Vulturine Guineafowl

Another quick one, well as quick as I seem to be able to do watercolours. The Vulturine Guineafowl of Africa. In this case coming through the grass.

It's not all birds

While I do love doing the wildlife, it is also fun to do other stuff. Especially in my journal, there is something nice and simple about graphite. I was also in this case playing around with eyes and proportion trying to see what happens...

A very quick sketch.

Olive-backed Sunbirds

Some more coloured pencil work. Olive-backed sunbirds, olive-backed sunbird, Nectarina jugularis. A male and female, they are fairly common in parks and gardens, and are found throughout SE Asia into Northern Australia.

Lovely little birds. Where possible I try and do things life size, so I think the finished painting is about 12x16 inches in size.

Jacobean Lilly

These are spectacular flowers, like most lilies. In this case it is watercolour and 95% complete. I need to finish off a few bits, but towards the end of a painting it is generally safer to hide it away for a couple months and come back to it.

It is always too easy to get impatient and try and do too much. Still it is ok.

Crimson Rosella

This is a Crimson Rosella, Platycercus elegans, I did while playing around with some pencils. It is easy to forget just how cool pencil work can be.

The Crimson Rosella is a large parrot native to southeastern Australia.

Meerkat in Graphite

Just a quick prelim sketch of a Meerkat. This one was based on some photographs I took at Singapore Zoo. I quite like it so will probably take my time and do it again.

Superb Fairy-wren in Acrylics

Lately I have been wondering about the best way to do things. So have been experimenting quite a lot, mostly just in my sketch book/ journal or whatever you want to call it.

I do love watercolour, but sometimes it just seems so difficult to do what you want to do. Hence my thinking the right tool for the job - in this case painting birds. Which is where the acrylic comes in.

So firstly an apology, for many years I had a snobby attitude to acrylics. I started out with them in the mid 80's. Actually using my mothers to be honest. Then I think for a birthday when I was about 14 or so, I got a set of oils - and never thought of Acrylics again. Pretty much everything but.

So by chance I had been feeling frustrated with oils, and watercolour is great for somethings - and then the other day I found a little starter set of acrylics going cheap. An old box - but $13 for 18 colours of a well known brand, I thought I may as well take the chance. I actually half expected them to be all dried up.

It was a bit of a relevation that I found even this old crappy box very easy to use, just on paper with a spare old brush - and it took about 20min to get an acceptable Superb Fairy-wren. So the next step is to actually get some real acrylic kit. I already have my shopping list worked out. Now just the shopping part.

Incidentally the Superb Fairy-wren is a favourite little bird of mine from south eastern Australia, Malurus cyaneus. They are actually a very interesting little genus of birds which I have been studying on and off over the years. Including a book on them - which is still in progress...

Here is the 20min experiment with cheap paints just on paper: