Seabird Drawing June 2022

Posted June 2022 (Archived)

I have just returned from a week of drawing and painting seabirds along the East Lothian coast in the company of a group of wonderful and talented wildlife artists. Sadly, despite perfect weather, no landings on the Bass Rock were possible this year due to a severe and devastating outbreak of avian flu amongst the gannets. In fact the whole week seemed more than usually challenging for both birds and artists! Anyway, here are a few of the field sketches.

First up, a selection of kittiwakes. These were all done at Dunbar where there is a lovely colony on the old castle walls by the harbour. I think kittiwakes are arguably our most attractive gull and I find their quiet sleeping and resting forms especially beautiful. Not a lot of action here. More still life. One of my Aunties used to tease me regularly about drawing sleeping birds with hidden beaks and legs, claiming that I did it simply to avoid all the tricky bits... Well yeah... she was right of course!

The pages are all approximately A3 size, except where stated in the caption.

Next we have some pastel pencil studies and then a series of charcoal drawings. The charcoal drawings seem to have a very different energy to the pencil sketches.

A splash of watercolour over the charcoal

The one below is pastel pencil and watercolour — a fairly typical way of working for me. Not the best composition this one. And that bit of dangly rope should be bright red.

And next a new medium. I have occasionally used (fairly thick tube) acrylics a bit in the studio and I hate them. Horrible stuff. I could hardly wait to finish the tubes and throw them out. But for this week I bought a few soft body acrylics which are much more fluid. I didn't have chance to try them out before, so it was straight in using them in the field. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised — they proved to be quite nice to work with. My usual way of working is to draw and then add colour. But these are "real" paintings, with no drawing: straight in with the brush.

Next up we have a few sketches of arctic terns on the Isle of May. I've not drawn terns for a very long time and really struggled with these. If anything, the birds were too close!

Finally here are a few pictures from St Abbs. This is a magical place with stunning scenery and fabulous seabird colonies. The air is filled with the sound (and sometimes smell) of seabirds and everywhere there is action. Gannets have started to colonise the cliffs here, spilling over from the Bass Rock. Alas, I really didn't manage to do St Abbs justice this year. First a couple of acrylics, both done very quickly.

Below is a watercolour that really doesn't work. I don't like the composition and I'm not sure why I persevered with it.

The gannets are often seen sat (and nesting) surrounded by guillemots. They look all squashed up together, but with the right angle of view it appears that each gannet is actually surrounded by a space with a radius defined by the stretch of neck and beak!

With this last one, it is a pity that the bottom right Guillemot is not looking back into the picture, rather than having its head chopped off facing out. It is funny how these things are obvious after the event! A bit of acrylic could fix that, but I think I'll leave it to annoy myself, and remind me to be more thoughtful next time!