drawing

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Tanuary 2022

Pencil work

Work was extra challenging in January, but I caught a few moments on the weekends to do several drawings on tan paper.

A quick charcoal piece of my brother and I riding on Dad’s back.
Quick ink sketch for the prompt “bike” – yeah, it really does not look like my brother and I, but we were the humans.
“Self” – Yep – need to work on my inking of faces!! I got out of practice.
Finished glass “door knob”
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Watercolor Nature Journal

Practicing snow and shadows with the Mulberry tree behind our house

I did work on the nature journal a bit this past Winter/Spring. I love our birds and critters but this year we did not feed them. There was a scary disease going through this part of the country. Thankfully, I did not see it with our birds, but the DNR asked us to not feed them in case it was spreading.

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Tanuary 2021

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. from the Finding Your Roots (PBS) show

I like to work on a tan sketchbook in January – although I was too busy with nieces and our weekly zoom coaching sessions to do the full Tanuary challenge on social media. We had a lot of fun, even so.

I challenged the kids to use different surfaces, including cardboard pieces and talked about charcoal, pencil, crayon, pen etc. It was good drawing practice for all involved.

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2021 Family Calendar

At the end of 2020 one of my final projects of the year was to create the 2021 family calendar. This one absolutely annihilated me. It is a tribute to the first sibling we have lost in my family.

I printed off the normal 8 for siblings and Mom, but I also printed off 5 for my brother Aaron’s children. Then every month I write each of them about the stories that are held in the photos of their Daddy and his childhood. It has been a hard year, but I will not regret that I did this.

  • Printed double-sided on 13×19 matte photo paper
  • This is year 16 of creating these and it will probably be my final. At this point, we can start reusing some of those I made before.

I continued to do some art after the first of the year because my nieces were begging me to continue teaching and coaching them, but I lost my spark for a number of months and am just beginning to get it back. So expect some fun posts as I catch up on what I have been doing.

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Rose-breasted Grosbeaks

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The Rose-breasted Grosbeak’s have been plentiful this season. I have my own photos, but a friend, Steve Bradley, took one of a male that truly inspired me. I used his photo for my painting and one of my own for the female.

First I practiced drawing them since their big old beaks were a new shape for me.

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Then I tried the male on my Mom’s Mother’s Day card/letter. I decided I liked that so well, I did the couple in my nature journal (the first image above.)

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Inktober 2019 Week 1

Inktober is in full swing and here I am forgetting to blog it! Feel free to look me up on Instagram, where I am quite active. Day 1 was “Ring” (the Nashville Warbler’s eye ring is quite distinct) and “Leaf”. So I hit all 3 lists on this one.

I had no plan going into this year. Come whatever comes. I am watching 3 different lists and am hit and miss with them. This was Mindless and Seedpod. I use to mindlessly whack these down. Now even the seedpod is prescious.

#inktober2019

#InktoberNature

#Birdtober

Day 3 was the Killdeer offering herself as Bait to predators to pull them away from her nest. Amazing birds. They nest across the street from me each summer, so I hear them daily.

Day 4 was some practice 60 second sketches.

This momma Robin was sitting near me on the trail. I was unwittingly standing directly under her nest build. I moved back and watched as she industriously went about her business.

It was a great start to Inktober.

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Class Final

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The final lesson was about fur, feathers, and creating the illusion of depth.  This was intense and I have much admiration for people who do Natural History Illustration for a living!

This was a great class and I have learned so much!

Garvin Week 6 Final Rendering - Peer Review

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Tonal Exercise

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This was a week of working on tones (no details) and looking at how the eyes are made, reflections, cast shadows etc.

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I chose one of our local squirrels to be the subject – a little hazelnut thief. I am a sucker for them every time, though. They run around trying to bury huge walnuts in our lawn. So funny!

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I find that I need more practice finding the structure and geometric shapes – then examining all the shading and light source. This has been more of a cerebral exercise than I am used to.

I need to do more of this. Nothing wrong with picking up the pen or paints and having at it, but stopping to think about the details and remembering why things look the way they do is a good practice. This has been an excellent course.

NewcastleX: NHI101xDrawing Nature, Science and Culture: Natural History Illustration 101  – EDX Link

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Urban Sketching

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A commission for a graphite drawing of an office building as a gift for the owner turned into a watercolor, which they chose.

First I figured out which vantage point to take with this long, low building. Then I mocked up the basic lines to make sure I was good with that decision. Next, the pencil drawing. I am not a fan of my pencil work. So on to ink and watercolor, urban sketch style. I was happy and so were they.

Thanks, Moser team, for pushing me into doing some urban work in the middle of my oil and Christmas season. Fun!

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Inktober Week 3

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Day 16 – Angular – I was just starting to draw a Great Egret I photographed at Eagle Creak this month. As I was playing with the lines (in nature they so often replicate, lending a beautiful symmetry to the animal or bird), ta da – Angular happened by accident. I think it has the most likes of any on my Instagram.

Day 15 – Weak – I could not get the image to work, so I started doing my quick 10 second drills to loosen up my hand. I was flipping through Google images and when I was done, these made me laugh so hard that I shared them.

This was a hard work week, so I went off script in order to keep inking. Other than these first two, I did not follow the prompts and just had fun and used the time to loosen up.

Hispid Corbis Rat / Red-Breasted Nuthatch study (saw my first one on our feeder this past week! Had to commemorate a “lifer”. The rat was from Google images.)

Below is my first ever fan art. Then the ravens took 2 days with the first being for the initial sketch.

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I love James and Margaret, who have made a backyard habitat in CA their home. The “caretakers” of that space give this loving pair of ravens food puzzles on their deck and interact with them in very fun ways. I have been wanting to sketch these guys for some time and took this opportunity. I think they would look very great in paint! Next project!

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Corvids are extremely smart birds and I have learned so much from James and his only love, Margaret. It is amazing to watch their story unfold. You can follow them and their fellow inhabitants of that backyard on Instagram or Facebook.