Puffins are such adorable birds. I almost didn’t want to draw one because I knew there was no way it was NOT going to be cutesy. And I didn’t want it to be too cute, like cartoon character cute. But the puffin is basically built to be a cartoon, even more so than the penguin.
Don’t you just want to pat his little head? But don’t. Seriously. Don’t do it. They smell like fish, and those beaks are big and pointy.
The crow is one of my favorite birds. I suppose that’s no surprise, given how gothly I was in high school and college. In those years, saying “I like crows” would have been unnecessary. It seemed a given.
But crows retain their appeal. They (and their cousin, the raven) are just so darned clever. There’s a real intelligence there that I just don’t see in the vacant eyes of other common city birds: the pigeon and seagull. (Well, common to my city. When you live this close to the water, seagulls are basically obnoxious, loud pigeons.)
I’m proud of how this one came out. I think the pen & ink was a wise choice of medium. The scratchy quality of the pen nib really added texture. I also lined-up the wide-open mouth of the crow with a red patch on this re-purposed paper. So it worked out that I didn’t need to add coloring to his mouth. Nice.
I love drawing birds with distinctive beaks. These guys have a longer lower bill because they skim the surface of the water to eat. They can also dive and fish with the best of them, but the skimming is really where it’s at with these guys. He has ruffled feathers because he’s been sitting on a windy cliff-top.
The Loggerhead Shrike, here perched upon the tip of a wing bone from a bat. tweet tweet.
Hey little penguin. I chose a random chunk of an old (un-successful) drawing and re-purposed for this penguin. It’s kind of funny how the arm looks like it might be reaching out to pet him (or grab him?) I like the facial expression. It makes me think it’s time to go back to the Cal Academy of Sciences again and watch the penguins in their tank.
The Killdeer. I don’t know why it has such a vicious name. It’s not such a big bird. I like the shadow in the background, though.
Is is nearly three years after I drew this bird that I am finally uploading it to the website. I could waste time chastising myself for my long absence and slow progress. But I had a baby. And then serious depression. And then that baby became a toddler and I felt like I would never have time to myself again. So I am carving out little chunks of time. And here is one: uploading a bird.
This post has less to do with the bird and more to do with my own state of mind, three years later. Ah well, so is life.
The common murre. As good a place as any to re-start the documentation of a much-loved and ignored project. Hello, little bird.
Stately bird on a pink background. I’m not sure if the roundness of his body translated with the ink. But I like the openness of the background.
I am pondering if I should roll out another length of rag paper and abuse it with watercolors to make backgrounds for more birds… BUT I have all this nice white cardstock that I rescued from the recycling bins at work (with the rebranding, we are changing all our paperstock, and huge boxes were up for being tossed. A bunch of us artist types grabbed the nice invites and divvied them up). So I really don’t need more paper!
Dive-bombing bird. I am pleased with the stripey pattern on the tail section, and the overall outline is nice, too. I am less sure about how it fit into this odd paper/background image choice. I was trying to use some of the more complicated chunks of torn paper… squares with big printed images on them are tough. Do you acknowledge the image and tie it in, treat it like a background element, or do you try incorporating it into the body of the bird, thereby partially hiding it from view? I have tried all three, with mixed success. I’m not sure about this one.
claire meyler 