'I'm always looking for the Hows and the Whys and the Whats,' said Muskrat, 'That is why I speak as I do. You've heard of Muskrat's Much-in-Little, of course?'
'No,' said the child. 'What is it?'
- The Mouse and his Child. Russell Hoban.

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Sunday 12 September 2010

White Herons and Wild Rabbits.


Sketch (n). A simply or hastily executed drawing or painting, esp. a preliminary one, giving the essential features without the details.

Today is a new day. Here are some little studies I did recently at Miranda. I used HB and 2B pencils and this pad is a Bockingford 'zeta'. It's very smooth and the paper is a bit thin (80 gsm) for watercolour, but with my white subject, I wasn't using much water, so got away with it. I find it useful to do drawings on it, because it's nice and smooth if I want to go them over again with a fine-nibbed pen.


I find it fascinating all the different shapes the white heron can put its neck. There was the stretched out ready to stab positions, the look around at the countryside position, and the stalking along the drains position. When it started to rain, it squashed it down and hunched its shoulders and looked just like someone who'd forgotten their umbrella, resignedly waiting at a bus-stop, trying to stop rain from running down the back of their neck. Bunnies of course do stretched out flat, bunched up ball, and everything in between, including the old 'scratch the eye and lick the foot at the same time'.






5 comments:

  1. Nice scetches. Makes me miss art classes (back in the 90s - gave it up because of neck-arm problems after an accident, problems holding a pencil or brush for long now)

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  2. Ah, that's a pity. You can't even do quick ones?

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  3. When inspiration hits me I like to be able to "keep at it" for a while; not being able to do that, I lose the flow and inspiration. So I've turned more to photography instead.

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  4. In France at the moment the Egret or White Heron is more common than ever before where I am staying. We saw 50 or more in a few fields (all fields with cattle). I assume that they are getting ready to migrate to Africa for the winter. The swallows certainly are getting ready for their migration.

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  5. DTrader - I am just doing a short wet media photography course and am finding it very addictive! It's wonderful to be involved in the whole process so intimately. We have even developed photos using a pinhole camera.

    GB 50+ white herons must have been a fabulous sight! Isn't it interesting that here in NZ the 'rare and beautiful' Kotoku is now much more common than it ever was when the Maori first saw the small numbers in the early days.

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