Shorebirds

Summertime for me is spending time by the water. Whether at the cabin by the lake, visiting the coast or even just having time to walk by the river here in the city.


As a bird lover I'm immediately drawn to my feathered friends.  Sketching birds in plein air is challenging, they are always on the move. So it helps to be armed with a fast camera and lots of patience.

Don't rely entirely on photographs though, make little gesture sketches that record common poses. You can then refer back to those sketches and add birds into your  larger compositions.

This painting is a good journal project….

and this seagull is a painted paper collage.

Both projects use a blurry line technique.  In the past I used gel pens but their quality has gone up in recent years and it's getting harder to find ones that will bleed when hit with a water wash.

There are other options.  My favourite is the Stabilo pencil.  It's easy to draw with and works on paper, glass, plastic and metal. I have to buy mine at a fine art supply store and they are about $2.00 a piece.

You can also use a watercolour pencil. You get a similar blurry effect. They are not as soft as a stabilo so I find them a little harder to sketch with.

A charcoal pencil will give you a bit of blurriness, you can smudge them with your finger before adding the water wash to enhance this a bit.

Watercolour markers will also give you a blurry effect.  I use them often at school as they are on every student supply list. My only complaints are they can blur too much and you may lose definition in your sketch. The colour also changes and your black fades into blues and purples.

Materials Required:

- paper, you can use an art journal or a nice quality drawing paper.  At school I use this paper a lot. Although it is called white construction paper it's not a construction paper. It paints up nice. You don't get WC paper effects but it is a good alternative and it's cheap.  It's an amazing drawing paper (better than the so-called drawing paper most suppliers carry) and has enough tooth (rough surface) to take pastels (both oil and chalk) beautifully.
- pencil and eraser
- stabilo or alternative
- disk tempera
- acrylic or liquid tempera
- sponge
- glue
- sandpaper

Procedure:

Let's start with the journal page. Now I made a journal page but you can easily make this into a single page project.

Select a shorebird you would like to draw.

Here I sketched a spotted sandpiper.  I used some reference photos of mine and gesture sketches.  I added a piece of driftwood in the foreground to add interest and included the water in the background, (both of which were not in my photos).

Then I went over my sketch with my stabilo.  Sometimes I go straight in with the stabilo but this was a new composition and you cannot erase a stabilo.

Start adding colour.

I have lots of watercolour paint in my studio but I used disk tempera to show you can easily do this project at school. Disk tempera costs a fraction of what watercolour does and I'm always impressed with how far I can push it.

The secret here is to treat it like watercolour, use more water to fade out your washes. Now I paint around my sandpiper because of the stabilo, I want to control the blurriness as well as conserve my whites.

I add some colour to the bird. The stabilo starts to blur forming the shadows. I use straight brown and watered down brown to get my colour variation.

I also leave some areas with no paint for the white of the feathers.

A nice touch is to go back and add a touch of white on top of the paint, (extra feather detail, some waves in the water).

You can use white disk tempera which acts very much like gouache.
I also use PITT markers which are opaque white ink, acrylic markers, at school I might use white pencil crayon, white oil pastel, or even white chalk.

I add some clouds using white liquid tempera or white acrylic and a sponge.

I want to add some text,  because it's a sand piper I cut a letter "S" from some sandpaper.  Great textural element.

I made a pattern out of some scrap paper and then traced it on the back.

I want it to stand out a bit so I trace around it with a black crayon. This gives the "S" a nice black outline.

I glued it into place and added text with a fine sharpie pen.





Painted paper collage:

I take a piece of that nice paper and tape it down to my art board.

Using liquid tempera or acrylic I take a dark blue, a light blue, and a little white and paint the background.

I use this cross stroke a lot for backgrounds.  Start with the darkest colour and work your way down adding the lighter colours.

While the background is drying I painted the paper for the posts in the pier.



I use brown, black, and a little white acrylic or liquid tempera.

I need a scraper so I take an old gift card and cut it to the size I want.

The paper I'm using is a scrap of brown kraft paper.


 I dip the end of the scraper into a few colours.  I then spread it down the paper getting this nice effect that looks like weathered wood.


Set aside to dry.

Using the same technique as for the journal page paint another bird.

This is a seagull I photographed last year in Cape Breton and you can see I misjudged the size of paper I needed.  Oh well….we'll just add some legs.

Cut out the seagull and the posts.



It started off as being all one piece but I couldn't get it to look right.

So I cut them apart. I also added a little white for a highlight on top edge.


Glue into place.

Sponge on a few clouds and then glue the gull into place.





I hope this inspires you to make a few shorebirds of your own.

Take care everyone.

Gail

Sunglasses Art Project

I was asked by the teachers at school to come up with an art project to correspond with the CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind) "Shades of Fun" campagin.

On Thursday all the kids at school will be wearing sunglasses during classes to participate

I made a pattern for a pair of sunglasses.  You can use mine, (Sunglasses Pattern), if you want. I can only fit 1/2 on the page so either cut it on the fold for a full pattern or cut out one side, flip, and then trace the other side.  I then traced this pattern onto posterboard.

Cut out the sunglasses.

I then traced around each lens to make a pattern. 

I cut the lens out slightly smaller than I traced so it would fit on the frame.

They fit in like this.

You then pencil in a drawing showing activities where you would wear your sunglasses.

Add some color with pencil crayons, markers, paint.......

Taking some cellophane wrap...... cut out 2 lens pieces silimar in size to the white ones you cut.

Turn glasses over to the back side and glue the cellophane into place.  UPDATE:  While doing 44 pairs of these I found that tape was more effective...the glue does not stick so well to the cellophane.

Glue the pictures on top of the cellophane.

and that's all there is to it.  Give it a try and be sure to wear your sunglasses on Thursday!

On Saturday I was honored to be featured on "Today's Creative Blog" if you get a chance check it out.

Pea Pod Buddies

Yesterday I made these Pea Pod Buddies.

The kids had been asking me to make them ever since I got this book. I absolutely love this book.....its all about making dolls using gloves. There are all kinds of animals although I especially love the cat...fairies, snowmen. kimono girls, etc.

It is in Japanese but it has so many pictures that it is easy to follow along. I get my Japanese craft books from Saucy Louise as I find the postage to Canada very reasonable.

My kids also love this book which has over 100 little felt characters for them to make all about 3 inches tall.

They have learned how to transfer the pattern, cut out the felt and sew them together...all the small parts are glued on.

Check out the frog my 6yr old made yesterday.

Back to the Pea Pods....in the book they call them beans.....which is probably botanically correct as they are white but we call them peas.

You need some cotton gloves.....I hit the jackpot at Wal Mart. In the hardware section they sell a pack of 12 pairs for $5.00.

I have also used the mini gloves from the dollar store....you know the one size fits all ones.

Cut off the finger tips......you need them to be about 2.5 inches long.

Thread a needle and make a running stitch around the cut edge.

Stuff with some wool or stuffing to make a nice sized pea.

Pull the thread tight....add some stitches to try and flatten the bunched end and knot off.

Make as many as you want....next you have to add the faces. Thread a needle with some embroidery thread. I'm using 3 strands. I choose green but you can do it in any color.

Coming in from the back of the pea make the nose with a few stitches.

Add the eyes and mouth and put in some eyebrows... the eyebrows help to add different expressions....happy, sleepy, mad.

Use a red crayon to add some blush to the cheeks....you need to circle around a few times before the color transfers.

Now you need to cut out the pods.

For the open pods I used 2 different fabrics. One for the inside and one for the outside.

I used cotton quilting fabric and wool felt.

Make a pod pattern....you can click on this picture to make larger. The pod is 4.5 inches long and 1.5 inches wide at the middle. You can also make smaller pods if you wish.

The stem end is in a star shape approx. 1.5 inches wide from one point to another.

Cut your pod shape out on the fold....they should look like this when you are done.

I used the wool felt for the stem end.




Put 2 pod shapes right sides together and stitch leaving about 2 inches open for turning. I'm at the cabin so I hand stitched all mine but I'm sure the machine would be much faster!!

Turn and hand stitch the opening closed.

You can press them if you wish at this point.

You then have to add a little seam down the back of the pod.

Insert a pea and sew a pocket with a few stitches. The first one I made I actually sewed the peas in place but the kids wanted to be able to take the peas out to play with them....so from then on I just sewed in the pocket.

If you are making one where some of the pod is closed you can add some stuffing to keep that pod shape.

Add a stem end with a few stitches and you are done.

I made some plain pods, stuffed and with only 1 piece of fabric. I think they make a nice addition to the pea buddies.

I also left one pea free....the kids used him as the buddy knocking on the door to ask if the other peas could come out and play.

They also came up with names for all the peas based on their expressions.


So give it a try and sew up some pea pod buddies for your kids or get them to give it a go.

see you next time

gail