Behind The Scenes - Drawing a Forest Kingfisher

For my ‘Wings on Wood’ and other series I set myself a task of completing twelve drawings in one month. This was a return to smaller works, still continuing with this year’s theme of black backgrounds.

I was under pressure to finish all twelve drawings but alongside the stress and frenetic pace came a sense of freedom. I no longer had time to indulge in being meticulous. It was ‘get it down and get it down fast’. For a perfectionist this has been liberating. It has provided a legitimate excuse to work at speed. Most exciting to me is that I retain a high level of enthusiasm for the work since I am not faced with days of painstaking pencil strokes but must create a drawing in a limited time frame.

This meant I didn’t video much of the process, only taking an occasional progress snap. What I did manage to video shows the loosening of my style in ‘scribbling’ the elements down. Yet, the scenes still retain detail and ambience. To me they are fleeting moments caught on paper. The birds hopping along branches twittering to one another, or perched still, illuminated by strobes of sun.

The video (below) is of a forest kingfisher on a mossy branch isolated in a shaft of sunlight. These bird drawings have in common the use of soft sun spangles or blurred trees and wood blending into black. For this drawing I added spotlit ferns that, like the kingfisher, emerge from the shadows.

Superb quality Giclée prints of this artwork are available here.

Click on the image to view the video