wax-eye

 My daughters came back from the neighbours house this morning with a little present for me.  The little girls next door had found this little bird at deaths door and tried to nurse it back to life, but as most of us know this is usually pretty futile and the little bird didn't make it. Boo Hoo! But there was a positive for me, I had really enjoyed drawing the blackbird a few days ago and so was quite chuffed to get another chance to draw a bird.  This is a wax-eye/ silver-eye and is originally from Australia but is naturalised here in NZ (which I think means, it's made itself at home here and it's not causing too much of a problem with the local wild-life, but I might be wrong)

It arrived wrapped in two magnolia petals, which were the perfect size for it and also a rather good back drop.

 The over-lapping tiny little feathers are so delicate and perfect and sweet.

 vibrant green

 I love the combination of patterns here with the stripes and fluffy. 

 little fluffy head

 such beautiful colour combinations

 Vivid/Marker pen, hmm not sure about this one, was trying to get the stripes on those tail feathers.

 Charcoal and watercolour,  needs more intensity me thinks.

Watercolour, they are in reverse order, this was the first one I did, makes the bird look slightly pathetic, which it didn't.

I have put the bird in the fridge for further investigation, I'm hoping my husband won't notice. 

10 minute sketch. no.1

I decided that I would do a 10 minute sketch every day.  10 minutes is not too long to take out of my day . so on the walk to school with my little one this morning we found a dead blackbird, perfect material for a quick sketch (or two) so I picked it up and we walked to school with blackbird dangling, I think it had a broken neck, and it made the other kids go "oo yuk" when we got to school which is always good.   

 It was so pretty with its little feathers and its orange beak, I was rather sad to throw it away and would have liked to draw some more, but 10 mins is 10 mins, we have to have some rules ( although I did do two 10 minute sketches in the end and had to stop from doing some more).

The idea is that they will improve as the days go on.  But I did enjoy the brief experience.

And I found this cute little number from Leila Sham over at Charity and Bees blog, which is now sadly finished.

Abigail Brown beautiful birds

Just found this ladies site while looking at geninne's art blog.  A link to Abigail Brown and all her lovely handmade, mainly birds, and other creatures.   They are all so pretty and such talented work and I can only imagine the hours that must go into making these.