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Friday, May 14, 2010

Stellers Jay Bird stage 1


Whenever I start drawing a bird, I generally make sure I have all his parts in the right place before I get into any detail. I use a medium soft pencil and gum eraser so I don't damage the paper as I erase. I compare large feather to feather, head to eye, beak to eye, beak to feet, etc., so all his parts are where they are supposed to be.

Then I slowly add one feather here, and compare to the rest, I also add tiny light lines to show where the color might take a huge change from dark to light or change altogether. In this jay, he has a large white patch above his eye and a streak of white on his head, also a tiny amount of white in the feathers below his beak. When I go to add the white, I erase the area of pencil first because the white won't flow smoothly over the pencil marks, it's too oily and dark. I don't seem to have that problem with the darker colors so don't erase the pencil marks for those. This initial sketch took me about 2 hours. Hope to work on him more tonight!

5 comments:

Alex said...

Really nice initial sketch and outline. I could already see that this will turn out really good Revelle!
I think it's also sweet that you're showing more stages of your WIP so that people could learn you ways and hopefully discover their own ways.

martinepittet said...

The outline is promising.. Looking forward to seeing the next stage !

nanke's stuff said...

Thank you for the helpful description of how you do these wonderful drawings. I can tell this will be just as splendid as the others. Also, I love the photos of Cleo. I think dogs are just the best, and she is a real beauty....but eating trees? lol nancy

K said...

It's always nice to see the progression of someone's artwork. I'm especially enthralled with colored pencil and while I haven't played with them in a long, long time, you make me want to get them out again.
-Krista
www.kristameister.com

Unknown said...

Wow! Of course they turn out so great, because you put effort into them! Thanks for the WIP!

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