Hello! Welcome to my latest update of Arielle's Audubon Scientific Illustration blog! For today's class I worked on completing finishing touches on my sargassum drawing (see blog #5).
Next, I determined what size and type of paper I wanted to utilize in my drawing of the red-shouldered hawk. Since I was not too fond of the Bristol paper I used in the previous drawing, I wanted to use a different medium. I opted to use a fellow classmate's large sheet of drawing paper instead, which was not as smooth as the Bristol. The paper I used was Straphmore recycled drawing paper 14 x 17 in.
Following Ann Swan's (2010) advice, I drew my drawing with the 4H graphite pencil that way erasing would be much easier and would not leave as many marks. I also created value scales with all the brown colored pencils I own that way I can narrow down the colors I want to use. I also created a box on the paper, another recommendation by Swan, but also a necessity since I would be using a mat.
I first drew the shape of the bird using the graphite pencil. Then, I shaded in some of the more obvious dark areas with a Crayola gray colored pencil. However, in this drawing, after watching my friend try a new technique, I decided I wanted to try it out with my drawing. In this technique, which was kind of like painting, I put some colored pencil coloring onto a sheet of paper. Then I rubbed a Q-tip into the color and used it to color the shading on my drawing. I did so for different parts of the hawk. When the drawing is finished, I will rub a Q-tip over it again to smooth out all the wax, another suggestion by Swan (2010).
My plan for this drawing is to use my fine embossing tool (that I just bought!) to create the whites of the feathers. I will likely use various shades of brown for the brown parts of the bird. After reading Ann Swan's chapter on fine details such as the hairs on a plant, I thought a fine embossing tool would certainly help me in my rendering of the hawk and its white feathers, which would otherwise prove to be quite difficult.
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Works Cited
Swan, Ann. Botanical Portraits with Colored Pencils. B.E.S. Publishing, 2010.
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