Today’s prompt is muddy, and I’ve taken some real life inspiration from a beach side walk I did today (I know… I’ve left Mark at home working and I’m having a cheeky seaside break by myself for a couple of days!!). Anyway, I saw these black headed gulls paddling around in a muddy puddle and enjoyed watching them,so I took a few photos and had a go at drawing them. The photos are awful as I had to zoom in to get the birds’ shapes, as they flew away if I got too close.
I’m finding I’m getting stuck with how to represent texture and shading at the same time. This is water surrounded by mud and then grass, but with darker patches of grass as they were on slopes leading down to the water. I don’t think that comes across in the drawing, but I really don’t know how I could have achieved it. Still, it was fun drawing the birds in different postures (that I took from different pictures to create my own scene!) . And it was funny to realise that their puddle was a bit like the shape of the UK, though with Ireland on the wrong side!
Also I had a go at a bit of rock balancing
And I discovered that someone had started to line up pebbles, and I couldn’t resist adding a few of my own (it was more tricky than I anticipated as I had to wedge some of them up on smaller stones to get the to stay where I wanted them)
And finally I had dinner in a restaurant looking out over the sea where I got to watch the most amazing and dramatic sunset from my seat.
Tomorrow’s plan is to find a cafe overlooking the sea and spend lots of time with my book and my sketch pad🤗.
Julia's Creative Year 