The Feather - In Progress

I took several photos of the small feather during my drawing process. As I mentioned before, this was a fairly quick drawing (spent maybe a 1/2 hour, interrupted several times by the kids!), so it definitely could have been done more carefully. I was so excited to find it that I didn't want to let the opportunity to draw it pass, so I accomplished what I could in the time I had.

My initial graphite sketch. 

This looks more delicate and perhaps I should have stayed with a graphite drawing to capture the downy aspects at the bottom of the feather.

Ink drawing.

You can see I got a little messy with the pen work on the dark spot on the left. I should have stopped further from the center shaft. I used a 3x0 (.25) Rapidograph pen (the smallest size I have) and it still looks too heavy to me.

Perhaps I should have put less lines down and just hinted at the structure more rather than trying to draw all of it in. It's a learning process!

 

 Final colored pencil drawing.

You can tell this photo was taken in natural light by the window. The feather looks much whiter at the bottom. In person, that area is more gray and the photos of the previous stages above are more accurate, I think.

I used my Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils: walnut brown for the dark spots, raw umber and burnt sienna for the lighter brown areas, layered with some warm grey V and warm grey II.

Have you ever had done any feather drawings? How do you keep the delicate nature of the drawing intact, even when using ink? I would love to hear about your experiences!

Another Feathery Find!

Feathers are apparently a theme this summer! Ok, I've only found my second so far, but that's two more than I have found in the past 4 years here, so I would say that would count. Perhaps the birds would like me to expand my subject matter :)

This most recent find was on our front porch when I went out to water my hanging baskets this morning. It is about 2.5 inches long and 1/2 inch wide. It has a smoky taupe color with two dark brown patches on it. The downy bits at the bottom are a lighter gray with a bit of the browner/taupe color here and there.

I attempted to do a quick drawing in ink, so I think that overall, my drawing is darker than the feather itself, but I wanted to try out the line work. Because the feather is so small, I might have been better off sticking just with very sharp colored pencils, or graphite.

I added some colored pencil on top of the pen to get a sense of the colors.

I am not entirely sure what bird this came from - any ideas? We have several small birds that hang out around our porch, but I am not sure if they are sparrows or wrens or something else?

Hope you enjoy this most recent find!

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?