Last week I went to a state park and got a photo of this white crowned sparrow in some sort of dry bush. It’s amazing that they can dart through the tangled mass of branches so easily.
To get good detail on the bird I decided to crop the original photo, below, to just be the center of it. Actually, the branches in the full photo are starting to look like a painting themselves…
I was practicing photography last week and got a photo of this American Robin in a tree with new leaves. It’s actually been spring for awhile, but in this little scene all the nearby flowering trees aren’t seen.
Paints used are ivory and carbon blacks, titanium white, burnt sienna, transparent yellow oxide, and some transparent gel medium. The green is from the yellow and black mixed.
I tried looking up what this bird is, but I’m not sure. I took the photo in Denver and the closest match I could find is a black throated sparrow, but none of the photos look like this one. – Update, it’s a House Sparrow as Myr said below.
It looks like the current bird posting place for draw a bird day is here.
This week it’s a different sort of waterfall. Originally it was just going to be ink and maybe graphite, but to correct various mistakes several other media were introduced. It didn’t really work very well, but I still like the idea. There’s only four more of these left now.
I’ve been looking forward to making some chickadees for this month, but somehow thought there was still another day left until I checked my email this morning and saw Laura’s wood stork. The bird posting hub is here. (edit- fixed link) (edit 2) I forgot to mention all of these are referenced from Paint my Photo. In the order posted they’re from Thomas Waters, Rodney Campbell, Lissa Perkins, and Rebecca3.
These four study paintings were each entirely made with just a Robert Simmons titanium shader, size 20, with a short handle. The two middle ones were painted with some old tubes of casein from Shiva. It’s a paint made from milk protein that’s been used since ancient Egypt and used to be popular with illustrators until acrylic paints were invented. It’s water soluble, even after it’s dried, but gradually becomes more water resistant. I used to not really like it that much because if you overwork an area, like I often do, then it can get muddy fast. Of course, that’s more of an issue with my skills and approach than the paint, but it kept me from practicing much with these paints and is why I still have them after many years. I’m not sure if it’s the age of these paints, maybe they’ve gone bad, but I don’t like the odor of them. The handling of the paint itself was enjoyable though, so maybe this’ll be a good one to use outside for plein air. When thinned with water they’re similar to watercolor, and are otherwise similar to gouache.
Too Much White Paper 