Posted here are some very quick bird sketches I drew over the weekend (grouped together on one page just for this post view).
Whenever I begin feeling burned out or stale with my constant image making, sometimes I will simply pick a topic or subject matter out of the blue and make some very quick random sketches without any concept or intent in mind, just having fun expressing the form in simple black line. So I picked "birds" for this self-imposed exercise, using a bird encyclopedia as my photo reference to create the sketches. This little exercise helps to refresh my batteries and gets me going again.
sketches of various birds… created quickly in black line by illustrator Steven Salerno. Visit stevensalerno.com
I liked the little sketch I made of the rooster and the duck so much that I then used them to create a couple illustrations, which is also posted below. The rooster sketch I simply added some splashes of color and dropped in a textured background. And the specific pose of the duck in the sketch suggested to me that perhaps it was tending to young ducklings, so for the illustration I did just that -I added additional drawings of little chicks, and created a grassy scene along a river’s edge… as if it were early in the morning and the Mama duck is bringing her young ones down to the river for their daily swimming and fish catching lessons.
the rooster sketch, then with added color splashes and textured background…
illustration by Steven Salerno.
detail of image above
The illustration of the ducks along the river was created by bringing the sketches of the ducks into Photoshop and also bringing in various textures I had painted with gouache then “cutting” these textures into grass shapes and composing it all to make the illustrative scene… plus adding in more grasses and reeds all drawn digitally, including painted digital colors too.
Make sure to visit my other sections of my web site to see my many illustration samples, and other features on my work.