Hawks 'n Crows

Having not done a really long walk all winter, my husband and I decided that we'd do a morning one through Birkdale Ravine, and beyond, east past McCowan, and back then up Brimley. My legs were shaking when we got back lol!

A sunny day, slightly chilly, a bit of wind, but bright blue sky with Simpson's clouds. Very pretty. Definitely, a sense of Spring, especially with the already abundant amount of bird activity evident.

Treat of the day was the multiple hawk sightings! We saw cooper's hawk and red tailed hawks, 4 different times. Not to mention the ever present and raucous crows in hot pursuit of the poor hawks. Definitely, no love lost between those 2 flying creatures. They do not get along lol!

Lots of nut hatches, a huge array of woodpeckers, ducks, tons of gold finches, the males sporting the summer plumage already, a brown creeper, lots of dark eyed juncos, 2 hybrid American black duck mallard mixes, lots of red cardinals, flickers, and the red winged black birds are back :-)

There was one moment when things were a little scary. A screaming noise was coming from one of the grated viaducts that opens at the ravine's edge. It was pretty horrible. It stopped after about 5 minutes and a huge silver raccoon came to the end of the cement tunnel, peering at us through the grating. I had had a feeling it was raccoons. Or I guess I had hoped that was all it was.

Looking forward to a later in the spring walk through there as I expect there will be lots of migrant birds soon!

Drawing Background 99% Done

Well, it feels good to get the background pretty much done and well established. I may take some time to recheck values and balance of said lights and darks once I complete the last of the figure and face.

It feels good to know that 14 or 15 months of work isn't going to be a waste, that I should meet my deadline in a couple more weekends.

Drawing Progress on Large Pencil Figure Drawing

Despite having a bad cough and feeling a bit under the weather, I made an effort to get some drawing in on the large pencil drawing I need to complete by May. Concentrating currently on the straight edges and perspective of the siding and sliding glass windows on the left is quite boggling on the eyes and the brain.

Keeping the thickness and the spacial divisions of each piece accurate, attempting to keep them from being too "mechanical", yet not curving involuntarily, is challenging. Visually, it can be quite frustrating viewing the reference then turning to look at the drawing, keeping track of exactly What area should I be in, where is that line, etc. etc. Drives you nuts! lol!

I learned long ago that using perfect ruler straight edge tools to render edges of long things such as edges of window trim, doors, etc. can give subjects an appearance of being to mechanically perfect, not weathered, or imperfect man made objects. So I still go by this what I felt was accurate advice and I lightly establish a straight line with a ruler but I render the straight edged areas by hand, obliterating the original light line. This accomplishes 2 things: keeping the subjects real, not mechanical drawing like, and also allowing me to use shading and form of one object to define the edge of the object next to it in many cases, something I have developed as a drawing style end feel works.

How I tend to keep that under control is by doing a bit of each width and values, a piece of a few in a row sequentially, to keep everything in its right spot, right thickness, and begin to establish the space without hugely committing to a fully done section then finding out "oh crap, I made that one piece way to thick so now the rest cannot fit accurately" lol! I've had the odd little fudge here and there, couldn't be helped, but so far they are very minor, they don't cause issues to the perspective nor the accuracy of the pieces and materials depicted.

Major drawing changes I had to make were due to distortion that occurs in all photos usually. I had to correct the verticals as they leaned in the reference photo, while keeping the receding angles for the horizontals. As the viewer, I was not standing straight on to this scene, hence why the wall and house angle away as they recede towards the horizon on the left.

I hope to have most of the background subjects completed by mid to end of March so that I have a month left to complete the body and the last bit left of the face. The tattoos on the skin where there is hair is a difficult and challenging rendering job.

The following image is a cell phone pic so not the best quality and resolution. Not to mention it was taken at a bit of an angle.

Funny Birds and Animals

Pretty cold today, -13, especially down by the lake this morning at 8am. We haven't been down much this year, nor last, as no longer living 5 mins from the lake in Whitby kind of makes it a bit of a usage of gas and more than a 20 min drive, in Scarborough where we live now. But, we do go down here and there.

The sunrise over Lake Ontario is often gorgeous, and there are an array of birds and animals we love to watch. We took raw peanuts down this morning for the jays, squirrels, and some smaller wild bird seed for the other birds.

We didn't spot the one animal we hoped to see there today, but the red squirrels and the birds were quite funny today. The red squirrels, though the smaller squirrel, were aggressive enough to scare off the black squirrels, the cardinals, even the jays.

A couple of cute and funny shots from the morning at the lake.