Between projects this weekend, so I spent most of it decorating a shoebox to look like an old farmhouse. This white-breasted nuthatch is the first one I’ve seen since moving Downeast. Hoping maybe he’ll stick around.
I don’t post them often enough, but I love the Whitebreasted Nuthatches. This is a male, his head cap is black, whereas the one of the female is blue-gray.
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 is probably one of my favorite pictures I’ve taken so far, it’s a White-breasted Nuthatch, I got several pictures of it but this one is my favorite.
