Blue Wrens

When I have a pencil in my hand, drawing the details of a quirky animal or bird, I am totally happy, in a meditative, calm, state where time stands still. I love to draw, every day. I love the look of detailed drawings. If given a few moments to do anything I like, I choose to draw.

- Janet Matthews

STEP ONE

Fairy-wrens are very social birds and spend a lot of time on the ground, so the theme of this image is the welcoming of one bird to a new group against the complex backdrop of the floor debris. All my works are carefully designed, including all the background details, negative spaces and the amount of colour to grey lead. The latter is kept in my mind rather than put into the initial drawing. I like to keep some of the development spontaneous so the work keeps its freshness and life. Using a smooth paper and an F pencil, I sketched the work, firstly using blobs of shapes to place the birds and the main background elements, then redrawing each bird accurately. Lots of erasing at this stage, including moving the birds around the page. Once I was happy with the entire design, I transferred the drawing to my sheet of Fabriano Artistico hot press paper with my F pencil, using my lightbox. Therefore, the good paper is kept pristine, having had no erasing done on it and the lines are very light so they won’t show through the colour pencil.

STEP TWO

Beginning with the “black” areas, I build up the first layer, making sure to create the darker and lighter tones straight away, with a dark blue pencil. I don’t use a black pencil at all, preferring to create black with Faber Castell Polychromos Prussian blue and Dark Sepia. I generally like to build one area at a time to a fairly finished level so the image appears one piece at a time. I use a short stroke to create the feather pattern instead of ‘colouring in’ the areas.

STEP THREE