Practice, practice, practice... Pushing my boundaries

One of the things I have wanted to do ever since I started this drawing lark is to draw birds from life - to capture that moment in time, to capture movement, behaviour, interactions. The drawings and paintings of artists who do this well have a life and energy and a sort of immediacy that it is harder to get from drawings from photos. The Norfolk artist, James McCallum, is a good example, and Darren Woodhead, but there are lots of other artists and nature journalers who produce wonderful and inspiring work.

I draw plants from life whenever I can and that seems to give more life to the drawing than if it was drawn from a photo. Birds, however, present a whole different set of challenges. I have tried to draw them from life a couple of times with pretty unimpressive results. There are several difficulties involved. The darn things just won't stay still and you start drawing them in one position, then look up again and they've moved and look completely different! Very often, you need binoculars or a scope to see them properly in the first place, so there is the problem of looking through the binoculars, putting them down and trying to remember what you've seen to draw it, and then you can't quite remember the exact shape, so you pick up your binoculars again, but the bird has moved, etc., etc.

However, this is a skill, and like other skills it can be learnt with practice. It seems to me that there are several different skills involved, some of which I'm already along the road of acquiring and others that I'm pretty abysmal at, so that is where the work is required. I can already draw a reasonable representation of a bird from a photo. But to draw from life you need to be able to draw quickly - mmm, ok that's not really me yet - and you need to have a good visual memory to be able to quickly get on paper what you've just seen because you often don't have the luxury of being able to keep looking at the bird in the same position. This is definitely not me, and, along with drawing more quickly, this is where I need to do the most work.

So that's what I've been doing, although not with live birds yet! I have been using my photos to practise making quick sketches of lots of different birds - some more successful than others. I give myself three minutes or less per sketch and try to capture the character of the bird. I try not to rub out incorrect lines, just make another more correct line. It's quite a liberating way to draw, and the idea is not to be too precious about it and try to capture something of the moment. If it's awful, it doesn't matter. I rather like the rough-round-the-edges sketchiness, although I sometimes find it difficult to stop myself adding a bit more detail to some of them or tweaking them a bit after the three minutes is up!

I'm lucky that I have quite an archive of photos to practise with.

Taking it up a level and one step closer to drawing from life, I had a go at drawing from bird webcams, having got the idea from other artists. There are lots of webcams on the internet at this time of year showing various birds on nests, so I had a go at a few Ospreys and a Peregrine Falcon. It was more difficult than the photos and the results are a bit messy, but I feel encouraged to keep practising.

I have a trip to Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire planned and hope to be brave enough to try the live birds then - Gannets are quite big birds and there are plenty of them at the cliffs, so I might have a fighting chance with them!