The Kingfisher Bird

I saw a photo of this beautiful Rufous-Backed Kingfisher bird sitting on a branch and had to draw it this week.  This drawing was done in colored pencils.  I added a colorful shadow to its silhouette to add more depth and three diagonal sun rays to build in dimension.  After Tuneful Nectar, my colored pencil drawing of a Humming Bird, I thought of doing another bird drawing as a companion.  I hung up the first one in my daughter's room.  I asked her if she would like to have another picture of a bird and she was excited about the idea, so the Kingfisher will accompany the Humming Bird on the same wall.

Here are a couple of earlier sketches followed by the completed drawing again.

The completed drawing:

Departures

I created this drawing in graphite pencils.  The emotions in this drawing are a reflection of feelings that families face during a time of deployment.  Five years ago, our family faced such a deployment.  Jake was almost two years old, Alex was a Captain in the Air Force and it was only our second year living a military lifestyle.  During that half a year, as our friends and family know, I was pregnant with our twins while starting to notice signs in Jake, of what we later learned, was autism.  I title this drawing Departures (and not Deployment), because this one big event of the deployment was not only a physical departure (for Alex), but also simultaneous departures, or beginnings, in our lives.  These beginnings took us in different directions, that ultimately condensed into a single focus of family and togetherness.

Here is the progression of the stages of Departures:

The completed drawing:

Moon Glow

I did this drawing in graphite pencils.  Right before creating this though, I practiced drawing details of the face, especially noses, lips and eyes.  I focused on creating dimension through creating depth in imagery with darkening, highlighting and middle tones.  Enjoy!

Behind The Parasol

I created this drawing with a mix of graphite and colored pencils. I first drew the sketch in pencil and later worked it into a colored drawing.  Here is the evolution of the drawing over several stages of progress, followed by the fiinished drawing, once again.

The completed drawing

Tuneful Nectar

I drew a humming bird with flowers in colored pencils.  I had considered calling it something along the lines of: Humming Bird, but decided to go against the obvious choice.  I then came up with: Tuneful Nectar, instead.  I hope that you enjoy it!

I still prefer shading much better with graphite, as it is much easier to work with and doesn't put up much resistance when I work with layering.  However, I enjoyed the obvious aspect of color and creating in a new medium.

Black and white leaves much more to the imagination in the sense that the viewer can interpret the drawing with more freedom, even though a colorless medium is deceptively non-restricting.  I think that when I have some more time and our family gets settled into our new abode, I will start up painting once again.  Any suggestions on what to create?  If your idea resonates with me, I may take you up on it!

Rising Angel

Rising Angel was done in charcoal pencil.  I love working with the idea of being suspended, or floating, between the ground and the sky.  I'm also into shading and creating multidimensional aspects.  I wanted the wings to look like they are made out of soft clouds, unlike realistic bird wings.  Similarly, the material of the dress is also cloud like; blurring the imagery between reality and fantasy.

This second drawing is the original version of Rising Angel.  I later modified it to have shorter wings and dress, as well as a vortex for the angel to ascend through, up to the night's sky.

(Second version)

Between Dark and Light Clouds

My last charcoal drawing is of a woman's image.  I got the idea for the title from a recent trip in the spring to Ireland.  It felt like depending on which cloud we were standing under, it would either be raining or sunny.  It was windy regardless, so this gave me the idea of being suspended between light and dark clouds.  Depending on what is going on in our lives, it directly affects our moods, just as light and dark clouds shift and flow above our heads.  We also shift and flow with the different kinds of clouds in our lives, or moods and different types of energy we experience.  The wind ties it all together; it is the energy which moves us from dark to light and back.  

And as the old Irish saying goes: 

"...May the wind be always at your back, May the sunshine warm upon your face"....

Between Dark and Light Clouds ~ Charcoal Pencils