B&W Birds

Some more birds drawn with my crowquill. The laughing thrush has the coolest 'do. I wanted to draw some that had large areas of black and white. These are really cute birds.

White-plumed antbirds (my book is old and has outdated names) have great tufts in front of their eyes. I wonder how they see.

Inka Dinks

Talking about crowquill pens the other day made me want to use mine again. I did a few warm-up scribbles of birds. I've always wanted to draw a skimmer, with their wacky beak. Bird feather texture in ink still eludes me.

The moustached swift has a very proper look about him. I tried to get some tone and line variations in this one. More to come!

When your bird is broken, will it bring you down?

I needed to do some watercolor sketching. I always have a problem mixing greens, so I wanted to practice, but I didn't want to paint leaves or landscapes. So, here we have a group of seven green species of birds, partially inspired by the Beatles' song "And Your Bird Can Sing" (You say you've seen seven wonders, and your bird is green.)

Featured are the green magpie (the real one has such a more spectacular shade of green on its head I had no idea how to mix), green aracari, green kingfisher (his bill is way too thick), green pygmy-goose, green woodpecker, green jay, and green oropendula. I tried to sketch them quickly as though I was seeing them in the wild. Birds, why must you be so attractive but hard to paint?