04.07.2020
Live Sketching
Good morning everyone!
This week I have a simple little art challenge that I’ve been meaning to post for a while!
During the last few months I’ve had more time to discover other people online who relish nature. One of my favourite discoveries was a website run by Wildlife Kate. If you click on the name you can take a look.
Kate has a variety of live webcam feeds on her site that include bird boxes and small mammal boxes.
I have really enjoyed setting up my lap top and using the clips of video content to draw from. Watching the way that animals and birds move helps to bring a liveliness to sketches and helps them to feel less flat. When we draw from a static photograph we often miss the feeling of movement and structure . This can be a nice way to draw creatures that are also very hard to get close to in the wild .

For an extra challenge I also recommend using books and images to research skeletal structures of your chosen subject. This will help you to understand the movements of an animal and where natural shadows would fall across the shape of a body, especially one that’s covered in feathers or fur making it hard to see detail of the bone structure.
So my challenge is to have a look at Kate’s website, find a clip that captures your interest and use it to make some quick sketches. Once you have some favourites you could also try adding a drop of colour with pencil crayons or water colour as I have done in the examples above.
Enjoy! Have a good weekend.
Best wishes,
Emma
