January's Class

Hi everyone, for January our subject was birds. We talked about how birds are really recognized by their shapes and when you can capture that correctly it helps the viewer to recognize what kind of bird it is. We talked about laying in colors and building layers of color and making sure you have good contrast between your background and your birds.  This was not enough time to explore painting birds throughly and we will probably tackle it a few more times. The women did and amazing job with their paintings. Penny and Marilyn brought some wonderful photos to choose from and some even brought iPads and computers to work from. Birds are tricky since painting them from life is difficult since they move so much and often won't stay still long enough to sketch. By using your camera or phone you can capture them and record for painting or sketching later.  I had the opportunity to go to the beach this last month, I got some great photos of seagulls and sandpipers on the beach. I am turning it into a two page spread. I am posting Marianne's but I hope Penny, Marilyn, Christa, Gurutej and Tina will post their own since I don't have photos of everyones paintings! We missed those of you who couldn't make class, hope to see you next month. The challenge homework for this next month is SWEETS! Sugar and spice and everything nice. Our next sketch class will be on February 9th, see you then.

Marianne's bird, she ended up doing the same bird that Shar did.

My class demo bird, needs some color!

Here is my sketchbook entry for birds, I was saving the other page to do as a demo and changed my mind so I need to finish this two page spread of seagulls. I will also journal on this page.