Bird on a Wire

The only bird I saw on the way to work this morning, well, at least the only bird to stay still long enough for me to take a photo was a magpie, sitting on a telephone wire.

For some reason, it seems very regal there, by itself, looking out over the rest of the world.

Looking for shines, I'm sure...

I Tink I Saw, I Tink I Saw a Puddycat

On the way to work this morning, apart from the sun trying to blind me with its harsh gaze (and yet caress me with its warmth, confusing), fighting the urge to just curl up on the beautiful, soft grass and have a nap, serenaded by birdsong and the wind in the trees, I heard a commotion.

In one of the trees, a few birds were chirping away like mad, because a cat was leisurely walking beneath their tree. The cat didn't seem to be in any particular hunting mood though, and when it saw me, it slunk off in the aloof way that only cats can, as if to pretend it didn't care.

That's right, cat, walk away.

Oh, and then I saw a cute bird, that jumped up into a tree when I walked by.

Look! It's looking at me. Got a few good close up photos of it.

Isn't it just cute? Chirp chirp chirp.

This lil' fella made my morning into work.

Trivia in the Pub (7)

Another night of trivia in the pub.

I got there way earlier than everyone else, because I went straight after work, and everyone had to get there from other events. Excuses, I say.

So, after fighting for a table large enough to accomodate our group (And here it helps if the Trivia Mistress likes you, since she can use her mighty authority to make it happen), we started trivia. We did really well in the first round, moderately so in the second.

So, the drawings, as usual, loosely inspired by the trivia questions as well as suggestions (a.k.a. demands) from people (a.k.a. A particular person sitting next to me at the time. You know who you are.)

So we have Mozart, some gentleman, Hamlet, some practice doodles at the top, a laid out dinner table, a lady, the Mona Grinner and a spider. (Eek!).


Here, after being told to go to a new page, we have a practice cheerleader, followed by an actual cheerleader (I was told to draw her, ok?), a skull, a necklace, a pirate, a pirate ship, a ring, a cossack (attempt, anyway), a frog, a tree and the tree of evolution (made up).

Also in there somewhere is something I was *trying* not to draw this week (honest), but a glass of wine will do that to me.

Oh, and we lost trivia on the jeopardy question. Order of mammals with the most species. We answered ungulants, where the actual answer was rodents. Alas. Damn rodents.

Where Ideas Come From

When I run out of ideas...

Magpie, the Return

I found the magpie again on the way to work. It might even have been the same one, who knows.

Got a few good photos, then a woman came around the corner and I straight for the bird, I was sure for a moment that the bird was about to fly off, but fortunately, it just stayed ahead of the woman, keeping its distance before flying off to the side, so I was able to get more photos after all.


I wonder what people think when they see me taking photos. "What, has he never seen a magpie before? Weirdo". Heh, doesn't stop me appreciating them.

I'm also quite glad the magpies aren't attacking me.


The danger! It's almost palpable.

Birds of a Feather

On the way to work, I swear these galahs just aren't trying anymore. They're making it too easy, sitting on the ground, eating, waiting for me to come up and take photos. Where's the wild spark in their eyes? The rebel streak, playing hard to get? Gone. Like so many childhood dreams in the wind. *melodramatic sigh*

Anyway, the good thing is I got nice close-ups.

This galah gave me the stare as I walked by.

Then hopped up, probably figuring I wasn't a threat. Or just because the road is not a safe place for a bird.

And for some reason, when I see the galah below, I can't help but think "Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go!".

Then saw two more galah on a wire. Maybe they're the same ones. Following me...


Almost got to work when I heard a magpie call (over the sound of Gimme!Gimme!Gimme! playing in my ears).

And a closer photo.

It occurred to me as I walked closer, that I couldn't remember when nesting season was. I've been attacked by magpies before. It's not fun. They glide in on silent wings of death from above and strike at you like a hammer cracking a macadamia nut, resulting in not too dissimilar a sound but with the added inconvenience of blood seeping out.

I hope everyone appreciates me putting my life on the line for these photos. That's all I'm trying to say.

Trivia in the Pub (6)

Managed to get to trivia at the arranged time this week, which was good. There was a show at the theatre nearby, but it was due to start at 8:00, so there weren't crowds of people passing the time in our pub, which was also good.

I didn't have to go to the pub straight from work, so I didn't have my notebook with me, but I still had paper on me. I always do. It's the hallmark of a true artist. Or something.

Anyway, these are this week's sketches.


We have, starting from top left. No, wait, let's do it in chronological order. A vampiress, a queen, a lady's head, for which the rest of the body was drawn later (censored for the kiddies), an adaptation of the Birth of Venus painting. A Swiss papal guard. The Pope, Jesus, Jesus getting a mug-shot, New-York, some cats, a howling wolf, a tree silhouette, a little dog, some emoticons, some necklaces (upside down bottom of page), and in the bottom left corner, upside down, some tomb stones.

And that's everything.

Oh, and we lost.

... this time.

Galahs galore :)

I was walking along when I saw these guys (or gals), thankfully before I got too close and scared them away. Quickly got out my camera and started taking photos. I do wish my camera had more zoom, but I managed to get fairly close all the same.

Here they are bunched together.


"Hey, let's go exploring over there." Said Hansel to Gretel. Hansel is the one closest to me.


Then two decided to fly away, I must have been too close, but the others stayed, so I got some nice photos of them.

Photos on the way to/from work

Here's a photo I took on the way home the other day on the way home. Hadn't gotten around to uploading it yet, so here it is.



The way the sunset hits the clouds was just amazing.

Here are a few other photos I took this morning, on the way to the office. I love this tree. Pink leaves are just awesome. (Say what you will).


If you look closely, you'll see a bee! It's a bit dark, but there's not much I could do about that.

And I really like this photo:

This kind of thing makes my trip into work bearable. It's about enjoying the simple things sometimes...

Angel Dream

Was listening to Abba - I have a Dream on the way home and thought of this.

This was a very very quick sketch, under 20 minutes.

I hope to have sweet dreams myself.

Trivia at the Pub (5)

Had to rush to trivia from North Sydney, after the last day of the training course I was on for work. This meant I got to trivia late, unfortunately. Or at least, later than I normally get there, so that we can have dinner. I still got there before trivia proper started, so that's ok.

On the first page of sketches, we have a wizard (with a hat that appears to have a shoe on the end of it), a vampire, a teddy-bear and some faces.

On the second page, I was asked to draw the Thinker, which was hard, and I had to give up, not remembering what pose the statue is in. However, I managed to draw Scream passably, a gnome on a mushroom (cute), a giant sand-worm, Dianne as a dunce, (at her request), for not knowing something (I forget what, so it can't have been that important). Finally, a ballerina and some ice-cream.

Dianne drew some characters, the left supposed to be me. The right, who knows? I drew my versions of both below. Then we have the high heel shoe I practiced before drawing the woman's shoes, a witch, a pirate, stegosaurus, a fish, an African seal and a club (for seal clubbing), which was what the trivia question was about. I wouldn't hit seals, I swear.


And that was Trivia.

Oh, by the way, those drawings I did for my IBM presentation? My team won first prize thanks to that, and we all got a bottle of wine. Hooray!

Star Trekking

Here's a pic I'm done with for now. Might come back and tweak some things later though, we'll see.

As I've decided to try and do from now on, I'll show the pencils, then inks and finally coloured stages, to show how I arrive at the final image.

This was drawn according to specific instructions. Hope you like it.

First, pencils. By pencils, I mean a rough drawing on the computer, then make it transparent, so I can use it as a guide, but see where I'm inking.

Then we have the inks and the speech balloons.

Finally, we have colour. I liked colouring the screen outputs, makes for a nice effect, I feel.


I could and probably should go in and do some more shading, but this'll do for now.

And would you believe I've never really watched any Star Trek episodes?

Sketching for IBM Presentation

Today and tomorrow, at work, we graduates are being treated to a training program, to increase our business acumen. It involves a business simulation, where we get to pretend we are the executives of an initially failing company.

Tomorrow, we have to give an Annual General Meeting where we talk about how the business has been faring under our control.

My part of the presentation is the goals and objectives.

This is to represent the situation when we took over the company. It pays to remind people how bad things were.

And the following is us looking forward from the wreckage, to brand new possibilities.

The training coordinator said we had to make our presentations fun and interesting.

I think this should help.

The Never Ending Battle

One of the hardest parts of being an artist is feeling the stare of a blank piece of paper and having to think of something to draw. It's as if the blankness of the paper makes your mind go blank too. Then once you do manage to think of something to draw, you've got to summon up the courage to make the first line.

It is a battle that has claimed many souls.

Anyway, that's all to explain why I sketched this on the way to work.

Hands like Icicles.. and Birds.

Ok, so no sketch on the way to work today, on account of the fact that it was freezing and my fingers would have snapped off trying to draw anything.

However, as is starting to become usual, I have photos of birds instead.

Not sure if this is the same bird as yesterday, but I'll assume it is. I've named it Jack (a la Sparrow). He's playing coy and pretending not to follow me.

This is the mythical Birdus Flyawayus, otherwise known as me being too slow to take the photo.

Managed to sneak up on this one. There were a few in the tree, but I didn't manage to get a photo of them all together.

At the entrance (or close enough) to the IBM complex, this bird walked up to the tree while I was watching and started tapping, looking around for insects. It feels odd to see the road in the photo.

And that's this morning's bird watching. :)

Trivia in the Pub (4)

Last night I had to walk to the bus stop, rather than getting a lift from a colleague, since he's on holidays.

On the plus side, that gave me a chance to take this photo:

Then it was trivia time, and I ended up (somehow) with a full page of sketches and doodles.

Most are because of the questions that came up or things we were talking about at our table. I'm not saying I'm suggestible in any way, but when I hear something, odds are it's the next thing I draw. :)

Oh, and we won!

I seem to have lost the photo I took of the board, which showed the team names properly, but I'll pinch this one a friend took.

It just so happened that the scores were in order on the board. Quite the coincidence. :)

Birds of Arizona

Ok, so I don't have to walk quite as far as Arizona (In the U.S.A, for anyone who wasn't sure), to get to work, it just feels that way. Just thought I'd put up a photo of some swallows nesting on a building in a military base near Tucson that Jamie sent me.

Aren't they cute?

This is starting to turn into an Ornithology blog, so I promise to at least have some sort of scribble up in the next post, so I can at least pretend it's still a sketch blog. :)

No Sketches... but Look! Birdies!

Ok, so I didn't get any sketching done while I was waiting for the bus today, but I did get lots of photos of birds. Does that get me off the hook? ... No? You haven't even seen them yet!

Here.


Stay still, little bird! You've made it impossible for me to take a clear picture. Sigh. You're lucky you're so adorable.


Aha! Finally found myself some kookaburras. Well, they were so far away I couldn't tell for sure that that's what they were until I got on my laptop and edited the photo. I wonder what they're looking at...


Some galahs sitting in a tree. I really like this photo for some reason. These guys were really quiet, and with my headphones in, I wouldn't have noticed them except a man who was on his morning walk had stopped to have a look at them, which made me stop to see what he was looking at. I'm glad I did.

Just across the road, in this field (which gives you an idea how far out from the city I work), were some cockatoos. Noisy critters.

Birds everywhere!

How was that? Does it make up for a lack of sketches?

It'll have to, for now. :)

Riding Dinosaurs!

Phew, this image took ages.

Going to show you guys all the steps in this one, so you appreciate it.

First I get the sketch down, using loose lines, going over things until I'm happy with what I'm doing.

Then it's time to ink the image.

Finally the easier job of putting down the flat colours, basically filling in the spaces between lines. This is where the magic wand tool in Photoshop comes in handy.

And finally, it's a matter of giving everything some volume by adding shadows and highlights. Then some clouds, to make the sky interesting.


And voila!

Enjoy.