DONE!!!

 Whew!

As you no doubt recall, back on the first of February, my friend Tina proposed that the members of our Zoom sketch group draw (in addition to our regular practice)  a bird-a-day during the month.  Since I am rather fond of birds, naturally I said "Sure, why not?"

I discovered, during that month (thankfully, the shortest one), that I really, really, really hate drawing feathers.  I never want to draw or paint feathers again.

But I did it!  28 days, 28 birds!  It was challenging, and sometimes even fun, and I liked two of the pieces enough to frame them.  Sometimes I used ink and watercolor, and sometimes drew digitally on the iPad, though most of the time I used just watercolor.  When I ran out of my own photos to draw from, I went searching online and learned about a few birds I'd never heard of before.  

So here are the final week's birds -- three of these were drawn and painted digitally.  Can you tell which ones they are?  (Answer at the end of the post.)

This is the ten-foot-tall Terror Bird of prehistoric times:

This is an unfamiliar (and endangered) bird I learned about, the Northern Bald Ibis:

Here I attempted to copy an Audubon illustration of a Roseate Spoonbill:

This White-breasted Nuthatch is from my photo, taken at the lovely Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden in Minnepolis:

I went a bit back in time to draw this fossil of the bird ancestor, Archaeopteryx:

This California Quail was done from my own photo, taken right here in Richland:

For my final bird, I tackled this Raggiana bird-of-paradise:

And that's that.  You probably won't see a bird drawing here again for a long, long time.

But you will see the drawings from our sketch group practice sessions!  This is a fun one we chose last week -- this house on the coast of France was built into the rocks to protect it from frequent storms:

Lovely place.  I could live there!

Now, before the reveal of the three digital bird drawings, you have to get through (or scroll down without reading) my end-of-the-month Books Read report.  Hah.

Books Read in February

A good survey of something I never studied while earning my B.A. in Art History.  I was surprised at how much, after reading his explication, my appreciation of abstract expressionism went up (from about "none" to "a little bit").

I thought I'd read most of this mystery series but somehow overlooked this entry, which is a pleasant romp with academic-minded sleuths in Oxford.

One of the Time-Life "World of Art" series books.  Copley was the first accomplished American portraitist, who later moved to Britain and did well there, too.  Like all of the Time-Life books, a brisk and easy read.

Ditto for this World of Turner volume.  I found them for $1 each at the Friends of the Library used bookshop, back when it was still open.  Sigh.

This was another find at the F.O.L. bookshop.  Short and a bit dull but as I knew nothing about Bach, it was an okay read.

The next-to-last book in my quest to re-read the entire Holmes canon.  

Judith Martin is better known for her long-running etiquette column by "Miss Manners", which is droll and informative, as is this book about a city she loves -- Venice.  A mix of history, current lifestyles (published in the late 1990s), culture, and people-watching observations.  Fun in short doses.

The last book in my re-read Holmes effort, and the best of the four novels. 

This was for improving my piano practice.  Good advice both technical and psychological, and much of the latter also applied to drawing/painting practice. 

Apparently I wasn't quite finished with Holmes -- I had read this decades ago and remembered enjoying this pastiche wherein Sherlock and Watson meet up with Sigmund Freud.  It was a good re-read.

OKAY, now that you've reached the end, the big reveal is at hand:

The three next-to-last birds were all drawn digitally -- the White-breasted Nuthatch, the Archaeopteryx, and the California Quail.  A gold star to anyone who got it right!

Now I am going to spend the coming week NOT DRAWING BIRDS.

Yay!

Have fun out there, everyone, and stay safe.  (I AM NOW FULLY VACCINATED--WHEE!!!!)