so I grabbed a nearby piece of paper so as not to scare the bird off. 



I drew a few quick sketches before he flew off. 



Using my noodoee flex oen and De Artremis brown document ink I redrew him in my S&B Zeta and added another from memory. Then I painted them with gouache. I used English red, indigo, white and yellow Schminke. The best discovery I had today was that a filbert makes a great comma stroke. I used it to make all the brown marks on his chest. 

Thanks for looking!!