John Tubbs - Starting Art Late in Life

Portrait Sketches

Here are a few recent portrait sketches.  I've been focusing a bit more on my drawing, and will be doing so over the remainder of the winter.  There are a three Da Vinci sketch copies here (should be obvious which ones from the style), one from a photo in 'A Day in the Life of Hawaii' photography book, and one from the title page of an Outside magazine.  The last one was done on 11 x 14 inch Fabriano drawing/watercolor paper, while the first three are in a Stillman and Birn 11 x 8.5 inch Alpha sketchbook.

 

Sage Thrasher and Sage Sparrow

These two quick drawings are in graphite from photo references.  Both these species are sage-steppe habitat birds, and except for breeding season when the males are singing on territories they are skulky and are tough to find and see.  In breeding season, they are quite the opposite - visible and singing their heads off.  These sketches are 10 x 8 inch in a Robert Bateman sketchbook.

 

 

Short-eared Owl - Graphite

This is a quick drawing done this evening from a reference photo.  It is 9 x 12 in graphite on Mi Tientes pastel paper.  This is a fun species of owl to observe, in that it often hunts in daytime.  It is a winter visitor to our area. 

 

American Crow and Deschutes Cliffs

Here is an updated WIP onthe Deschutes Cliffs 18 x 24 inch oil piece.  This version is close to being done (it might actually be, I need to let it rest a few days and look at it again).  The other piece is a 9 x 12 graphite on Mi Tientes paper of an American Crow from reference photo I took in our back yard a year or so ago. 

 

 
 

Daily Portrait Sketches

In the WetCanvas.com Art Journals forum, we have a monthly challenge for November - basically the challenge is to do one page per day in your journal and share it with the group.  Some of the participants are sketching miscellaneous items - some have picked a theme.  Since portraits are not my usual subject, and not a strong point of my art, I decided to do portraits for the additional practice.  I'm using photos primarily (completely up to this point in the month) since I don't have live models available.  The sketches are done in graphite, some on regular white sketching paper and some on brown toned recycled paper, on which I used white charcoal or white conte for highlights.  Here are a couple of the 10 portrait sketches that have been done this month so far.

 
 
 

Recent Bird and Wildlife Sketches

Here are a few recent sketches.  I have been doing mostly quick pieces in a nature journal over the last month, working on material to be used for finished pieces down the road. 

The first page is a number of quick sketches of Golden-crowned Sparrows, using video I shot in our yard as a reference.

 

The next group of sketches is Band-tailed Pigeons from another yard video.

 

This sketch is from a friend's photo, of a coyote 'mousing' in a park.  The coyotes jump into the air and down onto an area where they believe there is a mouse.  This scares the mouse, which moves, and the coyote gets a tasty meal.

 

The next sketch is also from a yard video, and shows a couple views of a Red-breasted Nuthatch, and one of a Chestnut-backed Chickadee.

 

The next bird is a winter resident in our area - a Fox Sparrow.  This was done from a photo that I took a couple years ago.

 

 

The next sketch is of an orb weaver spider that was right outside our back door.  I took a closeup picture of it and drew this with Pitt artist brush pens. 

 

This is a Merlin ('Pacific' or 'Black' subspecies, much darker than other subspecies).  It visited a raptor snag near our house and I sketched it, then refined it using a photo reference.

 

This fawn was from a photo I took from our back yard. 

 

This is a ground squirrel that decided to (I think) warm up in the morning sun after a cold night.  He did this by hanging from a barbed wire and standing on another strand - rather comical. 

 

This California Quail was drawn from a photo I took at work a couple years ago.

 

This cougar has lived for 17 years at a nearby zoo - he was born in captivity.  I took a video of him at the zoo and sketched him in several poses from the video. 

 

Ruby-crowned Kinglet - graphite sketches

This species is a very small and very active species - Ruby-crowned Kinglet.  I had two photos of these birds and decided to do some quick graphite (woodless graphite - 2B,4B and 6B) sketches of them.

Golden-crowned Kinglet

This little guy is a Golden-crowned Kinglet, one of two kinglets (the other being Ruby-crowned) that are winter residents in our area.  They are smaller than chickadees and at least as active.  This is done in colored pencil from a photo I took at work. 

Golden-crowned Sparrow and Yellow-rumped Warbler

These are both done in Polychromos colored pencils in an A5 size Moleskine sketchbook.  Both used photos I took of the species over the past few years. 

Anna's Hummingbird

This is a male Anna's Hummingbird guarding its territory at the very top of a conspicuous perch.  Hummers are very feisty and aggressive, belying their 'oh, isn't he cute' appearance.  This is done in Polychromos colored pencils from a photo I took a couple years ago.  It took about an hour while watching TV in the background...

Bird Sketches - Redhead, Ruddy Duck, California Gull, Cooper's Hawk, Green Heron

I've been doing a lot of bird sketching (both in the field and from photos) lately, and so am posting a few of the most recent ones here.  These are all in a small Moleskine sketchbook (5 x 8.5") and done in colored pencils from photographs.

This one is of a Redhead, a type of duck found mostly in the eastern half of my home state, although a very few stray west of the Cascades during migration or in winter.

This fellow, a male (drake) Ruddy Duck is shown in breeding plumage, which in this species has the male sporting an almost ridiculously bright blue bill.  This species has declined in my area over the last couple of decades, so takes some searching to locate.

Next up is a California Gull, which is a summer resident in my home area, but which migrates south in the winter.  Unfortunately I hurried this drawing and missed a major field mark (which is already on the original) - that being a bright red spot on the lower mandible just a bit back from the tip of the bill. 

The next is a juvenile Cooper's Hawk, a relatively small hawk that preys on smaller birds.  This bird stayed around feeders I had put up at work all winter in his first year, and it was comical watching him try to become a proficient hunter.  I actually thought he wouldn't make it through the winter because he was so inept at catching other birds initially, but he made it through.

And finally, one of my favorite wading bird species - a Green Heron.  In this case, the bird in the image (from a photo I took) is a juvenile bird - you can tell due to the coloration and the markings on the breast and belly. 

 
 
 

Bird Sketches - Colored Pencil

I've started keeping two bird sketch journals.  This one is a Moleskine 'large' (about 5.5 x 8.5 inches) sketchbook designed more for dry media than wet media.  The pieces I've been doing in there are usually 15 minute types of sketches, although in a few cases I'm spending more time.  Most (as with the ones that follow) are done in colored pencil, and specifically Faber Castell Polychromos pencils.  I like them better than the more common Prismacolors because the Polychromos are oil-based rather than wax-based and therefore do not have the wax 'blooming' issue that Prismas can have.  Also, if the 'lead' inside the Prismas breaks, you try to sharpen it and it continues to break off until you come to the internal break - which can mean you waste most of a pencil.

In any event, here are a few of the more recent bird sketches in the dry media bird sketchbook.

This is an AMERICAN COOT, a goofy species which has some unique and comical behaviors.  They have an ivory white bill and weird orangeish-green legs.  And, they 'moon' each other when defending their territories - rather comical.  Interestingly, though, they are one of a relatively few number of bird species that can tell if an egg in its nest has been laid by another bird (called 'brood parasitizing') and can also tell if a hatchling is not one of theirs.  Eggs and hatchlings that are not from the nesting pair are destroyed by the bird, something that usually does not happen in other species with brood parasitizing.  Coots lay so many eggs that it is rare for all of even the 'real' ones to survive and so that is the theory for why they are so oriented on destroying a competitive pair's eggs.

This cute little bird is a NORTHERN SAW-WHET OWL - a bird that is smaller than a robin, but still a fearsome predator for the correct size prey, as are all owls. 

The next one is a headshot drawing of a HOUSE FINCH male, a fairly common bird in many areas.

And the last one for this post is a WILLOW FLYCATCHER - which, as you would guess from its name, subsists solely on insects.  This bird belongs to the Empidonax genus, which is a notoriously difficult group to visually ID - birders rely on vocalizations in many cases for a positive ID.  This bird gives a wheezy/raspy 'sneeze' that sounds like FITZ-beewwww.

 

Final Master Copy - "The Herring Net" (after Winslow Homer)

This is the 'final' version of the big in-class project I did for the school term just completed.  It is 30x48" and is a copy of Winslow Homer's 1885 oil painting "The Herring Net".  The size of my copy is the exact size of the original, making it a doubly educational process to do.  My respect and admiration for Homer went up considerably during this process.  An early post showed the various in-process steps used to get to this point (value drawing in black & white on paper; a line drawing of the canvas from the value drawing, using the grid system; grisaille underpainting in b&w on the canvas, then finally the application of color layers.  It was an excellent learning experience, and I am definitely going to do at least a couple master copies down the road. 

Female Red-winged Blackbird - Colored Pencil

This image was done in about 2 1/2 hours while watching TV in the background.  The reference was a photo I took near our house a couple years ago.  This bird is the female Red-winged Blackbird, which obviously looks very different from the male, which gives the species its name.  The females confuse people often since they look so different than the males.  I used Polychromos colored pencils for this and it was done in a Moleskine sketchbook, utilizing both pages - so it is about 8 1/2 x 11" total.  I was pleased with how this one came out.

Bird Sketches - Black-throated Blue Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, Ovenbird, Northern Waterthrush, Carolina Chickadee, Merlin

These are more bird sketches done on a quick east coast trip.  All were done in colored pencil in a Moleskine sketchbook - 5 1/2 x 8 1/2", taking between 20 and 40 minutes per sketch.  Several are east-coast species that we don't get to see out in the Pacific Northwest that I was able to see at Heinz National Wildlife Refuge (Tinicum Marsh) very close to the Philadelphia International Airport. 

These are done either using photos that I took as a reference, or referencing a field guide or magazine photo.

BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLER

MAGNOLIA WARBLER

OVENBIRD

NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH

CAROLINA CHICKADEE

MERLIN

 
 
 

Bird Sketches - Lincoln's Sparrow, Varied Thrush, Band-tailed Pigeon, American Goldfinch, Song Sparrow

These were all done as quick sketches, using colored pencil, during a quick five-day trip to the east coast and back.  These are all done in a Moleskine sketchbook, about 5 1/2 x 8 1/2" and each one was between 20 and 40 minutes.  Several were done in the airport or on the plane.  All used photo references, either photos I took of the birds or a field guide. 

LINCOLN'S SPARROW

VARIED THRUSH

BAND-TAILED PIGEON

AMERICAN GOLDFINCH

SONG SPARROW

 
 
 

Gary

This is a 12x9" quick (1 to 1 1/2 hour) sketch of my fellow band member Gary, done from a photo in Conte pencil on sketchbook paper.  Portraits are definitely not my primary area of interest, but I am taking figure drawing classes to help my ability to see (and draw what I see) even if it's not something I do beyond classes.  Friends thought this was a good likeness of Gary (a previously nonexistent occurrence with my attempts at portraits) so I viewed this one as a success.  I'll be trying it in a bigger format and using more color for class homework this quarter.