Something a little different… Since many people are stuck at home, I’ve been wanting to post a little more frequently, and also get back to drawing birds! I’ve also been asked to share more about my process, so I’ll take you all through how I’ve been working on a simple spot painting of a White-Breasted Nuthatch.
I start out most paintings by taking notes on the animal or plant I’m drawing, looking up pictures and videos of it, and making small quick sketches to figure out the pose. I was already sure I wanted to do a classic upside-down nuthatch pose, so I didn’t do a ton of sketching for this one.
I used about 4-5 photos as reference for the preliminary drawing, which I’ll show in the next post. I never directly copy a single photo (unless it’s a photo I myself have taken—in this case, none were), but may use bits and pieces (like a foot or an eye) and generally use photos to inform how the bird should look. I mainly work from photos, but if I have access to specimens I will certainly use them. I also spend time birdwatching, so I see these birds in action a lot!
Next I’ll talk about how I do a preliminary drawing and prep it for painting!
This entry was posted by jbc on Monday, April 6th, 2020 at 12:52 pm and is filed under Tumblr.
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