As promised, here is another timelapse video of me sketching with my watercolour pencils.

This one worked out better in theory and in the practice session than when I filmed it but it lets me explain some approaches I use.

It begins with what I use- a Pacific Black Duck feather, two small paintbrushes, Dark Sepia Faber Castell Albrecht Durer watercolour pencil, Black FaberCastell Polychromos (coloured ) pencil, Staedler sharpener.

I will walk you through what I do. HINT – you can change the speed of viewing by clicking on the three dots. Change Playback speed from Normal to .025

1. For feather drawing only, I start with a Black coloured pencil. This is the only time I use a coloured pencil and not a watercolour pencil. I draw in the spine (rachis) of a feather. Once I have mark this on the page, I don’t want it to move, which is why I use the coloured pencil. Other watercolour pencil pigment is added and I will move the pigment around on the page, sometimes over this mark.
2. I block out the shape, notches and major area of the feather in the colour I am drawing in (ie not HB pencil ), which in this case is Dark Sepia. I just used one colour in this example in the hope it shows the basics. Blocking out the shape also makes sure it fits on the page.
3. I add more colour (ie more pigment) to the darker parts of the feather.
4. I use this pigment to sweep the colour across the feather. It will get lighter and paler.I use this to get a light colour close to that spine.
5. Colour and detail are built up on top of the colour that is on the page. It involves waiting for the page to dry before more can be added,
6. The fun bit is the plume at the end of the feather. You can go a bit wild here,
7. Usually, the final marks are to define individual fine barbs of the feather, the darkening of the darkest colour areas and the hard line of an edge.
8. I sharpen my pencil a lot when drawing feathers – lots of fine details.
9. You will notice I also take colour off the tip of the pencil. This is a way of picking up pigment to add to the page. The pencil tip will get soft this way, so allow time for it to harden and then sharpen again.
10. Controlling the amount of water on the page controls the spread of colour, All learnt through practice.

In this link have “work in progress” photos of drawing a feather from 2010.

I have a series of feather and nest drawings available on my ETSY website.

happy sketching. Let me know how you go.