I call my daughter “Magpie” now. During the year I drew the birds, I never thought of this. But it seemed such a natural nickname once she was born.
Magpie
Birds
Juvenile Whooping Crane
I love these pens. I think the longer the year wore on, the more I loved them.
Hobby Falcon
Lovely little bird.
Herring Gull Chick
Another baby bird. I like the fuzziness of the head, but I think the eyes aren’t great. They look a bit glazed and lifeless.
Flamingo
I hate this bird. This may officially be the ugliest, most rushed bird I drew the whole year.
We had gone out for dinner and a concert with friends, and we got home at 2am. I was hot, sweaty, and tired from dancing like a maniac. (Side note: one of the nice things about getting older is that I don’t give a rat’s ass anymore about what I look like on the dance floor. I’m not trying to impress anyone and I’ll likely never see most of these other people again, so I don’t care. I have been told that this inhibition makes me a better dancer than I have ever been. Oh, how I wish I could have learned this lesson sooner and enjoyed larger chunks of my youth.) But I wasn’t going to miss another day of my drawing project, dammit! So I drew this hurried atrocity before crawling under the covers. Ugh. He is horrible. I am sorry, little flamingo. You cannot compare to your brothers, not even the other rushed flamingo I drew in January.
White Fronted Bee Eater
Pretty jewel-colored little bird.
When trying to correct the scanner color input, I may have over-darkened it. The background should be white, not grey. But the scanner was fighting me on every effort. It kept stalling and crashing, and telling me that it was already working on something else when I wasn’t touching it… I swear, do scanners get PMS? Or maybe it’s haunted? Do scanners get haunted? Either way, I gave up.
Green Heron
His whole head looks like a brilliantly painted sword, jabbing out into the space of the page. And he looks pissed, to boot.
Spotted Shag
This one was a bit rushed. I think it was one of those nights where, at 11pm, I realized that I had not drawn my bird for that day. It’s not too bad for a rush job, but I can see his imperfections.
Sword-billed Hummingbird
Now that is quite a bill! This is the only bird whose bill is longer than the rest of his body. Pinocchio’s got nothin’ on this fella.
claire meyler 