One bird at a time
Last weekend I took a group of high school students for a nature walk through one of our state parks. I pointed out birds as we walked along, and shared my binoculars for the ones in the distance. Several times I took out my sketchbook to allow the students to see some of the birds I had sketched in that park “up close.”
One of the students said she was no good at drawing, that she had tried and failed. I let her know I did not learn how to draw birds until I was 55.
“You’re over fifty?” She asked, with astonishment. Yes, and I’m still learning, I replied. Don’t give up.
“How do you learn to draw birds?”
It helps to have a good teacher, of course, but it also helps if you allow yourself to mess up and keep trying.
In other words, the way you learn to draw the birds is one bird at a time.
Here is this morning’s bird, a Cooper’s hawk (a juvenile, I think) that landed on a trellis in my garden seven years ago.
It’s not a perfect bird sketch, but it is good practice for the next one, and it’s the best Cooper’s hawk I’ve drawn.
Pencil sketch with violet pencil on toned paper; pigma ink 005 marker for outline; watercolor paint.
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