It’s not what you think!
With caption:
And without:
Drawn using: iPad Pro Procreate, using 6B Pencil and Dry Ink brushes Text added using Pixelmator Photo
Drawing: Tentacle art
drawing trouble
Starting the month with a bad pun in visual form
You should probably be able to figure it out.
Experimenting with geese
I’ve now got it in my head that I want to do one or more cartoon with geese, because they intrigue me and horrify me in equal parts.
My first step was to do a bird drawing of a Canada goose, but in a more deliberate cartoon style. This is my initial attempt, which I’ll refine as I go along. I’m using the most obvious joke here, they’ll probably get weirder or more obscure if I do more.
Bird art: Berserk goose
This is based on a photo of a goose going berserk (as they do) at Reifel on April 22. Most of these photos turn out blurry because the goose is whipping its head around (as they do).
Bird art: Tree swallow
Birb:
Finished bird art: Black-capped chickadee
I started this bird art thing with a chickadee, but it was very simple line art (I sort of want to do some more in that specific style). Here’s another chickadee, in my now-established style.
Unfinished bird art: Hummingbird
I abandoned this sketch tonight because the reference photo was too dark and the Anna’s hummingbird was coming out way too murky.
I’ll find a better-lit photo and do another hummingbird someday, but this is interesting in a “what could have been” sort of way.
Just a quick sketch of an orange
I wanted to draw something simple and quick, and an orange is just a circle that’s…orange.
So here it is.
(This is also me getting back to the “draw something every day thing” where I’m less concerned with quality and more concerned with building good habits and a vast collection of hand-drawn fruit.)
Bird Art: Full gallery (so far)
I finally got off my lazy butt and collected all of my bird drawings in a single gallery, which I will update going forward.
Here’s a quick summary of the process:
- Tools used: iPad Pro 12.9″ (2020), Apple Pencil, Procreate
- I use a photo I’ve taken, usually one I don’t post because it’s slightly out of focus or otherwise flawed
- I do a line drawing of the bird, then colour in after
The line part usually take a few minutes, the colouring can sometimes take an hour or more, depending on the complexity. I have trended toward getting more complex with the drawings, but will still try to throw some simpler ones in.
There are also a few drawings that don’t follow the above formula, like the cobra chicken, killdeer and squirrel, which is not actually a bird.
The gallery:
Crow flying
Black-capped chickadee
Brewer's blackbird
Great blue heron
Sandhill crane
Song sparrow
Wilson's warbler, light background
Wilson's warbler, river background
Ring-billed seagull
Dark-eyed junco
Spotted sandpiper
Spotted towhee
American bushtit
Mallard duck
Red-winged blackbird
Red squirrel
Canada goose
Ring-necked duck
American coot
Brown-headed cowbird
Steller's jay
American robin
Rock pigeon
Wood duck
Caspian tern
Great blue heron
Black-capped chickadee. This was the original sketch when I thought of doing them as "pop art" with only one or two colours.
Cobra chicken, done on request using a few different brushes.
Canada goose, done with the 6B Pencil in Procreate.
Killdeer. Done using the 6B Pencil brush in Procreate before I switched to colour.
Bird art: Great blue heron
A more detailed version compared to the first heron I did in this style. Based on a photo I took at Reifel Bird Sanctuary on March 18, 2023.
Bird art: Sandhill crane
These birds have about a billion feathers, each of them individually coloured. Capturing this accurately would have taken me until 2083.
Still, I like it.
Bird art: song sparrow
I normally use “rejected” photos for my bird art, ones that are a little blurry or have some kind of defect, but I usually have good luck with song sparrows. Saturday’s birding did produce some slightly fuzzy photos, so at last I have a song sparrow to add to the collection.