An oldie. This was a commissioned painting. The client wanted five male hummingbirds at the feeder. We settled on Blue-throated, Costa’s, Violet-crowned, Black-chinned, and Rufus Hummingbirds. It is an 18 x 24 inch transparent watercolor on Lana 140 lb HP Paper.
Liquid frisket is a handy thing for anyone who does a lot of watercolor. I tend to use it as little as possible. It ruins brushes and there is only so fine a line you can get with it. Because … Continued
I’ve been sketching a lot of damselfly and dragonflies from photos that I took last summer. I’m already looking forward to this summer’s crop. They are fascinating creatures to watch.
Anytime you have a lot of detail in both lights and darks right next to each other, especially when the area is small, it can be a difficult area to paint in watercolor. The colors can have a tendency to … Continued
This is a pencil sketch of a meadowhawk dragonfly. In hot weather they often perch with their abdomens pointed at the sun. This decreases the surface area of their body being heated by the sun so they don’t overheat. At … Continued
I’ve had a lot of fun painting these small insects. This summer I took a ton of photos of dragonflies and damselflies. These tiny animals are easy to overlook, but they are spectacular on close observation.
We were lucky to have bluebirds nest in our yard again this year. We had 2 successful fledges of 6 birds each.
This summer we were lucky enough to have 4-5 Baltimore orioles coming to the feeder right outside our kitchen window. They were attracted by the grape jelly we were leaving out for them. We also got the occasional catbird. The … Continued
This interactive Step-by-Step is of a basset hound called “Fritz” that I did as a commission. I thought it would be worthwhile putting together a demo with all the fur and grass that needed to be rendered in this example.
