Deer Birds: can you stay still for a while? You might have noticed that my drawings of deer and birds like in the Raven’s Art and Messing Around With Boats posts have improved. This is because I’ve been drawing them individually, improving my drawings by direct life study as with my pencil pieces from 2020. Now as with the dip pen studies I first did of geese many moons ago you can imagine that you have to draw fast, and you do. It also improves my memory skills, trying to draw what I’ve seen briefly. Birds unlike deer can move very fast!
First we have studies of swans and geese mainly – and a few ducks from the River Thames. I always struggle with the necks which are very particular but they are always moving them! I was trying to get various posed – like the preening and diving ones – hard to get with swans as they are very self-concious and the minute you start looking at them they stop doing what they were doing and look at you. Probably hoping for some food!
Canadian geese are usually my favourite to draw – and in my experience are quite friendly and happy to pose, so hence trying other trickier birds to study. Not sure why they are called Canadian geese, these ones are actually British! I was focusing as well more on getting the reflections, that’s something I always miss when I draw them in my landscape pieces and have to add it in later.
Deer me it was cold when I drew these deer (enough with the puns – Joke Ed), this was either late 2020 or most likely early 2021 as I think there was snow on the ground. Like the quick drawings I did recently of rowers, the drawing got very primal and caveperson like. Partly speed and partly comes with the subject, but I was interested in how I could simplify them into a few lines. Again easier to draw than birds, they don’t fly away but they do move around a lot.
I did have a really nice long conversation with a guy in the park from Portugal who was a musician living here, but affected by Brexit…I talked a lot about VAT and all that, as he wanted to import his stuff here and didn’t know if he’d get charged again! It’s a nightmare, they seem to have taken away the exemption for personal stuff or personal sales, and the gift level is £39, so I have avoided buying vintage pens abroad because of this.
Deer Studies 1, Bushy Park, Fountain Pen and wash/brush, A4 sketchbook 
Deer Studies 2, Bushy Park, Fountain Pen and wash/brush, A4 sketchbook
And then we have the graphitint and fountain pen studies I did at one of the ponds in the Waterhouse Woodland Gardens in Bushy Park. As well as the usual geese and ducks, we have I think some Mandarin ducks – the brightly coloured ones. I was fascinated by the colours, the reds, browns, blues and greens, surprising when you look closer how many colours there are.
They aren’t native, they were introduced for ornamental ponds and private houses here and escaped. They do seem to make a lot of noise and be quite bolshy with other birds, a bit like the standard geese (chinese geese are even worse). Canada geese are always chill with me, dunno what that’s aboot, eh? 😉
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