Drawing Lab 44: Birds

This lab was super fun.  Draw birds from photo references using vine charcoal.  I have mad drawing-from-photo-reference skills from years of practice in junior high school and high school.  What's up with that?  Why didn't any of those teachers take me outside and teach me how to draw a real thing?  Why do I still have to struggle with this as an adult?  But I digress.  I can copy with the best of them.
I was supposed to keep it sketchy and light - so I probably overdid the details a tad - but - copying!

anyway - charcoal.  I love charcoal.  I love the big bold lines, I love the lights and darks, I love the smudges (just a bit - not too much or it gets muddy!) I love the texture, I love the mess on my fingers… But… then I have a charcoal drawing.   And while I love the mess on my fingers while I'm drawing - when I'm done drawing, I'm ready to be done with it.  I hate putting charcoal in my sketchbook and getting my fingers, clothes, every other drawing messy every time I flip through the book.  And storing a charcoal drawing is no better - it just gets all over everything it's near.  So I never use charcoal.  I never use pastel and I love pastel in the same way.  It's a sad sad state of affairs.

So for this lab I dug around and found an ancient, ancient (seriously ancient) newsprint pad that already had charcoal drawings in it from high school (high school!  I still have art supplies from high school!  More than I care to admit really) To do these drawings.  Such fun.  And working large is so delicious.  I never get to draw large like that anymore.  I should do this more often.  ya.

And someday, when I'm a real-live art teacher.  I will make my students go outside to draw with charcoal.