Hi!
As I've said many times before I love sketching birds—and for some reason am "drawn" to the odd, (perhaps) uglier ones—although I think this actually makes them beautiful in their own way.
I found an awesome looking BLUE vulture photo on Pixabay — a site that posts images under a creative commons license which allow the free use of them.
It's a good place to find images for artistic reference and I've collected a couple of folders on my computer of images from Pixabay and Pexels—another "cc" image site.
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In my last couple of posts—I mentioned that I bought some pastels pencils and a couple of different sketchbooks with grey paper and have been having a good time learning how best to use those new tools.
Faber-Castel FC112136 PITT Pastel Pencils In A Metal Tin (36 Pack), Assorted
I've found it rejuvenating at a time when I was feeling a little stagnate—just using white paper and graphite pencils for sketching—as I've been doing for many, many years now.
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Even though it's a bit expensive these days—I frequently go out to various restaurants and coffee houses and work there.
The upside is that it attracts some attention from those around me and I get to talk with a lot of interesting people.
I get so many encouraging comments as well—especially lately for the pastel color-work I'm doing—and that's a big plus too.
: )
Anywho—I thought I'd share another pastel I finished yesterday—and a related pencil sketch from a while back.
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| "Polly" - Copyright 2017 - Jephyr - All Rights Reserved |
^ ^ ^ ^ I'm not sure what kind of vulture this guy is—but he was blue in the photo reference I used too.
I love how it looks like he's wearing some kind of feather coat or something (and looks completely focused on finding his next meal).
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Funny story about the pastel above: Today I was working on another new pastel at a Chinese restaurant—and apparently my waitress told the other staff there that I was an artist—and soon I had a steady stream of people who worked there coming over to see what I was up to.
I was showing one young server—who spoke very broken English—some of my other pastels—and when I got to the one above—she reached out her hand a rubbed her fingers across it before I could stop her.
I was a bit horrified—until I saw she didn't damage it—but I'll need to tell people in the future—up front—not to touch the pastels!
: )
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| Pencil Sketch: Wack-A-Doodle-Do — Copyright 2017 — Jephyr — All Rights Reserved |
^ ^ ^ ^ One night last December I was sketching with Valen and came up with this wacky guy—began as a scribble sketch.
I showed it to Valen and he and I both agreed it was a little more over the top than most of what I do.
When I finished the vulture pastel above—I remembered this sketch—and since he's "vulture-like"—I decided to post them together.
Looking at him today I think I might want to do a color version with the pastel pencils—but time will tell if I get to that.
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Well—that's it for today.
As always—I appreciate you stopping by.
Hope to see you again soon.
