Need Your Vote in the Bird Fabric Contest!

Spoonflower hosts a number of design contests and this week's is for a palette-limited bird design. Three colors were set by Spoonflower and a fourth color was chosen by the artist.

I altered the colors and arrangement of my Japanese Crane drawing to meet the design requirements and entered it!

Here is what it looks like:

I would love to have a vote for my design if you are so-inclined! See the 'Vote for Bird Fabrics' link at the end of this post. 

You can vote for as many fabrics as you want, so feel free to browse through all of the entries and click away at the ones you like. You can vote through next Wednesday evening and the results will appear on Thursday, September 15th. Thanks and happy bird-browsing!

Vote For Bird Fabrics

Red-Tailed Hawk Tail Feather - First Molt?

I had a rare find when I was out and about recently -- a beautiful feather. I looked it up and think it is a red-tailed hawk tail feather from a first molting. I was able to do a very rough sketch of it and took some photos. I hope to do a more detailed pen and ink study of it, adding color. This is graphite pencil with some colored pencil added to get a sense of the color scheme. 

I love the pattern of dark brown, tan, and creamy white and was fascinated to see all of the details up-close.

Have you ever found anything unusual in your wanderings that you were able to draw or photograph?

Bee Eaters (birds) drawing - colored pencil on mat board

This is a drawing of two bee eaters, drawn from museum specimens in colored pencil on a piece of mat board. It was one of my first attempts at using colored pencil years ago, and I was happily surprised at how it turned out. Both the color and texture of the mat board really helped to enhance the overall result.