I’ve just started a Domestika course, Naturalist Animal Illustration with Procreate
and illustrator and 3D modeler Román García Mora has asked us to choose an animal or bird and put together a reference sheet about it. As we were heading for the Thornes Park duck pond yesterday I decided to go for Canada geese, a bird that I can guarantee being able to find if I need to go back for further reference.
Photographic reference is fine but Román believes that the way to understand your subject is to draw it yourself, preferably from life in its natural habitat. Failing that the zoo or a natural history museum gives an opportunity to learn more.
I’d be surprised to find a stuffed Canada goose in any of our local museums but I do have a Victorian stuffed bird that I can use for the purposes of the tasks we’ve been set in this exercise so I’ve drawn this juvenile great-crested grebe.
The unfortunate grebe was shot on Bretton Park Lake at a time when the species was all but extinct in the area because its plumage was valued as ‘grebe fur’ in the fashions of that time. Unfortunately I don’t have an exact date.
I’m following Román’s technique for sketching in Procreate, working on a light grey background and starting with what he calls a ‘stain’, a rough tonal outline of the bird. I’ve downloaded the Procreate brushes that he used in the online demonstration and used them as you might use chalks, tonal washed and pencil.
Link
Domestika online art courses