#Birdmas 2018 Day 12: 12 Terns a Turning

On the twelfth day of Birdmas ideas gave to me…

12 Terns a Turning
11 Swifts a Gliding
10 Terrors Tearing
9 Fowl Strutting
8 Gulls a Leering
7 Owls Peering
6 Storks a Stalking,
5 GOLDEN WIIIIINNNNGGSS,
4 Hummingbirds,
3 Redshanks,
2 Frigate Birds,
…and A Fast Running Cassowary!

Phew! I’ve finally completed my catch up sprint to the finish! Day 12 was a “Tern” which is a sea bird. Within that, I chose to base this entry on a “Royal Tern” species which has a kind of funny tuft of feathers on it’s head that appealed to me. I also wanted to end on a high, so this had to be a dramatic piece with detail all round.

Going on a “Turnabout” for the last day of Birdmas.

In an ironic twist, even though this is a day late, this is my personal favourite entry of my 12 days because it came out the most accurate of how I intended it to be. I only hope you all agree.

Well… That’s it! All of my entries are done! I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to those who joined me in this challenge, and for those who followed my entries (be they late or on time!) I highly appreciate those who took the time to come and look.

Birdmas officially ended on the 12th of December but anyone is still very welcome to try it/finish it if they wish. Cheers!

#Birdmas 2018 Day 11: 11 Swifts a Gliding

On the eleventh day of Birdmas ideas gave to me…

11 Swifts a Gliding
10 Terrors Tearing
9 Fowl Strutting
8 Gulls a Leering
7 Owls Peering
6 Storks a Stalking,
5 GOLDEN WIIIIINNNNGGSS,
4 Hummingbirds,
3 Redshanks,
2 Frigate Birds,
…and A Fast Running Cassowary!

Gliding into cruise control like a boss!

Day 11 was a swift. I didn’t want to completely copy the markings of any particular species of swift so I kept to abstract colours. As I did this, I imagined a sky it was flying in being dreamy and relaxing to look at… and this is how it came out. Hope you like it!

Wondering what on earth this “#Birdmas” challenge is? It’s a challenge about drawing birds. Check out the club link for more info:

https://mewe.com/join/triwing_art_challenge_club

Stay tuned for my next entry of this project. Cheers all!

#Birdmas 2018 Day 10: 10 Terrors Tearing

On the tenth day of Birdmas ideas gave to me…

10 Terrors Tearing
9 Fowl Strutting
8 Gulls a Leering
7 Owls Peering
6 Storks a Stalking,
5 GOLDEN WIIIIINNNNGGSS,
4 Hummingbirds,
3 Redshanks,
2 Frigate Birds,
…and A Fast Running Cassowary!

Day 10 for me was a “Terror Bird” which is an extinct species of bird related to that of dinosaurs… you could call this another dino bird hybrid if you will. In this one, I focused on the textures of it’s feathers, and focused less on the background just to keep things simple. The bird is running whilst it has a bit of torn meat in it’s jaws.

ARrrghh! I must get back home in time to watch my favourite telly programme!

If you’ve been following my entries, you may have noticed I’ve stopped doing number entries and have just made custom entries for speed. I’m not going to talk much either… I have 2 more entries to go straight after this one then I’m done! None of my entries are perfect, but I don’t intend for them to be since I’m so behind. I just hope you all enjoy them!

Wondering what on earth this “#Birdmas” challenge is? It’s a challenge about drawing birds. Check out the club link for more info:

https://mewe.com/join/triwing_art_challenge_club

Stay tuned for my next entry of this project. Cheers all!

#Birdmas 2018 Day 9: 9 Fowl Strutting

On the ninth day of Birdmas ideas gave to me…

9 Fowl Strutting
8 Gulls a Leering
7 Owls Peering
6 Storks a Stalking,
5 GOLDEN WIIIIINNNNGGSS,
4 Hummingbirds,
3 Redshanks,
2 Frigate Birds,
…and A Fast Running Cassowary!

Hello all. Goodness…. I’ve had so many important priorities to consider and organise, that I’ve just not had the time to follow through with my own challenge. I’ll add that being split between so many platforms discourages me to death too, but enough about that now… lets talk about this entry itself.

*Cluck* Whadda’ya lookin’ at?

My bird for day 9 was “fowl”, which is quite a broad term meaning the same as livestock birds, so I looked for a chicken… a specific chicken that drew my interest. That’s when I came across this black species of chicken (I forget what it’s called, but search online for “black chicken” and you’ll see it actually exists!) The species itself looks almost reminiscent of an antique bronze statue.

As you can see, I used perspective techniques… foreshortening is the main gimmick of this one. Also, the actual real chicken species has black eyes, but I coloured the eye red here for contrast, otherwise everything would be black! As always, I hope you enjoy this.

Wondering what on earth this “#Birdmas” challenge is? It’s a challenge about drawing birds. Check out the club link for more info:

https://mewe.com/join/triwing_art_challenge_club

Stay tuned for my next entry of this project. Cheers all!

#Birdmas 2018 Day 8: 8 Gulls a Leering

On the eighth day of Birdmas ideas gave to me…

8 Gulls a Leering
7 Owls Peering
6 Storks a Stalking,
5 GOLDEN WIIIIINNNNGGSS,
4 Hummingbirds,
3 Redshanks,
2 Frigate Birds,
…and A Fast Running Cassowary!

Peekaboo. I see your chips…

I’m not going to say a lot as I’m catching up, and so I hope my artwork speaks for itself, however I will say that I had fun with a bit more minimalism, and that my day 8 bird was a seagull… I chose the Black Backed Seagull as inspiration for this piece. Cheers for stopping by as always and I hope you enjoy!

Wondering what on earth this “#Birdmas” challenge is? It’s a challenge about drawing birds. Check out the club link for more info:

https://mewe.com/join/triwing_art_challenge_club

Stay tuned for my next entry of this project. Cheers all!

#Birdmas 2018 Day 7: 7 Owls Peering

On the seventh day of Birdmas ideas gave to me…

7 Owls Peering
6 Storks a Stalking,
5 GOLDEN WIIIIINNNNGGSS,
4 Hummingbirds,
3 Redshanks,
2 Frigate Birds,
…and A Fast Running Cassowary!

Ugh…. I’ve had SO much to do, organise, and sort out that Birdmas is beginning to be more of a chore than a fun challenge (I absolutely hate to say that, but it is…) However, I’ve managed to do 2 more entries, and technically have another 2 to finish.

Whhoooooo’s ready for some camping?

This bird is inspired by a Great Horned Owl… I wanted it to look more perfect than this but I just didn’t have time. I also implemented some chiaroscuro techniques… I’m not going to say any more than that since I will lose even more time. Instead, I’ll thank everyone for their time to stop by, and if there are any questions, feel free to ask. Cheers!

Wondering what on earth this “#Birdmas” challenge is? It’s a challenge about drawing birds. Check out the club link for more info:

https://mewe.com/join/triwing_art_challenge_club

Stay tuned for my next entry of this project. Cheers all!

#Birdmas 2018 Day 6: 6 Storks a Stalking

On the sixth day of Birdmas ideas gave to me…

6 Storks a Stalking,
5 GOLDEN WIIIIINNNNGGSS,
4 Hummingbirds,
3 Redshanks,
2 Frigate Birds,
…and A Fast Running Cassowary!

Firstly, my sincere apologies to those attempting this challenge in my Triwing Club, some of you have left lovely messages both on my work and on the work of others, and I haven’t been able to get to them.

I haven’t been too active on here lately in general too… it’s been rather a stressful week with a lot going on and I’ve hardly had time at all. I decided to just carry on with my pieces first and get to everyone later. I hope that’s ok.

Not the prettiest oil painting in the gallery… but then again, this isn’t an oil painting.

Now onto this, this may look like a vulture, but it is in fact stylised and inspired by a species known as a Marabou Stork. A stork was today’s bird for me, but I chose this particular one because of how ugly it looks… It’s beautiful in it’s ugliness, and storks usually have angelic, beautiful connotations linked to them, so this makes a wonderful contrast. Hopefully I captured this.

The background was the hardest part because I had no inspiration for how I’d do it, so I just fluffed it up like this. Hope you all enjoy this entry as always, and I thank you all for stopping by.

Wondering what on earth this “#Birdmas” challenge is? It’s a challenge about drawing birds. Check out the club link for more info:

https://mewe.com/join/triwing_art_challenge_club

Stay tuned for my next entry of this project. Cheers all!

#Birdmas 2018 Day 5: 5 GOLDEN WINGS

On the fifth day of Birdmas ideas gave to me…

5 GOLDEN WIIIIINNNNGGSS
4 Hummingbirds,
3 Redshanks,
2 Frigate Birds,
…and A Fast Running Cassowary!

…And goodness gracious, hooray for day 5 because not only did I draw a Peregrine Falcon (Triwing’s mascot bird), but I also managed to get something to rhyme with the infamous line “5 Gold Rings”! The answer was staring me in the face all this time and I didn’t notice!

in 2016, I drew “5 Gold Starlings”…. 2017 was, “5 Gold Hatchlings”… day 5 is creatively the hardest to compose for me for sure.

5 GOLDEN WWWWWIIIIIINNNNNNNGGGGGSSSS!!!!

Anyway, onto this design. I wanted this to have a truly avian feel to it… and what do birds do better than anything else? Fly in the sky of course! I loved the idea of having a deep blue sky and clouds with a tiny hint of perspective to give the falcon some height and interest.

It was a bit difficult to get the gold just how I wanted it, and I could have even amended it even further, but for lack of time, it wouldn’t be sensible so I had to stop. Hope you all like this as always, and I once again thank you for stopping by.

Wondering what on earth this “#Birdmas” challenge is? It’s a challenge about drawing birds. Check out the club link for more info:

https://mewe.com/join/triwing_art_challenge_club

Stay tuned for my next entry of this project. Cheers all!

#Birdmas 2018 Day 4: 4 Hummingbirds

On the fourth day of Birdmas ideas gave to me…

4 Hummingbirds,
3 Redshanks,
2 Frigate Birds,
…and A Fast Running Cassowary!

Phew… now I’m slightly starting to gain ground so early in the morning…. and yes, before anyone says “whoo! I can see some pretty pink flowers!”, there are things in this piece that I’d never normally draw…. but this year, I made a small, self generated list of each bird I’ll draw on each day. Day 4 happens to be a hummingbird, and hummingbirds love “cutesy” flowers for their nectar…

Nothing cute here….

I did something different with this one in that I tried to keep the background white, but with a hint of bold colour to add interest. I did this by messing with blending modes and filters in my digital software. Not sure it went my way, but at least I gave it a go.

The most difficult part was to capture the sheen in the feathers, which is one of the things this species is known for. I just layered on colours stroke by stroke as I haven’t got much time at all. In any case, I hope you like it.

Wondering what on earth this “#Birdmas” challenge is? It’s a challenge about drawing birds. Check out the club link for more info:

https://mewe.com/join/triwing_art_challenge_club

Stay tuned for my next entry of this project. Cheers all!

#Birdmas 2018 Day 3: 3 Redshanks

On the third day of Birdmas ideas gave to me…

3 Redshanks,
2 Frigate Birds,
…and A Fast Running Cassowary!

Now I’m beginning to slip behind for which I apologise…. but this is my day 3 bird, a Redshank. It’s a shorebird apparently.

Suit you, Shank! Geddit…?

With this one, I wanted to add a bit of sass to the pose since when I looked at images of this species, I noticed they seem to stand very upright and stylishly. I found that fun, so why not play with it in my own way?

I also discreetly added the number 3 in the background to make this a number entry. I haven’t got much to add apart from that… I’m catching up. Please do bear with me, I do hope you enjoy nonetheless.

Wondering what on earth this “#Birdmas” challenge is? It’s a challenge about drawing birds. Check out the club link for more info:

https://mewe.com/join/triwing_art_challenge_club

Stay tuned for my next entry of this project. Cheers all!