Gambel’s Quail watercolor

Watercolor sketch of a Gambel’s Quail bust. Don West, Artist
5”x7”, drawn in a Paul Rubens 100% cotton watercolor sketchbook with a Kaweco 3.6mm 5B pencil and watercolor. Gouache and Uniball Signo white pen highlights.

As mentioned in the previous post, here’s the same Quail in watercolor and the closeup reference photo my Landlord shot a few years ago. This is officially the first bird I’ve done in watercolor and was intended to be a sketch as opposed to a formal painting. That’s probably obvious but I thought explaining the intent might put it in perspective. The pencil rough-in sketch took maybe an hour. As it turns out, getting a likeness in a bird portrait is just as difficult as getting one in a human portrait.😁 That surprised a bit. But hey, it’s all about practice to get faster and thinking about how to loosen it up a bit. That’s where I want to head with it so field sketching won’t turn into plein air paintings instead.

On to the next one friends…

Happy Thanksgiving and thanks so much for following and supporting what I’m doing here. You are very much appreciated!

Reference photo for watercolor sketch of a Gambel’s Quail bust. Don West, Artist