Burke Museum Bird Day

The page of sketches I did from Bird Day at the Burke Museum.

Sketching

We were supposed to try doing 20 minutes of sketching a week for our Introduction class. I do not think I did because by the end I was so busy with homework, but here is a couple from farmer's markets.

Chicken skull

Chicken Skull Time! This was a fun project. Susan said they don't usually come with the hyoid bone (which is our adam's apple, but attaches to the tongue on the chicken) nor the sclerotic ring (which mammals don't have but is a protective bone over the eye. They are also usually cleaner. These had a lot of dried fleshy bits left of them, which isn't super gross, but makes them harder to draw.

Gestural drawings

Measured line drawings

Graphite value studies

Ink drawings. Upper left is stipple and the rest are contour lines. This was the actual final assignment for the chicken skulls

Gouache and colored pencil. This was my favorite technique I learned in the whole class and was not for an assignment really

Bone Bi-Point

The bone bi-point was for learning about archeological drawings. It was a fun assignment, but I did pick a rather simple object. It as pretty small, too. The bone bipoint, from a West Point excavation site, is from abut 3500-2700 BC. It was made using the incision carving method, I think. That's where they just cut at it until it is the right shape.

Measured line drawings of a bone bipoint, which is essentially a sort of fish hook.

Ink drawings of bone bipoint, an illustration of how the bipoint was used, and some ink tests.

Bone Bipoint

Measuring the length of the bone bipoint

Measuring the width of the bone bipoint

Cat cervical vertebrae

I am not surprised, but the bones are my favorite to draw. The cat vertebrae was out first one. This is the cervical vertebrae from the neck.

Measured line drawings of essentially the top?

Measured line drawings of the side

Measured ine drawing straight down the top (or up the bottom?)

on scratchboard - which I love

Leaves of fall

This was a really fun assignment. We had to collect leaves to do colored pencil drawings of. And it was fall, so we had some great choices! Anways, I had a ton. My work has some gorgeous trees, so I would go for walks to pick leaves. But then we had to also do an overlay and I was so excited about drawing the leaves that I forgot to leave room.

Leaf rubbings where I traced the veins and added colored pencil notes

Apple Snail

Our very first assignment was with the apple snails. I had a blast with these. Eventually. I freaked out a little because I had to go to Bellingham ComiCon that first weekend. So I ended up drawing some other snails.

Gestural drawings and some notes about apple snails.

Measured line drawings

Dr Who snail I drew at Bellingham Comicon

I thought Susan said French Apple Snail and this was all I could think of for the next week. Snail with a Poirot mustache.