The Egrets Are Back!

 I'm not sure where the Great Egrets migrate to during our Winter season, but they do go somewhere from around October through March, and it is always a treat when I spy them again in the Spring.

On one of the rare non-windy days last week, I took the hounds for a stroll at Chiawana Park over in Pasco, which is a pretty reliable spot to see both egrets and pelicans.

No pelicans were around, but I did see my first egret of the season, catching its breakfast:

Such a stunning bird, and such a treat to watch it fishing.

The Hounds were bored by my prolonged observation of the bird -- neither Truman nor Pippin has ever got the hang of sitting or standing around staring at things when they could be walking and sniffing things instead.

I neglected to take a pic of the Hounds at the park that day, but to give you an idea of what a bored dachshund looks like, here is Pippin on my mother's sofa, expressing a profound sense of ennui:

As for art this week, our sketch group chose two photos that were both complex.  The first was a scene of a gate with wisteria and a lot of trees, and in hindsight, I should have left most of the foliage out and concentrated on the flowers, but oh well, too late now!

I do like how the gate turned out.

The second photo we worked from had similar issues -- it was a simpler scene of a wooden window within a stone wall, open to a view of a sunset over the water -- but again, in hindsight, I should have de-emphasized some areas in order to focus on the window.  

Well, it's hard sometimes to make these artistic decisions when the reference photo is not chosen until we start the group session, and we have only around an hour-and-a-half to work on the piece.  I often spend the first five minutes just deciding which medium to use, and another 15 to 20 minutes drawing the picture in pencil, which leaves a little over an hour to paint or in this particular case, use water-soluble ink pens plus watercolor.  

The Zoom sketch group sessions can be challenging!  

Back in Good Omens land, you may recall that I took a break from trying to paint in oils, by doing a colored pencil portrait of Crowley.  Since then, I added background colors to it:

Then I drew a colored pencil Aziraphale to go with it -- these are both taken from the final scene of the series, where they are dining at the Ritz, and Crowley proposes a champagne toast "to the world".

I decided that the plain background colors would work better than trying to draw in the restaurant behind them, which would have been rather busy.

Not that I shy away from drawing lots of details -- I did do a couple of scenes in Aziraphale's bookshop, which were extremely challenging, and a couple of historical scenes with plenty of fiddly details.  In fact, I'm challenging myself again by trying to do this scene:

This is in Crowley's apartment, where he questions God about the ineffable plan while dramatically draping himself over his elaborate throne chair.  It's quite possible that trying to render that chair will drive me nuts, but I do like what I have so far with his portrait, so shall carry on:

So that's my project for the next few days -- draw lots of fiddly details.  Yay.

Have a great week out there, everyone!