Mr Kereru - New Zealand Wood Pigeon

Penciling outline of Wood Pigeon

Putting eye and beak in

Putting colour through head

Starting colour down body

More colour

Colour down wing

Colour through body and stick

Finishing with Kowhai flowers

- MR KERERU -

This is my Mr Kereru, and New Zealand Native Wood Pigeon. These handsome birds are twice the size of a regular pigeon and are beautiful big birds. They are a protected species and where I live they fly around everywhere almost. Lovely to see :)
This drawing is done in prismacolor pencil on 300gsm Bockingford watercolour board which is my favourite to work on. This is my first Wood Pigeon and will definitely do another one. My next project is a New Zealand Falcon or Karearea.

ANIMALS IN GRAPHITE some of these are older drawings

Cockatoo occasional visitors to our garden in QLD

Bunny from way back, love his nose :)

Sleeping Koala at Dreamworld, QLD

NZ Waxeye

Big red Roo at Australia Zoo chillaxing

Heron, focusing on the eye

Corellas, often in our garden, QLD

Ele-butt, Kuala Lumpur

KEA KAHA!

Prisma color. Kea landing position back view

moving colour through wing

positioning colour through back

Moving down back

Putting in detail

Moving across bird

I love the strength of the Kea. Love them or hate them, they're intelligent little buggers. And beautiful, how could you not love them. Well unless your a farmer :(
It wasn't until this point I started feeling comfortable with the Kea. Thats usually the case. Up until then I'm not sure whether or not I can actually do this without stuffing it up lol, and he was my first Kea so the nerves were there.  I had some feedback of "wheres the head?", I had to explain a number of times that the head is lowered while landing and showed them a side shot. Then it was "Oh I see". You get that. This particular bird took a lot longer than it should have. There was a lot of procrastinating over it. The feathers had to be done one by one and usually going back over and over again until I was 100% happy with how they looked. Im a sucker for punishment like that :)

Finished at last and for sale

- KEA KAHA - 

Tui - Out on a Limb (Prismacolor on 300gsm)

Starting with eye, most important to get this right

Putting colour between neck feather

Starting down neck

Laying down colour

Putting colour through rest of body

Moving down through the bird

Happy with how he is progressing at this stage. Now I'm actually starting to relax. Working with the Prisma color pencils its difficult to get the light in after there is dark down, not like painting, in fact the complete opposite. Challenging to say the least. From here I have to put the claws on the bird, the tip of the beak needs refining and the tail put on. I was debating whether or not it would look silly, but after consulting with an artist friend decided to do it, and I'm happy with the finished product :)

kowhai flowers in progress, this was my first time drawing the kowhai flowers, pretty happy how they came out. Even put the lichen on the branch :)

FINISHED AND FOR SALE - Out on a Limb

For the love of Tuis

I had a day home alone and decided to put it to good use, also I really wanted to try out my new prisma color pencils. And I must say I'm a convert but I'm going to have to stock up on a few colours of I keep doing these beautiful birds :) I didn't get it finished yesterday but have a few progress shots and finishing with where I got up to.

Be right back :)

I will be away for a while, we are moving internationally, very exciting and also researching new material to use for future drawings. So.... Be right back - peace out :)

Tools of the Trade

My new babies arrived during the week, 72 beautiful prisma color pencils, I used a few that I had bought on Prince Tui and was impressed at how nice they were to use as well as the blender. So I splashed out, does it count as a mothers day present????hmm not sure I can get away with that.

So the next project will be underway shortly, can't wait to see the outcome from using these beauties. Its a wee bit exciting.