Re engage birding
Earlier this month I went to the forest with a big camera. I tried again to photograph birds, which I had failed to do at the end of last November. This time I managed to capture the birds in a few pictures. I photographed a woodpecker that was tapping on a tree, a titmouse turning over a fallen leaf, and a shadow of what I thought was a steeplechase. I had forgotten to set up my camera in advance. The white balance and exposure were not correct, and the camera was not in focus. But I made progress since the last time.
New Sketches
Well, I drew some sketches this week.
A sparrow is staying in a yagi antenna, this view is very familiar to me. Next time, I'll use a photo of a bird I took in the forest as my subject.
I did a sketch as an exercise in drawing sparrows. I intended to use a thick pen to draw the sparrows. So I tried to be abbreviated in this exercise.
On January 13, I posted a sketch of a character. It is a practice for an illustration I am going to draw next.
Looking Back
I look back at the review notes I write for each illustration. This time, I look back at my notes about a spirited illustration I drew for an entry in an illustration contest.
I entry Hanazono Aquarium Kyoto, 10th anniversary Illustration Contest with this illustration. I painted a screen full of details. And it blew away the sluggishness of these days.
This illustration had an ideal flow to it. I created a solid color rough draft. Then I decided what I wanted to do there, and after that, I drew it up exactly as I wanted it to be. However, I changed some parts of the drawing from the color rough to the finished product. I lost a lot of time because of those changes. On the right side of the rough was a drawing of grass that was too rough to identify what it was. I had drawn it as an azalea once in the cleanup, but it was somehow different. So I rewrote it as a hydrangea. What a detour! I hadn't decided what I was going to draw in the color rough. There is more. The tree on the back is also not defined. I drew this one by copying a tree from a photo of a garden in the reference. If I had known what kind of tree it was, I could have painted it more precisely.
I could paint the color of the person in the shade of the tree. This was also possible because of the color roughs. But if I had painted the bright areas like the color rough, it would have been too much. They looked unnecessarily shiny. So I made the bright areas much smaller than the color rough. Then the shading in the picture improved. The light is smaller than in the rough, but it is sharp and serves a function. This was the same with the yellow light between the leaves of the trees behind.
About Kimono. The kimono sleeves are drawn quite correctly. I have practiced before. And I also folded a tissue like a kimono and cross-shimmed it. The sleeve joint is supposed to be in the middle of the sleeve from the collar, so it could have been a little lower in this drawing.
After this, this illustration won a prize in a contest I entered. It was a very gratifying and happy experience, the first time for me to do illustrations. I had a lot more in my notebook to respond to the spirit of the moment, so I have clipped out the main points here. I am so glad I put in the effort and painted accordingly.
KuniKuni