Nature Sketchbook Retrospective

 

8/14/22 Steller's jay with accurate proportions

Over the past few years, I’ve shown sketches I’ve made of birds (and the occasional persistent squirrel) that have dined at our feeders or in our backyard. Almost all of those small sketches were done in a pocket-size Stillman & Birn Epsilon sketchbook that I keep by the kitchen window. The sketch on the first page is of a junco made on Nov. 26, 2018, which must have been the first year we put the feeders up. For a brief period in 2019, I tried the book as my secondary daily-carry sketchbook (the role now filled by Uglybooks and before that, Field Notes), but I didn’t like its bulkiness. I put it back on the kitchen counter, and it has stayed there ever since.

3/4/22 scribbles of a Bewick's wren

Now, nearly four years later, its 92 pages are almost full. Many pages show nothing more than scribbles trying to capture quick gestures that didn’t amount to much. Small birds, masters of grab-and-go, give me only a few seconds at a time. But it’s fun to thumb through the book now and see my progress, which isn’t necessarily progressive, of course. Just as I had observed more than a decade ago when I first started drawing, my skills are still being built with one-step-forward, two-steps-back.

The Steller’s jays are visiting us at meal times more regularly again this summer. By “meal times,” I mean ours – we eat lunch and dinner on our back deck whenever weather permits, which has been almost daily for several weeks. When the jays see us out there (or even before, when we’re still prepping meals in the kitchen and have the back door open), they wait for us in the trees or, more impatiently, on our deck railing. They know we will eventually put peanuts out for them. They are endlessly entertaining. Occasionally after gorging on peanuts for a while, they will fall into post-prandial preening or resting on our railing, which gives me the best opportunity to sketch.

12/11/19 first attempts at Steller's jays

My first sketch of a Steller’s jay in the small sketchbook is dated Dec. 11, 2019, which was before we started feeding them peanuts and giving them reason to stay longer. When I don’t have enough time to truly see, I’m drawing mostly from memory or even imagination, relying on my brain’s symbol for “bird shape.”

Over time, the repetitive sightings and practice combined with occasional treats of longer durations result in higher accuracy. At the top of this post is a recent sketch that is one of the most accurate to date in terms of Steller’s jay proportions.

When I look back at the older sketches, I see mostly generic bird shapes. It’s rewarding to watch them change into better renderings as I eventually learn to see them instead of think them.

4/1/22 Bewick's wren

12/25/18 Early sketches in this book are mostly symbols of bird shapes

8/4/21 When we started feeding peanuts to the jays, I had a little more time for each gesture, but not enough to capture proportions accurately.

8/4/21

9/9/21

9/9/21

9/25/21 This jay generously gave me many minutes to observe closely.

I keep the small Stillman & Birn sketchbook on the kitchen counter right next to our local bird identification books, binocs and, of course, colored pencils.

“Our” Jays

 

9/5/22 Steller's jay (Prismacolors in Uglybook)

Unlike last year when they began showing up in our yard as early as May, “our” Steller’s jays didn’t begin visiting until July this year. Sporadic at first, now they show up almost every time we are out on the deck for meals (which has been nearly daily for lunch and dinner this summer). I keep the plastic bin of peanuts on the railing while we are out there. After they’ve finished eating the handful I’ve put out for them, often they will sit patiently on the deck railing waiting for more, only a few feet from us. Sometimes they are less patient: They have pecked hard on the bin until it falls off, complaining about the poor service.

Over the summer, I’ve made numerous gesture sketches in graphite when they’ve sat for me because a pencil is always handy. I’ve been wanting to make a color sketch, but I knew that if I got up from the table to go get my colored pencils, that would be the end of their sitting. I decided to select a few colors and put together a compact kit that I could grab every time we went out there for meals. For the sketchbook, I planned on using an Uglybook containing black paper, which I thought would reduce the amount of time I would need to capture the color.

7/25/22

7/25/22

Days went by when the birds ate plenty but didn’t stop to pose for me. Finally on Labor Day, my patience paid off. Two jays showed up, so my sketch at top of post may be a composite of both, and it took a few sittings of a couple of minutes each to grab various details until eventually I finished. I paid my models for their time.

8/21/22

8/21/22

I’m pleased to put my black Uglybook into action even before nocturne season! I’d also like to try using a dark blue Uglybook, so I put one in the kit, too, for the next time the sitters cooperate.

8/22/22

The paper looks blue here, but it's black.

Rickshaw Bagworks Coozy case. The Uglybooks are inside
the main zipped compartment.

My handsome model on 7/25/22

Oh, it looks like I now have 8 Uglybooks in rotation!
Sticker flair from the Etsy shop Ernest Theodore.

Perched

 

9/25/21 Steller's jay

Ever since we started feeding Steller’s jays in our backyard, they have learned to perch on the deck railing and look into our kitchen door when they hear us prepping our lunch, just to remind us to bring the peanuts. Since we had fed them plenty on this day and had already gone back into the house, they were fat and happy at this point. Yet this one remained on the railing, no longer looking through the door but simply enjoying his post-prandial lethargy. He was only a few feet away.

Through the screen door, I had a perfect view for several minutes – the most leisurely drawing opportunity I have ever been given by one of these lovely jays. Maybe he was thanking me for all those peanuts.

Backyard Diners

 

9/9/21 Steller's jay

Nearly every day this summer, we’ve been having our lunches out on the back deck. Most days, our neighborhood Steller’s jays join us: When they hear us through the open kitchen door prepping our lunches, they stand on the deck railing, quietly waiting. They know we’ll be out soon, peanuts in hand. We’ve seen as many as four at a time at our makeshift feeder.

Once in a while, our local squirrels try to get in on the action. We don’t make an effort to feed them, but they and the jays seem to coexist in a non-hostile manner, so we don’t mind if they grab a few peanuts for themselves.

9/9/21 Our local squirrel

Meanwhile, Greg and I are busily grabbing, too – I, my pencil; he, his camera. Some cold and rainy day this winter, I’ll probably use one of his photos to draw a squirrel or jay, wistfully remembering these lovely summer days that are likely to end soon.

9/9/21

9/11/21

Tina’s Top 10 Memorable Sketches of 2022

 

1/5/22 Uncollected trash bins

My annual year-end blog tradition has begun! Today, in the first of four retrospective posts, I review my 10 most memorable sketches of the year. “Memorable” does not necessarily mean my “best” or “favorite” sketches; these simply stand out in my memory as special sketching moments in 2022. (To see retrospective posts of previous years, use the year-end review search label.)

Jan. 5, neighborhood trash bins: A poorly timed snowfall delayed trash pickup in Maple Leaf for weeks – the first time I recall that ever happening. But who am I to protest about having trash cans to sketch? 😉

Jan. 11, amaryllis: An amaryllis I received turned out to be a true gift that kept on giving. Although I don’t usually go in for sketching plants as studies, the daily-changing amaryllis gave me an opportunity to track its growth and even challenged me to try different drawing styles.

1/11/22 amaryllis

3/31/22 imaginative drawing

March 31, drawing from imagination: In February I rather impulsively began a 100-day project to push myself to draw more from memory and imagination. I knew it would be challenging, but I didn’t think it would turn out to be the most difficult drawing challenge I had ever done. This goofy sketch was a breakthrough at a point when I was ready to quit, and it kept me going through the rest of the challenge.

June 25, Greenwood Car Show: One of my favorite summer events, the Greenwood Car Show had been cancelled the previous two years, of course, so I was especially excited and happy to be sketching there again.

6/25/22 Greenwood Car Show

7/25/22 Steller's jay

July 25, Steller’s jay: Like last year, several neighborhood Steller’s jays visited our backyard regularly last summer. In addition to eating our peanuts and entertaining us, they gave me many opportunities to sketch them, sometimes for several minutes at a time, posing at close range.

July 31, Ballard Locks: During a record-breaking heatwave, USk Seattle met at the Ballard Locks after Gail Wong and Virginia Hein gave a workshop there. Although I typically avoid going out when the temperature soars into the 90s, I sweated along with my intrepid clan!

7/31/22 Ballard Locks

Sept. 8, Seattle teacher’s strike: The Seattle Education Association’s strike gave me a rare opportunity for sketch reportage.

9/8/22 Seattle teacher's strike

9/10/22 Smoky sky over Shoreline

Sept. 10, smoky skies: During the first of what turned out to be several periods of wildfire smoke this year, I made this quick sketch at a store parking lot in Shoreline.

Sept. 23, Pike Place Market: After taking a “sketching tour” mini workshop with Gabi Campanario, I “tested” the skills I had learned by sketching this wide view at Pike Place Market. It’s the kind of scope I would have been intimidated to take on before his workshop.

9/23/22 Pike Place Market

Dec. 10, Chinatown Gate: During one of the wettest USk Seattle sketch outings I can remember, rain dripped from my hood as I shivered under the International District light rail station walkway to make this sketch.

12/10/22 Chinatown Gate

Backyard Visitors

6/16/22

 Other than the Steller’s jays we fed regularly last summer and the usual small birds, we don’t see much wildlife in our backyard (and we’ve been disappointed that “our” jays haven’t been visiting as often this year). Two recent visitors, however, were unexpected delights.

The first was a small brown bunny, who sat for quite a while in the middle of the yard. Although we have seen this type of rabbit fairly often on our neighborhood walks the past couple of years, they rarely visit our yard: We don’t grow anything good to eat. I’m sure they have better pickins’ in our neighbors’ gardens. Maybe this bunny knew we didn’t have pets, so it could take an easy break.

7/6/22

More entertaining was the trio of raccoons that showed up one evening at dusk. Two of them noisily got it on, wrestling and rolling around the yard. The weird noise they made was familiar, but I didn’t realize until then that it came from raccoons. The third lazily lounged nearby the amorous couple but discreetly faced away from them as it scratched itself long enough for me to sketch. They all seemed aware of our quiet presence on the back deck but paid us no mind.

Working for Peanuts

8/4/21 Steller's jay

Feeding peanuts to Steller’s jays in the backyard while we feed ourselves on the deck has become our regular mealtime entertainment. I put a handful of nuts out on a tray, and within minutes, the pair that lives nearby takes turns grabbing them. They linger for only a second or two at a time, so sketching is hard work. With each grab-and-go, I manage to make a line or two to refine or correct various gestures that I work on simultaneously. Fortunately, the two birds look nearly identical (I think they are a mated pair, but I can’t tell the male from the female), so I sketch them interchangeably as I add more marks to the same sketches.

When I finally got the proportions right on one, I decided to focus on that one to finish. After I got the drawing done in graphite, I went inside to add a bit of blue to the tail and wings while the details were fresh in my memory. I regretted it later because the color obscures some of the form. So I’m also showing here the graphite-only drawing (at right).

Maybe this winter I’ll use one of Greg’s photos of these lovely birds to make a full-color drawing. Or not. Drawing from life is so much more fun (and certainly more challenging). 

It took about 40 peanuts to make these sketches. Now I know what it means to work for peanuts.

Grab and go!

Backyard Redux: Durer Primary Triad

 

7/4/21 Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer pencils in Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook

When I wrote about looking for a CMYK-based primary triad in the Faber-Castell palette and showed a sketch made with Polychromos, two readers requested seeing the Albrecht Durer triad. My first thought was that the triads would be the same – oil-based Polychromos and water-soluble Durer palettes are designed to be identical, and most hues do match closely – so what would be the point? But of course, the colored pencil geek was tickled to oblige.

Cadmium Yellow (107), Middle Purple Pink (125) and Phthalo Blue (110)

Rather than simply pulling out the same colors I’d found in Polychromos, I started from scratch and examined the Durer palette with fresh eyes. Cadmium Yellow (107) and Phthalo Blue (110) still both seemed to match the model Prismacolor triad (Process Red, Canary Yellow and True Blue) most closely, but this time I chose Middle Purple Pink (125) for the Process Red hue. Middle Purple Pink was an alternate I had considered when I was picking out the Polychromos triad, but I ended up choosing Fuchsia that time. It would be interesting to see how the different “red” would change the triad. For the darkest shadows, I used Dark Indigo (157).

Unlike the sweltering day that I had made my Polychromos tomato, it was a lovely 73 degrees with a breeze on the back deck when I sketched the backyard again. With harder Durer pencils, it took me a bit longer to build up enough layers of color, but as far as the triad goes, I think the three hues worked together well. In fact, I think the cooler Middle Purple Pink is a better choice than Fuchsia as a primary “red.”

Below I show an image of the sketch before spritzing. Somehow the drama of the spritzing moment didn’t seem as high with Durers as it does with Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelles; the higher the pigment content, the greater the change when activated with water. Luckily for me, the spouse guy was in the kitchen just as I was about to do the magic, so I was able to ask him to capture the moment on video. (It’s a three-handed job, and when I’m out urban sketching, I usually have only two. Using my back-deck studio does have benefits.) To view the video, please see my Instagram post.

(Another benefit of my back-deck studio is being entertained by many birds. Among the ones I saw and/or heard as I sketched were grackles, hummingbirds, spotted towhees, juncos, flickers, finches, chickadees, Steller’s jays and crows. Ahhh, summer. . . no matter how long it lasts, it won’t seem long enough.)

The pre-spritz sketch

Lunchtime Companions

 

8/25/25

Although I haven’t been sketching them as much as I did in previous years, I am still enjoying visits from Steller’s jays when I have lunch out on the back deck. When I open the kitchen door and start prepping my lunch, often a jay will stand on the deck railing in anticipation of what they know I’ll bring out: Peanuts.

After they’ve had their fill, they sometimes return to the railing to preen. As one jay took a particularly leisurely time, I kicked myself for not having any sketch materials with me (me – the one who is always lecturing to newbie sketchers about the importance of having sketch materials at all times because one never knows when a sketch opportunity will arise!). I knew that if I went into the house to get something, the moment would be lost, so I just enjoyed the moment.

The next day, a jay had barely grabbed a few peanuts when an opportunistic raccoon showed up. I had no intention of feeding trash pandas, but this one was so used to humans that it would not scare away!

I did what any equally opportunistic sketcher would do: I dashed into the house to grab my bag. A short time later, four adorable kits showed up to dine with mama (all sketches in this post are from life except the last one).

8/20/25

By this time, I had learned my lesson. The next time a jay came to preen, I had a pencil ready. A day later, the same jay (I think) came back for lunch and another leisurely preen fest.

8/25/25

8/26/25

8/26/25

8/26/25

Finally, I wanted to try a jay with a brush pen. I used a reference photo for this.

8/26/25 photo reference

I sometimes put the nut bin out on the railing while I'm prepping my lunch. A jay will tap on the bin to let me know it's lunchtime!

Opportunistic trash panda mom . . . 

. . . and three of her four kits!