Thank you to everyone who was able to join in for this session. If you sketched along during the session or during the replay, I’d love to hear how it went. Also, have you tried field sketching live birds? Let me know what you love about it, and what you find most challenging!
Kelly shared her approach to field sketching, emphasizing that mindset is crucial—focusing on observation and species identification rather than creating a “pretty” page reduces frustration. She uses a tiny leather-bound sketchbook with pencil for active birding to capture shapes and field marks without anatomical precision. For focused species work, Kelly first captures gesture sketches in pencil. Once warmed up, she moves on to non-photo blue pencil (which John Muir Laws also uses) to establish overall bird shape, followed by watercolor and colored pencil for detail. When Kathy asked how to sketch distant birds that don’t stay still, Kelly explained she uses binoculars for quick sketches or a scope when birds return to the same perch, allowing greater magnification and hands-free drawing. She emphasized that even tiny sketches provide value for remembering observations.
The group practiced gesture sketching with progressively shorter time limits, starting with two-minute sketches of Sea Rocket and Imani, then moving to one-minute and 30-second sketches. Kelly emphasized keeping lines loose by moving from the elbow rather than the wrist, and focusing on distinctive features like the collar, headband, short bill, and head-to-body ratio. She demonstrated how to capture the bird’s pose and key field marks rather than anatomical accuracy, noting that even quick sketches convey the bird’s essence. Participants were encouraged to embrace the warm-up period, as initial sketches often aren’t strong but improve with practice. The exercises showed how field conditions require increasingly rapid sketching as birds move.
Kelly demonstrated a complete sketch of Imani using a non-photo blue pencil for initial light construction lines, establishing proportions, head-to-body ratio, eye-bill line, and key angles (forehead slope, bill underside, leg positions). She then added watercolor shadows using Moonglow (a purple mix from Daniel Smith Watercolors) to create form and dimension, followed by the plover’s characteristic sandy-gray body color, bright orange legs, and orange bill. Kelly added dark details with Jane’s Gray watercolor for the eye (with a highlight to show life) and black bill tip. Finally, she used colored pencils—violet brown for shadows, violet gray for light definition—to add feather details and wing definition.
Kelly demonstrated sketching a plover chick using only pencil, showing how the same construction principles apply: establishing head and body circles, eye-bill line, leg positions, and key angles. She noted that babies have an even more similar head-to-body ratio than adults, making them “even cuter.” After checking proportions with light lines, Kelly erased extra construction lines, then added shadows with light hatching to show form. She added dark details including the bill, eye with highlight, nostril, and feather markings (wing stripes, head markings, eye-line details). Kelly emphasized stopping before over-working the sketch and noted that toned paper would allow white colored pencil to create the fluffy texture more effectively, though the pencil-only approach successfully conveys the chick’s character.
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