I have had a nice long weekend off, and I always find it quite difficult to motivate myself back into work mode after a holiday of any description. It’s the perennial problem of needing a proper break but then feeling rusty and vague and procrastinatey when the work day dawns. I decided to start with some sketches from a webcam – it gives a more natural viewpoint than Google images or Instagram which tend to be perfect and therefore not very realistic.
I really like the Cornell Lab of Ornithology livestream from their feedercam in Ithaca, New York. I’m working on illustrations from this part of US at the moment so it’s helpful for me to watch how the birds move and interact so that I can both paint and write about them accurately.
I watched a group of Red-Winged Blackbirds ravaging the peanuts and suet blocks, and noticed how they seemed to adopt some impressive poses to access the food:
This really made me chuckle and I started looking out for similarly yogic blackbirds. There are three in the page below, can you spot them?
There are also some Mourning Doves, a woodpecker, a Blue Jay and a Tufted Titmouse. A Northern Cardinal was loitering on the wire fence at the back of the shot so I drew him too, even though he didn’t visit the feeders while I was watching.
Tomorrow I must get on with writing!
