Today it has rained solidly and I have missed any chance to go out and draw.
Last Sunday, I got up early to go out, leaving the family to sleep in. I wanted to walk round the area I had seen the buzzards roosting. I was caught on my way out by my 8 year old daughter who decided she would come too. She agreed that she too would draw the landscape on condition I would then find somewhere to buy her breakfast.
So we only walked half a mile or s up the path but were rewarded with buzzards calling from several directions. She noticed the first to launch into the air and we watched it circling and feinting as it hunted.
We stopped in the corner of a field. The exercise is to structure the composition in light watercolour and work into it in conte crayon. I show here both our sketches. We shared the same palette but my paper had more weight and texture than hers. I also took a knife to mine to recapture the highlights on the barley heads. Composition is interesting. I realise I am trying to create big blocks of foreground colour in the sketch but to make this work I need to make the trees recede and give more strength to the sky. I had hoped to explore this idea again today, but as I say, it is raining solidly.
kestrelart 
Both are lovely!
…such freedom and movement
Lovely paintings, and did you find somewhere for breakfast?
Thanks
I have to confess that we were joined by my wife and son and had an expensive breakfast at Loch Fyne, which hadn’t been the original intention.
Love them both. These are the times your kids will remember!
Perhaps its just the image on the Internet, but the foreground seems a bit too consistent and ‘heavy’. Bringing some of those scraped highlights right into the foreground might lift it.
Great sketches and what a talented child. Runs in the family. I often wonder if it’s genetic.
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