Challenge Day 7
Crested Caracara
You did it!
I am over here high-fiving you and doing a ridiculous excited dance, and completely cheering you on!
You.
Did.
It.
You spent time honouring your creativity for a week (even if you only got ten minutes in and are extending the challenge for as many days as it takes, or even if you just showed up to foster your curiosity and maybe watch the videos through). You are amazing my friend, well done!
Ok. Day 7. Honestly, it was so hard to choose the reference for this challenge, I want to draw all the birds and all the animals. But I do have some special curiosity reserved for this handsome being.
Caracara are actually part of the falcon family, though they don’t look it, do they! They are so interesting - I first heard of them through a YouTube channel I love called Falconry and Me (which if you love ravens and birds of prey, you will so enjoy this channel). They love running around on the ground, but nest like eagles. They are incredible!
Before anything else though, of utmost importance, I told you in today’s video about the cockies that visit, and the one very cheeky one that asks very politely for (an infinite amount) of sunflowers, and how I told him if he was really hungry he would try some apple. And he did. Cuteness overload. This is a wild being, used to humans to a degree, but still a wild being. I am constantly in awe, and so, so, appreciative to be building relationships of compassion, love, and reciprocity with them.
I have two videos for you today, because I can’t help myself.
The first is a portrait of the caracara, and I show you how to use your eraser as a tool too. It is all about experiment, and learning, and experimenting, and learning, and you start to find ways to render texture and light and shadow that you can add to your box of techniques and tools.
These little beings have the most wondrous faces, their orange yellow markings, their powerful eagle like beak, their very sophisticated beret (or is it more toupe?), and their very Tim Burtonesque stripes. Like our other videos I walk you through how to look at the reference in terms of shape, and then move those shapes and lines and all the things onto the page.
I also wanted to do a full body sketch of the crested caracara too, but wanted to keep it fairly loose, without much detail. So I recorded my process for you. It only took 20 minutes, and is not narrated, but with lovely background of music instead, because I think you understand how I look at an image before I start to draw now.
I hope that after this week you can really find the value in doing all sorts of sketching, for all sorts of time periods - ten minutes, twenty minutes, or more. This practise needs to be able to fit into your other daily commitments, BUT still be important enough to be prioritised. If that means you can consistently devote ten minutes per day, that is a massive 61 hours a year that you spend in your sketchbook. It all adds up! And you will expand in not only your observational and drawing skills, but also in ways that you could not even imagine right now. And most importantly, you will be caring for yourself, finding connection, and living with gentle humanity.
So watch what I do, but also ask yourself “What would I do differently?”.
How would you approach this reference image?
Where would you start?
What details catch your eye first?
Where is the story, the narrative for you?
How do you want to honour this wild being, to show their incredibleness?
Think about all of that, then pick up your pencil and have a go yourself.
Trust yourself, your creativity, and the skills you are building.
Drop your shoulders and breathe.
And if any of those annoying voices come up that try to keep you safe by keeping you small, acknowledge them, thank them for trying to keep you safe, but let them know, firmly, that you don’t need them today. You are doing this for you, for your curious wild heart, and that is so important, you are so worthy, and you are creating beauty.
Tutorials will only get you so far - I hope this last seven days was instructive and inspiring, but my ultimate goal is to get you feeling confident enough to develop your own process, your own eye, to keep a collection of reference you can come to at any time (I will talk about this more in a future post too), and dive straight in to the self care practice that is creating for yourself, for curiosity, for connection.
AND, if you have enjoyed this last week, consider coming over to join The Wild Sketchbook Sanctuary. Doors close for this special premier enrollment tomorrow, and won't be open again until next year, at a much higher price. There are tutorials for graphite, coloured pencil, watercolour, acrylic and oils, BUT we will also be diving deep into all the mindset that can help us remain resilient, curious, compassionate artists that keep us creating for our lifetime. And make some connections with other wild hearted artists along the way.
Challenge videos:
Day 7: TODAY! Crested Caracara
Image by Kathy Detweiler from Pixabay
If you are enjoying this free challenge, and want to stretch and unfurl even further,
I am building a place just for you!
The Wild Sketchbook Sanctuary is open!
A four week adventure, The Wild Sketchbook Sanctuary is more than tutorials. It is more than mindset work. It is more than supportive practises for you to implement. It embraces the complex, multifaceted nature that creating is, providing spaciousness for your humanity, encouraging your curiosity, and empowering your connection to the wild that inspires you.
Help me create the most amazingly supportive program.
Participants in this round will get a special introductory price, which will increase significantly for subsequent rounds. Plus, with lifetime access, plus the opportunity to participate in all future sessions, you can be a part of a sketchbook community for all the years to come.
Your feedback as we work through each week will help me ensure I am creating the most beautiful space for us all to be the creatives our wild-hearts know we can be (and this wild world needs).