Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Northern Harrier

Living in rural east central Illinois I see my fair share of red-tailed hawks along the interstate and country roads, but there are two other birds of prey that I see often and are more exciting - American kestrels and northern harriers.  I recently illustrated an American kestrel perched as I always see them.  I seldom see northern harriers perched but I often see them almost motionless hovering over fields looking for prey.  It is an amazing sight to see how they are able to almost stop and float - I wanted to try and capture this image.

 
 
 

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Northern Parula

 
Most of the time I like to draw birds and other subjects without a background, I prefer the crisp edges and it is much faster.  I decided to try and put a very Spring-like background behind this Northern parula.  The bird is almost all done in colored pencil while the background is almost all watercolor.  Below are some in-progress photos.